


Had He Known It

by BreTheWriter



Series: Had He Known It [1]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Eventual Smut, Kid Fic, M/M, Not Star Trek: Beyond Compliant, Post-Star Trek: Into Darkness, Read the notes at the beginning of each chapter for any warnings, Star Trek: Into Darkness, i am a horrible human being
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2017-12-25 04:03:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 115
Words: 636,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/948410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BreTheWriter/pseuds/BreTheWriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim Kirk has always known he made a few mistakes in his wild youth, but he never expected anything like this. Determined to do right by the son he never knew he had, he embarks on his third five-year mission with something he's never had before: a family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Circumstances He Can't Change

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ricechex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ricechex/gifts).



> This work was inspired by two things:  
> 1\. The song "Oklahoma" by Billy Gilman (look it up if you've never heard it, it's adorable, but have a box of tissues on hand).  
> 2\. A comment Ricechex made about Bones' reaction to Chekov's announcement that he was seventeen ("Really, Jim? Seventeen?! DID YOU DO THIS?!!").
> 
> So...yeah. You have her to blame for this one. And country music.

Thomas James Johnson was the name on his birth certificate, but the boy sitting on the front steps of the Georgian mansion with a single suitcase next to him had always been called Slim. Even as a baby he'd been scrawny and undersized, a malnourished scrap of a thing, and at thirteen-and-a-half he was notoriously thin and wiry for his age. People often mistook him for ten or even younger. He'd gotten used to it, even gotten used to feeling left out because kids his own age didn't think he was strong enough to play with them. But now, he felt more alone and friendless than he could ever remember feeling. 

He'd thought this was _it_. After eleven years of bouncing from foster home to foster home, he'd been with the Kincaids for more than seven months, an all-time record. He knew Mrs. K, as he called her, had been trying to pressure her husband into adopting him, so when the social worker had called the day before and told Slim she had good news, he'd thought it was that Mr. Kincaid had come around. 

But no. She'd told him to pack his things, that she'd be coming to get him the next day. _Circumstances you can't change,_ she'd said. Mrs. K wasn't even waiting with him. It was like she'd given up on him now that she wasn't going to get him for good. He'd hoped she might still be his friend... 

If Slim closed his eyes, he could _almost_ remember his mother. Not clearly. He'd only been two when she died, and he'd never been sure of the circumstances. Sometimes, though, he thought he could remember the feel of her arms around him, the smell of her perfume, like cinammon and nutmeg, as she promised she'd be back after...what? She'd left him in someone's care temporarily, and never returned, and he'd ended up in the system. His mother was dead. As far as he knew, he had no other family. Slim Johnson was a boy without a father. 

The vehicle pulled up. Slim stood, took a deep breath, shouldered his suitcase, and climbed in. He couldn't help but look back wistfully as they pulled away, hoping for a last glimpse of Mrs. K waving a dish towel at him. He'd even have settled for Mr. Kincaid shaking his fist. But all he saw was a white house that was no longer a home. 

"Thomas," said the social worker softly. Mrs. O'Leary was the only one who ever called him by his first name. 

Slim turned to look at her wearily. "Where am I going this time?" he asked with a cynicism far beyond his years. "Another foster family? An asylum? Reform school?" Foster families in the past had threatened him with the latter if he didn't act less like an orphan and more like...Slim didn't know what. 

Mrs. O'Leary shook her head. She took a deep breath. "Thomas...this is going to be difficult for you to believe." 

"You're sending me to the North Pole to live with Santa Claus?" 

"No. But...we ran your DNA through a national database. And we finally got a hit." Mrs. O'Leary regarded him seriously. "Son, we think we found your dad." 

Slim froze. He'd been asking about his dad since he was about seven. Kids didn't just come out of nowhere, right? There had to be two parents, a mother and a father. There wasn't a name on his birth certificate, though. The spot for "father" said "Unknown." As he got older, he'd wondered if his mother was raped, or if she slept around, or if she was just ashamed of who his real father was. He hadn't realized they were seriously looking for him. 

The questions stuck in his throat. _What's his name? What's he like? Why wasn't he there for me? Does he even know my mom is dead?_ His bright blue eyes looked at Mrs. O'Leary, pleading with her. _Don't make me talk. Just tell me._

Thank God, she understood. "I'll tell you everything we know about him, Thomas. We've got a long shuttle ride ahead of us." 

"Why? Where--?" Slim tried to articulate the question, but it felt as though his tongue weighed a thousand pounds. It stuck to the floor of his mouth. 

"San Francisco. For now, anyway." Mrs. O'Leary smiled. "It's going to be okay." 

They pulled up to the shuttle stop. Slim followed his social worker obediently, his head spinning. San Francisco! In his entire living memory, he'd never been further west than Black Mesa, and he'd spent most of his life bouncing around foster homes in Oklahoma County, mostly the smaller towns. He called up the statistics they'd studied in school the previous year. San Francisco had a population of almost a million. Oklahoma City, which was both the capital and the largest city in the state, had a population of eight hundred thousand. The town where the Kincaids lived, Woodlawn Park, had fewer than two hundred people, and was _still_ one of the biggest places Slim had lived. He was a country boy at heart. How would he survive in such a big, bustling city? 

Not until the shuttle had lifted off did Mrs. O'Leary speak again. "You wanted to know about your father, right?" 

Slim nodded. He probably _could_ have spoken at that point, but he didn't want to. He'd never flown before that he could remember, and he was simultaneously terrified and enjoying the sensation. 

"He was at school with your mother. We've been looking in San Francisco all these years--that's where you were born, you know--but we never could find him." Slim turned to look at Mrs. O'Leary in surprise; he'd never known he wasn't born in Oklahoma. "The reason, it turns out, is that he wasn't in San Francisco anymore--not very often." Mrs. O'Leary studied him. "He's a member of Starfleet." 

Slim stilled again. _Starfleet_. He'd dreamed, secretly, of being a member since he'd first heard of it at age six. His math and science scores were good, and he'd been saving up the pocket money he infrequently got from his foster families. It wouldn't be enough and he knew it, but maybe, with a father who was a member... 

Mrs. O'Leary continued. "He was a little wild in his younger days, and he knew he'd probably made a mistake or two. But he insisted that he never knew about you, and that he'd have done right by you if he'd known." 

_Done right by me_ , Slim thought. _What does that even mean?_ Would the man who had knocked up his classmate fourteen years ago have taken in his son, or would he have just provided for him, given someone a stipend for his keeping? Slim didn't ask. He was afraid to. 

If Mrs. O'Leary noticed, she didn't say anything. "And you're not just getting a father--you're getting a whole family. He's married now. They just had a baby, which is why his DNA was on record..." 

Slim looked up sharply, torn between excitement and apprehension. "I've got a stepmom? And a brother?" 

Mrs. O'Leary laughed a little. "Switch the genders and you've got it." 

"A stepdad," Slim said slowly. "And a sister. My dad is bi?" 

"Mmm, I don't know exactly. But his husband is definitely a man. They had their DNA combined to make a zygote and had it incubated. The baby is two months old now." 

Slim tried to wrap his brain around that. It wasn't that he minded his dad being bisexual, or pansexual, or whatever he actually was--and if he loved the man enough to marry him, that was good enough for Slim. But he had a little sister--half-sister, he guessed--who was two months old. That was the part that really startled Slim. His dad and his stepdad had _already_ gone through a major change in their lives, and that quite recently. And now they were willing to bring a thirteen-year-old kid halfway across the country to live with them. They were either incredibly generous and loving, or incredibly reckless and daring. 

"What's his name?" Slim asked, finally managing to articulate the question. _What's_ my _name?_ he added silently. Because if his birth dad was going to claim him, that would mean that his last name would change to his dad's. 

"Kirk," Mrs. O'Leary replied. "James Tiberius Kirk."


	2. A Man Who Looks Like You

Jim hadn't been this nervous since he'd stepped on the shuttle for Starfleet Academy, more than fourteen years before. 

When the caseworker from CPS had turned up at his apartment and informed him that DNA results proved he had a son--a _son_ \--he had been torn between incredulity and horror. His first reaction had been to laugh, his second to scream. He had done neither of those things. He had merely gripped the doorframe so hard he was surprised he hadn't left inch-deep fingerprints in the wood, his face turning white, and invited the woman into the apartment. He'd gone into the bedroom, where Bones was walking the floor and murmuring soothingly to their sleepy daughter, and asked him to come to the living room for a minute. 

And they'd listened. 

"Foster care," he murmured now, looking out the window for the twentieth time in the last hour. "Eleven years in foster homes and I didn't even know." 

"Of course you didn't." Bones' voice from behind him was deep and gentle. "Alice never told you." 

Jim stared straight ahead, thinking of the other cadet. Alice Johnson had been barely eighteen, a young woman who acted so supremely confident and chic it was easy to believe she'd been raised in the big bad city, be it Los Angeles or New York City or Milan or Paris or wherever. They'd barely known each other; she'd been training as a navigator while Jim trained for command, and they'd had completely different schedules. In fact, they'd met exactly once: at a bar, three months into their first year at Starfleet Academy. There'd been alcohol--there always was--and dancing and loud music. Bones had been helping out at the clinic and had a late shift, and even though they'd just been friends then Jim had been lonely and bored and horny as _fuck_. Alice had a boyfriend, one of the big burly muscle-bound types who always looked so confused when they couldn't beat Jim in hand-to-hand combat, but there'd been some reason she hadn't been with him that night. 

There'd been no excuse for what they'd done. 

A one-night stand. Well, Jim had had plenty of those over the years. And he wasn't always careful with contraceptives. In fact, he usually wasn't. But the girls--and, occasionally, guys--he'd slept with had always known the score. Alice had a boyfriend, and she was only barely legal, so Jim had actually hesitated, but she'd actually been the one to initiate, kissing him full on the mouth on the dance floor, practically dragging him back to the dorms, both of them stumbling and tripping over their own feet and one another's, clumsy fingers struggling with buttons and zippers and elastic. Normally Jim stayed at least through the night, but once they were done, Alice had sat up, started to get dressed, and tossed him his clothes. She'd thanked him (her words slurring but carrying immediate conviction), but told him to leave. 

He'd never seen her again. Well, not exactly. Occasionally he'd noticed her across the campus--sitting at a table in the cafeteria, hurrying to class with her books under her arm, sitting in the quad with a group of friends--but they'd never spoken again. He'd tried, to be sure, but she always acted like she didn't hear or see him. The last time he'd seen her had been when the cadets had been scrambled in preparation for what eventually became the Battle of Earth. She'd been assigned to the _Farragut_. The only ship that had had any survivors at all was the _Enterprise_. 

And now he found out that she--that _they_ \--had had a child. A son. A boy. And she'd never told him. Never once gone up to him and said, "Oh, by the way, I'm pregnant, it might be yours." All the times she'd ignored or avoided him--had it been because she didn't want him to know about the baby, or for some other reason? The social worker had told him that she'd put "Unknown" in the space for father's name on the birth certificate. Had she really not known, or had she wanted to keep it a secret? 

Whatever the reasoning, she'd died without ever telling Jim he might have been a father. And the boy had ended up in foster homes, shuttling from family to family and never knowing where he belonged. 

Jim could almost relate to that. 

"You know," Bones said with a touch of humor in his voice, "starin' out the window isn't gonna make 'em get here faster." 

Jim turned around. Bones was sitting in the worn brown armchair, one leg crossed over his knee, watching Jim with a slight look of concern in his eyes. His PADD lay on his lap, but he obviously wasn't paying attention to it. Only his hand steadying the top of it showed that he was even aware of it. 

"Bones," Jim said suddenly. "Are you sure you're okay with this?" 

Bones raised his eyebrows in the way Jim found so endearing. "With what?" 

"With..." Jim gestured helplessly. "Everything. I mean, I've got a _kid_. With another _woman_." 

Bones' eyebrows lifted further. "You callin' me a woman?" 

"No!" Jim couldn't help but feel a little exasperated. "Bones, I'm serious here. We've got a new baby. Now I find out I was _already_ a father. Our family's just _doubled_." 

A slow smile crossed Bones' face. "That's the first time you've said that, you know." 

Jim frowned. "What?" 

"That we're a family." Jim stared at Bones as he continued. "But look, Jim, if you're worried that I'm mad at you for--for past indiscretions, I'm not. Hell, we weren't even together then. We were just...friends. If this boy was younger 'n, say, ten, then yeah, I'd be pretty upset. I'd be _hurt_. But I don't look at you with rose-colored glasses. I know your history. And it's not like you abandoned the kid, or his mother. You didn't know." 

Jim hesitated. "Did you?" 

Bones stared at Jim. "Are you--?" he began, then caught himself. His expression softened. "Oh. No, Alice Johnson wasn't one of my patients. I didn't know she was pregnant." 

Jim exhaled. He crossed over to the armchair and sat on the arm next to Bones. "Sorry. I just...God, I don't know." 

Bones laid a hand on Jim's knee gently. "It's gonna be okay, Jim," he said. 

Jim slid down the arm of the chair. Bones squeezed against the other side and wrapped an arm around Jim's shoulders. Jim leaned his head on Bones' chest. "Bones, I'm scared," he confessed. "I can't decide who I'm more scared about trying to raise, our daughter or my son. Hell, I don't know anything about being a father. I didn't grow up with one. And what I went through on Tarsus..." 

He trailed off. Bones tightened his embrace. "Jim," he said softly, " _no_ father ever knows what he's getting into. Not even one who grew up with one. And yeah, it's not gonna be easy. Our daughter...well, she's a girl, an' I don't know about you, but I don't know a damned thing about girls. As my failed marriage clearly shows." 

"Bones," Jim protested, looking up at that. He'd never met Jocelyn McCoy--or whatever her unmarried name was, or her new name if she'd remarried--but there was probably no woman he hated more. He'd seen Bones' kind, generous, loving heart and he _knew_ , in the depths of his soul, that whatever had gone wrong between them, it wasn't Bones' fault. 

"But it's not gonna be easy with the boy, either," Bones continued as if he hadn't heard. "He's thirteen. Just hittin' puberty and that rebellious stage. Dependin' on how he's been raised, he might be a lot to handle. And I don't know too many kids that are thrilled with the idea of step-parents and half-siblings." 

Jim started. "Step-parents?" 

"Jim, I'm your husband," Bones pointed out. "We're in this together. I'm gonna be helpin' you with this boy, one way or another. Makes me his stepfather." 

"I didn't think of that," Jim admitted. 

Before Bones could say anything else, there was a knock at the door. Both of them jumped. It took them a minute to untangle themselves. And just as Jim started for the door, there was a cry from the back bedroom. 

Bones sighs. "Never rains but it pours," he said affectionately. "I'll get her. You take the door." He disappeared, leaving Jim alone. 

Jim took a deep breath, then headed to the door and opened it. 

Standing on the threshhold was a woman in her fifties or sixties, wearing a three-piece suit and carrying a briefcase. Next to her was a figure that made Jim's breath catch in his throat. The boy was small and undersized, looking more like ten than thirteen, and he looked like he was either going to faint or throw up. But his eyes, his hair, the shape of his face...he was the spit and image of Jim at his age. If he'd had any doubt before, there was none now. 

"Mr. Kirk?" the woman said. 

"It's Captain, actually," Jim said absently, his eyes still fixed on the boy. The kid was clutching a suitcase in both hands, his knuckles white, and he looked almost as terrified as Jim felt. 

"My mistake." The woman nudged the boy. "This is Thomas." 

Jim and Thomas stared at each other for a moment longer. Then Jim dropped down to one knee so that he was on eye level with the boy, tears beginning to prick at his eyes. "Hi, son." 

Thomas swallowed, hard. "Hi, Dad." 

Jim managed a smile. He reached out and put a hand on Thomas's shoulder. "I'm so sorry," he said quietly, hearing his voice shake. "I didn't know...I swear I didn't know. I'd have been there if I had. I promise, Thomas." 

"Slim," the boy said, managing a smile in reply. "My...most people call me Slim." 

"Slim," Jim repeated. It suited the boy. "All right, Slim. Come on in." He stood up and looked at the social worker. "Would you like to come in, Mrs...?" 

"O'Leary," the woman replied. "And no, thank you. I should get back to Oklahoma." 

" _Oklahoma?_ " Jim blurted, startled. CPS hadn't mentioned the boy was in _Oklahoma_. How the hell had he wound up there? 

"Yes." Mrs. O'Leary looked at him strangely. "You'll be all right now, Thomas. You have my card. Contact me if there are any problems. And good luck." 

"Thank you," Slim said. He gave Mrs. O'Leary a smile. She smiled back, turned, and left. 

Jim closed the door behind her and turned to Slim. "I'm...I'm afraid this isn't a very big apartment," he said apologetically. "We, uh, we weren't planning on a family when we got it." 

Slim nodded. "Mrs. O'Leary told me I have a stepfather?" The slight inflection in his voice implied a question. 

With timing that could not have been better, the door to the back bedroom opened and Bones came out, cradling a tiny infant in his arms. He caught sight of Slim and stopped dead, his mouth falling open slightly, then managed a smile. "Well, hello there." 

Jim put a hand on his son's shoulder. "Bones, this is Thomas--Slim," he said. "Slim, this is Dr. Leonard McCoy, your stepfather. I, uh, I call him Bones." 

Slim smiled. "Hi. Uh, what do you want me to call you?" 

"Whatever you like, son. I'm as new to this as you are." Bones came into the living room more fully. 

Slim fixed his eyes on the bundle in Bones' arms. "Is this...?" he began, a little hesitantly. 

Bones nodded. "This is Addie." 

"Addie," Slim repeated. He seemed more interested in his half-sister than his father or stepfather. Taking a few steps closer, he reached out hesitantly and touched her cheek. "Hi, Addie," he said in a gentle, melodic voice. "I'm your brother Slim." 

Addie gurgled. One of her little hands flailed up and wrapped around Slim's outstretched finger. The boy's thin face lit up. 

Bones met Jim's eyes. Jim knew what Bones was thinking and asked his son, "You want to hold her?" 

Slim looked up quickly. "Can I, Dad?" 

"Sure." 

Carefully, Bones laid Addie in Slim's arms. The boy cradled her as though he'd been doing this all his life. Jim was surprised. 

"The last foster home I was at, they had a baby," he said softly, almost absently. "Before the Kincaids. How old is she?" 

"Two months." Jim hesitated. "She was...kind of a surprise." 

Slim looked up. "How can she have been a _surprise?_ She's a test-tube baby, right? You kinda have to plan those." 

Jim was startled by his son's perception, but answered readily enough. "There was a mix-up at the lab. Everything's done by numbers, you know. A couple who were trying to conceive went to incubate one of their zygotes...some idiot technician transposed a couple of digits and they started incubating one of ours instead. By the time they found out about the mix-up, it was too late to...you know, stop it." 

"She was viable," Slim said, nodding. 

Bones raised an eyebrow. "Smart kid." 

Slim blushed. "I, uh, I've always had good science scores." 

Jim smiled. "Anyway, that's how we got our Addie." 

"Is that short for something?" 

"Athena Dawn." Jim leaned over Slim's shoulder and stroked Addie's hair. She had Jim's blue eyes, but other than that, she looked exactly like Bones. He hadn't been excited about a baby, to be honest--not yet--but the minute the doctor had laid her in his arms, he'd fallen completely, hopelessly in love. She had him wrapped around her chubby little finger already. And he'd only known her for a couple of weeks. 

Bones put an arm around Jim's shoulders. Jim, glancing up, caught sight of their reflection in the window and was startled at how they already looked--close, loving, comforting. 

A _family_. 

He smiled, the tears in his eyes again. "Welcome home, Slim."


	3. Pictures That They Showed Him

Jim had a meeting the next morning, which meant Leo was home alone with the kids. 

They'd turned in fairly early the night before--Addie because she was a baby, Slim because he was tired from the long shuttle ride, Jim (Leo suspected) because he was trying to avoid conversation. Leo had sat up alone for a while, listening to Addie's breathing over the monitor and trying to read a book while Jim curled into his side and slept. He'd eventually drifted off with one hand tangled in Jim's short blond hair. 

They'd both woken up to Jim's alarm. Jim had had this appointment with the top brass of Starfleet lined up for a week, but now it was even more urgent that he attend. Although neither of them had mentioned it, Leo knew what it was about. Jim had fallen in love with Addie on sight. He wouldn't want to leave her behind, even though the _Enterprise_ 's crew had already signed on for another five-year mission. And now with Slim, it would be even more important for Jim to remain with his family. 

Leo had made him breakfast and seen him off, and was now giving Addie her bottle. Jim had teased him about it when they'd first brought her home, the ease with which he had slipped into being a daddy, but the look Leo had given him had shut him up pretty quickly. Leo tried not to think about his first, failed marriage, or what had caused it to fall apart, but he knew that sooner or later he would have to tell Jim _exactly_ what had gone wrong. Really, he ought to have said something before, but he just couldn't bring himself to say anything. It was still too painful, sixteen years later. 

A noise behind Leo made him turn. Slim stood in the doorway, his hair rumpled in the same way Jim's was in the morning, stifling a yawn behind one hand. Leo couldn't help the crooked smile that crossed his face. "Mornin', Slim." 

"Morning." Slim smiled at Addie, then at Leo. "Uh, where's...where's Dad?" 

"Has a meeting at Starfleet today," Leo answered. He gestured with the hand holding the bottle towards the table; Addie protested and Leo resumed feeding her. "I made breakfast. Not exactly country meat, but it's the best you can do out here." 

"Thanks." Slim's face brightened at the sight of the plate of bacon, eggs, and toast. He took a seat and picked up his fork. After a few mouthfuls, he said, "This is really good. Where'd you learn to cook?" 

" My grandmother taught me." 

"It's almost as good as Mrs. Dobson's." 

Leo frowned slightly. "That one of your foster families?" 

Slim nodded. He swallowed the mouthful of eggs and added, "Ranch outside Kenton. Lived there when I was...eight, I reckon." 

Leo noted his use of the word "reckon" and the lilt to his speech. "You grew up in Oklahoma, I guess." 

"Yeah." Slim looked up. "That gonna be a problem?" 

"Nah. Your dad's from Iowa and I'm from Georgia. We're both country boys at heart." Leo shrugged. "Guess it just surprises me is all." 

Slim poked at the last of his bacon. Leo noticed he had inhaled his meal--must've been starving. "Can I ask you a question?" 

"Sure," Leo answered. He took a seat, still feeding Addie. 

"How'd you meet my dad?" 

"Shuttle ride to the Academy. We were in the same cadet class." Leo smiled at the memory. "Couple of experienced hands on a ship full of kids. Most folks start the Academy at eighteen or nineteen." 

Slim tilted his head. "You guys weren't?" 

Leo shook his head. "Your dad was twenty-two. I'm six years older 'n he is." 

"So Dad was a little older 'n my mom?" 

Leo hesitated. "Yeah. 'Bout three years older." 

"Did you know her?" 

"Not well. She was trainin' for navigation. Only saw her once or twice." 

Slim pulled off the crusts of his toast. He stared at his plate, as if he thought it was part of the conversation. "Um, do you...do you know what happened to her? 'Cause I don't. I mean, I...I kinda remember her giving me a hug and telling me she'd be back, and then...I dunno. I was only two." 

Leo bit his lip. It was probably Jim's place to tell Slim all this, but..."Have you heard about the Battle of Earth?" 

"We talked about it in school last year, a little bit." Slim looked up. "Was my mom there?" 

"We all were," Leo said heavily. He set down the now-empty bottle and brought Addie up to his shoulder, patting her small back to get her to burp. "Most of the crew members on those ships were Academy cadets. Every single cadet at the Academy was assigned to a ship...'cept one." 

"My mom?" 

" Your dad. He was on academic probation at the time--he was grounded. I smuggled him onto the _Enterprise._ Couldn't leave him there looking all pathetic." What Leo didn't tell Slim was that Jim had been left behind too many times in his life--that he was too used to being abandoned. Leo couldn't be one more person to walk away, because even then, even though they hadn't started being more than friends yet, he knew there was no one in his life more important than Jim Kirk. "Your mom was assigned to the _Farragut._ That was the last time I saw her." He took a deep breath. "The _Enterprise_ was late to the party--Mr. Sulu forgot to engage the external inertial dampener--which actually saved our lives. Nero had already destroyed every other ship in the fleet. There were no survivors." 

Slim swallowed hard. "So, she...she went out a hero." 

"Yeah." Leo sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "God, was that really eleven years ago?" 

"Seems longer?" 

"Seems like yesterday, kid," Leo said gruffly. "And it was two five-year missions, a year's worth of repairs, and that whole fiasco with Khan ago." 

"Who's Khan?" Slim looked confused. 

Leo cursed inwardly. "Tell you some other time." 

Slim studied him for a moment, then nodded. "Okay." He went back to eating his toast. 

Addie let out a loud burp that rattled the windows. Leo looked down at her fondly. "Feel better, sweetheart?" 

Slim grinned. "Does she always burp like that?" 

"Depends. I swear she an' your dad have burping contests sometimes." 

Slim laughed, then got serious again. "What's he meeting with Starfleet about? Do you know?" 

Leo debated whether or not to tell Slim his speculations, then decided against it. "He didn't say." 

"Sorry if I'm asking too many questions," Slim said apologetically. "It's just...I've never had a family before." 

"You're just fine," Leo assured him. "This is all new to me, too." 

Slim hesitated. "Were you...surprised when you found out about me?" 

_That_ question definitely floored Leo for a minute. He stared at the kid, wondering how he meant that. At last, he said slowly, "If you mean was I surprised to find out that your dad was already a father, then no. I was his best friend for three years before we started havin' a relationship, an' I know what he was like. I'd always suspected he had a kid or two out there somewhere. If you mean was I surprised to find out that your dad had a kid with Alice Johnson, then...yeah, I guess I was. Not that I knew her well, like I said, but...well, your dad was pretty infamous at Starfleeet Academy. Guess I figured that any woman who had a claim like that on Jim Kirk would've called in her chit as soon as possible, 'specially after the Battle of Earth." 

"So why didn't she tell him about me?" Slim asked, as though this was a question he'd been chewing over for a while. 

Leo sighed. "I wish I knew, kid. I wish I knew." 

"Mrs. O'Leary told me he said that if he knew, he'd have done right by me," Slim continued. "What did he mean by that?" 

"That's one thing I _do_ know," Leo said with a slight smile. "He would have taken you in. Tried to raise you. Now, I'll grant you he wasn't in a place back then when he really could have done a good job of it, so I'd probably have done most of the work. But he wouldn't have let someone else have you." 

Slim smiled. "You guys were together back then?" 

"Like I said, we were best friends for three years--from the day we met on the shuttle," Leo explained. "We didn't start...uh...dating until right around the Battle of Earth." He sighed. "I can't say what would have happened if your mom had told him right away that you might be his kid, and I'm not sure I want to know. But for sure we wouldn't be sittin' here." 

Slim looked as though he was gearing up for another question when they heard the _click_ of the front door. A minute later, Jim came into the kitchen, looking tired, but he smiled--or tried to--when he saw Leo. "Hey," he said with no more than a hint of his usual cheerfulness. "Got any coffee left?" 

Leo stood up, handed Addie to Jim, and pushed him into a chair before going over to the coffee pot. "How'd it go?" he said over his shoulder. Not knowing for sure what the meeting was about, he couldn't guess whether or not Jim had come out of it on top or not. 

Jim shrugged. "Didn't have much chance to talk. They already knew everything I went in to tell them about. Addie? They'd already read Mr. Spock's report explaining why he had felt it necessary for the _Enterprise_ to complete the last week of her mission with her first officer in command. Slim? CPS contacted them to find out where I was living. Hell, they even knew things I don't understand." He met Leo's eyes as the coffee cup landed on the table in front of him. "Like why 'it is of particular importance to Dr. McCoy to spend these first few months with his daughter.'" He accurately mimicked Admiral Archer's elderly, firm tones. 

Leo couldn't hold Jim's gaze. He rubbed the back of his neck as he sat down. "So? What did they say after all that?" 

Jim sighed. "They've given me twenty-four hours to make a decision." 

"It's gonna take you that long?" Leo said cynically. Jim usually made instant decisions. It was one of the things that both made him a good captain, and drove Leo and Spock to despair at times. 

"It isn't just my decision." Jim looked at Slim, then Leo. "We're a family. We've gotta make these decisions together. I can't just decide what's best for everyone anymore." 

Leo was surprised. Jim had been maturing as a captain and a person since the encounter with Khan, but the part that had been slowest to develop had been the sense that he didn't have to take all the burdens onto his own shoulders. "About what?" 

Jim took a deep breath. "The brass at Starfleet has offered to refit the _Enterprise_ with family quarters--if I decide to retain captaincy," he said. "We could stay together." 

Leo's jaw dropped involuntarily. "They'd _do_ that?" 

"That's why I only have twenty-four hours. It'll take a while to refit the captain's quarters and the _Enterprise_ is due to take off in two weeks." Jim looked up at Leo seriously. "Bones, I know you don't like space any better--" 

Leo held up a hand, cutting him off. "You'd be surprised. I'm a lot more used to it than I was. I'll admit it still makes me uncomfortable sometimes, but it's gettin' to feel like home." He paused. "Home is where you are." 

"And Addie?" 

"Won't be any more dangerous raisin' a kid in space than it is on Earth," Bones said. 

Jim smiled slightly, then looked at Slim. The boy looked as though he had swallowed a lit candle--like he was glowing from within. "You mean...we could really go into space? Together?" 

"Yeah," Jim said. "You'd have to keep up with your studies, and when we came back from the five-year mission, you wouldn't be able to go out with us again--you'd be old enough to start at Starfleet Academy at that point. But you'd be an adult then anyway." He hesitated. "The thing is...if this doesn't work out, there's no way of getting you back here until the mission is over. We're talking uncharted space, Slim. And both Bones and I have work to do--I'm captain and he's CMO--so you'd have to look after Addie when we couldn't." 

"That's okay," Slim said, his eyes shining. He swallowed and added, "You've just offered me two things I've always dreamed of having--the chance to go into space, and a family. If you're okay with it, I'm in." 

Addie cooed, waving her hand in Jim's face. Leo couldn't help but smile. "Guess you've got your answer, Jim. Better call the brass and have 'em start work on the _Enterprise_ if we're gonna be out of here on schedule."


	4. What We Know

Usually, the time spent on furlough between missions dragged on for Jim, but the next two weeks flew by. Almost before he knew it, he was boarding the shuttle to the _Enterprise_ with his family. 

Bones had Addie in a sling on his chest; she was asleep for the moment. Slim, wearing a grey sweater and dark slacks that more or less blended in with the "away" uniforms Bones and Jim wore, had the same expression--half-excited, half-apprehensive--that Jim had when Bones had smuggled him onto the _Enterprise_ for the first time. He almost expected the boy's next words to be _I may throw up on you._

"You okay, Slim?" he asked, taking his accustomed seat--front row on the aisle. 

Slim sat down by the window. "Yeah. It's just...you know, this is only the second time I've ever flown before. I mean, that I can remember. I don't remember flying to Oklahoma." 

Jim smiled. "It's the greatest feeling in the world." 

"Says you," Bones muttered, taking his usual seat right behind Jim. 

Jim glanced over his shoulder, the smile disappearing. "You sure about this? Because it's not--" 

"Yes, it is," Bones interrupted him. "Shut up, Jim. We're a family and we're sticking together." 

Jim still wasn't sure. Bones was holding something back, and it worried Jim. When they'd first found out about Addie, Bones had gone off on his own--something he rarely did, and hadn't since their wedding eight years earlier--and when he'd come back, he hadn't said a word about what had bothered him. He was a natural with their little girl and just as loving to Jim as he'd always been, but there was something Jim couldn't quite understand going on and he didn't know what. 

"Good morning, Captain." 

Jim looked up and smiled again at the sight of his first officer. "Morning, Spock." 

Spock looked over Jim's shoulder and nodded to Bones. "Doctor." 

"Spock," Bones replied with an answering nod. 

Spock tilted his head, studying the sling against Bones' chest. "I assume this is your daughter?" 

Jim nodded, smiling back over his shoulder again at the sleeping baby. "Yeah, this is Athena Dawn." 

"Addie," Bones supplied. 

"Wisdom and beauty. An auspicious combination of names." Spock took his seat next to Jim, ignoring Slim completely. "I have not informed the crew of the nature of your 'family emergency,' Captain, but as you will be bringing the child aboard the Enterprise for the duration of the mission, perhaps you should inform them as quickly as possible." 

"Don't worry, Spock, I plan to." Jim didn't know whether to be amused or annoyed at the fact that, after nearly eleven years in command of the _Enterprise,_ Spock still thought he needed advice on basic things like that. 

The shuttle juddered to life, then took off. Jim waited for Spock to ask the next, inevitable question, but to his surprise, the half-Vulcan said nothing about Slim's presence. Instead, he asked, "Have you formulated a plan as to where to begin this expedition?" 

"The Alpha Centauri system to start with," Jim answered. "The Federation is anxious to establish relations with a planet in the NGC 321 star cluster, Eminiar VII. Fifty years ago, the USS _Valiant_ reported they were at war with their nearest neighbors, then vanished. We've been asked to pick up a diplomat on Centauri IV and escort him to Eminiar VII on our way to whatever our next destination is." The time when he would have needed to refer to his notes to remember all these names was long past. 

Spock nodded once. "That seems logical." 

A few moments later, Slim gave a gasp, leaning forward slightly. "Is that her?" 

Jim leaned around Spock and smiled. "Yes," he said, unable to hide the pride in his voice. "That's the _Enterprise_." 

"She's beautiful," Slim breathed, obviously in awe. 

"Wait'll you see the inside." 

"Do you mean the interior decorating, or the engine room?" 

Jim chuckled. "Which are you more interested in?" 

Spock turned and eyed Slim, one eyebrow raised. "That is not a regulation uniform," he observed. "What division are you in?" 

Slim took his eyes from the window--reluctantly, it seemed to Jim--and looked up at Spock. "I'm not a member of Starfleet, sir," he said. 

"Then why are you aboard this shuttle?" Spock said coldly. "It only goes to one location--the _Enterprise_." 

"Spock," Jim said quietly. "This is my son." 

It was the first time in twelve years of knowing Spock that Jim had ever seen him at a complete loss for words. He stared at Jim, his mouth open slightly. Just then, the shuttle docked with the _Enterprise_ and the automated voice announced, "Please remove your harnesses and prepare for debarkation." 

Slim quickly removed his harness and stood up, stiffly at attention, hands at his sides. Jim, too, unfastened his restraints and stood. "Bones, why don't you show Slim where our quarters are, then make sure Med Bay is ready to go? Slim, once you're unpacked, come on up to the bridge. Remember to ask permission before you come on." 

"Yes, sir," Slim replied. 

Jim looked back at Bones. "Here, let me take Addie." 

"Sure thing." Bones carefully removed the sling and passed it to Jim, then kissed his cheek. "See you later. C'mon, kid." 

Slim quickly followed Bones off the shuttle. Jim came after them, unable to suppress the slight smile he always got when he boarded the _Enterprise_. From the minute he saw her, he'd fallen in love, and now all these years later, she was his home. Her crew was his family--literally, in the case of Bones, but the others might as well have been. 

Spock followed him as he proceeded down the corridor. "Captain, I wonder if you would care to explain that remark." 

"I should think it was fairly self-explanatory," Jim said dryly. 

"I was under the impression that your daughter was your first and only child." 

"Yeah, so was I." Jim stopped and turned to face Spock. The man had been an instructor at Starfleet Academy...and Alice had been in Nyota Uhura's circle of friends, if he recalled correctly. "Do you remember Alice Johnson? Cadet who came in same year I did, navigation student?" 

Spock frowned slightly. "Yes, I do. She was the subject of the most discussion amongst the staff of Starfleet Academy before your...incident with the Kobayashi Maru." Jim grimaced at the reminder, something he still secretly felt a little guilty about. "There was some debate over whether or not she would be permitted to complete her four years at the Academy when she--" Spock broke off. His eyes narrowed as he looked at Jim. 

"Got pregnant?" Jim supplied. 

"You were aware of her pregnancy?" Spock's voice held a note of cold fury that he hadn't directed at Jim in more than a decade. 

Jim shook his head. "Not then. Not until two, three weeks ago, actually." He met his friend's eyes. "I _swear_ to you, Spock, I did not know Alice Johnson was pregnant. I did not know she had a son. I sure as hell did not know he was also _my_ son." 

"How did you find him, then, if you had no idea of his existence?" 

"Child Protective Services found me. They'd been looking for me since Slim was about four, but it took them a while." 

Spock's face twisted slightly. "Slim?" 

"That's what he goes by," Jim answered. "His mother named him Thomas James, though. And before you ask, the reason it took them so long to find me is because Alice didn't put my name on his birth certificate. She told them at the hospital that she didn't know who the father was." 

Spock stared at Jim. After a moment, he said carefully, "So you now have two children, one of whom is fourteen years old." 

"Thirteen," Jim corrected him. "And yeah. That's why the brass refit the captain's quarters as family quarters." He looked down at his sleeping daughter. "I grew up without a father, Spock," he said softly. "A mom who barely had time for me, a stepfather who told me from the beginning that nobody cared what I wanted, a brother I lost way too early. I never really had a family, or a home--not 'til I joined the Enterprise. I won't let either one of my children grow up like that. I _can't._ We're a family, the four of us. And we're staying together." 

"Are you certain that space is the best location for raising a child?" 

"Won't be any more dangerous than raising a child on Earth." Jim echoed Bones' words of a fortnight before and wondered, again, what he'd meant by that. "Besides...it wasn't just my decision. I talked it over with Bones and Slim first. We decided together." 

Spock seemed about to speak further, but just then Addie stirred in her sling and woke, blue eyes blinking up at her father. Jim smiled down at her. "Hey, little girl," he said lovingly. "Did you have a good nap?" 

"It is illogical to expect that a three-month-old baby can answer--" Spock began, but Addie, alerted by the sound of a new voice, turned her head to look at him seriously, and then broke into one of her big, happy smiles. 

Jim enjoyed the effect on his first officer. Spock was half-Vulcan, nearly forty years old, calm, rational, and logical. But no man in the history of the universe has ever been smiled at by a baby--especially a baby girl with blue eyes--without turning into a big pile of mushy goo. Spock actually smiled in reply, his eyes softening. 

"She bears a marked resemblance to the doctor," he said, "although her eyes are identical to yours. Certainly they are equally expressive." He looked up. "Perhaps she _can_ answer you." 

Jim smiled and stroked her hair lightly. "Come on, Spock, let's get up to the bridge."


	5. The Questions in His Eyes

Slim realized he was lost when he reached the same spot for the fourth time from the third direction. 

It was his own fault, of course. He should have followed the instructions he'd been given until he was sure he knew his way, _then_ started looking for shortcuts. But it was one of those things. He'd always been stubborn, the kind of person who thought he knew best. He couldn't ever accept anyone's word for anything--always had to see for himself. It usually ended up like this, with him so far away from where he was supposed to be that he couldn't even find his way back to where he'd started. 

He stopped, sighed, and put his hands on his hips. "Now...where do I go from here?" 

"Depends on where you're trying to get." 

Slim whirled around quickly to see a very pretty woman in a red uniform. She had skin the color of coffee, eyes like loam, and smooth black hair tied in a high ponytail. The expression on her face as she saw his changed to one of shock before quickly returning to normal. Slim was suddenly conscious that his sweater was crooked. 

He tried to straighten it unobtrusively. "Uh...the bridge, ma'am." 

"I'm heading that way myself," the woman replied. "I'd be glad to show you the way." 

"Thank you, ma'am." Slim smiled gratefully. "My stepfather told me how to get there, but I thought I saw a shortcut. Reckon I was wrong." 

The woman raised her eyebrows. He expected her to say something about that, but instead she just said, "I'm Lieutenant Nyota Uhura, the ship's Communications Officer." 

"Thomas James J--" Slim caught himself. "Uh, my name is Thomas James Kirk, but everyone calls me Slim." 

"Kirk," Uhura repeated. "Related to the captain?" 

"Yes, ma'am," Slim replied. "He's my father." 

"Of course he is," Uhura muttered. In a normal tone of voice, she asked, "What position are you going to be holding on the ship?" 

Slim blushed. "I'm...actually not part of Starfleet, ma'am. I'm only thirteen." 

Was it his imagination, or did she relax marginally when he said that? " _Oh._ I'm sorry." Uhura gave him a friendly smile. "You don't have to keep calling me ma'am, you know." 

"Yes, ma'am." Slim blushed deeper. "I...I mean..." 

Uhura laughed. "It's all right, Slim." She patted his shoulder. "Come on, we go this way." 

Slim tried to mark their location, but every hallway looked more or less the same. "Where are we, exactly?" 

"About halfway between the lift and MedBay," Uhura answered. "Turn left on this corridor and you'll wind up at MedBay, right and you get to the lifts." 

"Got it." Slim hoped he wouldn't forget. 

They stayed quiet until they reached the lifts, then Uhura looked at him. "I know the captain is your father, but who's your mother?" 

"Was," Slim corrected her softly. "Uh, I actually don't remember my mom's first name, and Dad and Leo haven't said what it was. But my last name before they found Dad was Johnson. And Mrs. O'Leary--the social worker--told me she went to Starfleet Academy with Dad." 

Uhura's eyes widened as she stared straight ahead at nothing. "Alice Johnson," she murmured at last. "I knew her. She was a year behind me, but we were friends anyway." She shook her head. "I lost touch with her after she left the Academy." 

Slim looked up, startled. "Well, of course you did. She died." 

Uhura looked down at him sadly. "I'm sorry, Slim. Really I am. I wish I'd known..." She sighed. "Your mother asked me to be your godmother. I'd have been there if I'd had any idea. How old were you?" 

"Two. She died in the Battle for Earth." 

Uhura froze. The look on her face was one of absolute horror. "No," she said in a low tone of voice. "No, that's impossible. She had a baby. She had _you_. For two years she'd been griping about the fact that she probably wouldn't get to spend her semester on a ship..." 

" _Probably_ ," Slim noted. "That wasn't sure, was it?" 

"Well, no, but..." Uhura shook her head. "No! No, she couldn't have--" She swallowed, hard. "Oh, God. She was assigned to the _Farragut_. I remember now. I was so upset that I wasn't on the _Enterprise_ at the time that I didn't think..." She closed her eyes. 

Just then, the lift doors slid open. Slim tugged Uhura's sleeve lightly. "Uh...Lieutenant? I think we're here." 

Uhura opened her eyes and stalked out of the lift. Slim followed her. At the end of the short corridor was a doorway. Looking through, he could see his father, one arm wrapped around the sling, talking with two other men in yellow shirts. Spock stood nearby, his hands clasped behind his back. 

Remembering his instructions, Slim checked at the doorway and stood at attention. "Permission to come on the bridge?" 

His father looked up and smiled, the crooked grin that was twin to Slim's own. "Granted." 

Uhura strode in just ahead of Slim. "Captain, a word, please?" 

Jim's smile faded. He beckoned Slim over to him. "Slim, this is Mr. Sulu, our helmsman, and Mr. Chekov, our navigator. Gentlemen, this is my son Slim." 

Sulu's eyebrows shot up, but Chekov smiled with delight. "Nice to meet you!" he said. He had a foreign accent--Russian, Slim thought. "Would you like to see ze nawigation system?" 

"Sure," Slim said, coming closer. 

Chekov began giving him a detailed explanation of the system. Slim was listening, but he was also watching his dad and Uhura's conversation out of the corner of his eye. Uhura was obviously angry; she was gesticulating violently, leaning her entire body towards Jim. He had both hands up in a placating gesture, his face incredibly serious. Slim hadn't known his father very long, but he knew that seriousness was not his default expression. 

After a few minutes, Uhura sagged, her head bowing. Slim noticed Spock join the conversation at that point, put a hand on Uhura's shoulder, and speak quietly. She nodded, looking up at him, and Slim noted the trace of tears on her face. 

"Wonder what they're talking about," Sulu said in a low voice. 

Slim looked down. "Me, probably. Or my mom." 

"They all knew her?" 

Slim nodded. "She started at the Academy the same time as my dad did." 

Sulu gave Slim a sharp look. "What track?" 

"Navigation. Her name was Alice Johnson." 

"I knew her," Chekov said, his smile disappearing. "She was on ze _Farragut,_ yes?" 

"That's what Leo said." Slim had finally settled on calling Dr. McCoy "Leo," which was what most of his friends and family called him, because Bones was a nickname that really belonged to Jim and, despite his dad's suggestion, he didn't really want to call him "Mom." That title still belonged to the mother he could barely remember. It didn't really seem to fit, but "Dr. McCoy" seemed too formal for casual conversation and Slim just couldn't come up with any other options. 

"I am sorry, Slim." Chekov looked genuinely distressed. 

"We were all at the Academy at the same time," Sulu explained to Slim. "The whole original crew. All the ships that participated in the Battle for Vulcan were staffed almost exclusively with cadets. And we've only had two new crew members since then--Mr. Scott and Dr. Marcus. They're the only two that wouldn't have known your mother. I had a couple of classes with her myself. She was a fine woman." 

Slim managed a smile. "Thanks." 

Jim came over about then, looking a little sad, but he smiled and ruffled Slim's hair fondly. "Doing all right, kid?" 

"Just fine," Slim said, smiling up at his father. "This is an impressive navigation system." 

"And these two men right here are the best damned men to use it in the entire universe," Jim said. Both Sulu and Chekov looked embarrassed but pleased at the praise. 

As Jim took the captain's chair and Slim moved over to join him (and get out of the way), the door to the bridge opened again and Leo came in. He gave both Jim and Slim a smile, which faded after a second. "Jim, where's our daughter?" 

Slim started as he realized the sling was empty, but Jim simply pointed. Both Slim and Leo turned to see Uhura, standing with a pretty blonde woman in a blue uniform, both of them grinning over Addie, who was sound asleep in Uhura's arms. "Figured she's in good hands." 

"Yeah," Bones agreed, but he looked a little uncomfortable. Slim wanted to ask what was wrong, but held his tongue. 

Jim pressed a button. "Scotty, how's the warp core?" he said into his communicator. 

"Ready to go, Cap'n," a man's Scottish burr said in reply. "She's all set to leave when ye are." 

Jim nodded. Leo took up a stance slightly behind the chair; Spock moved over to what Slim presumed was the first officer's console. Slim quickly backed to one side, locating a spot where there were no lights, monitors, or buttons and standing there. It was the one place he guessed he would be completely out of the way. 

"Lieutenant Uhura," Jim called. "Could you open up a shipwide communication channel, please?" 

Uhura handed Addie to the blonde woman--the baby didn't stir--and pressed a couple of buttons, then nodded to Jim, who took a deep breath. "Attention, _Enterprise_ ," he said in a firm, clear voice. "This is Captain Kirk speaking. Before we begin our third five-year mission, I wanted to inform you that we have two passengers onboard. The 'family emergency' Dr. McCoy and I had to take care of was, in fact, the unexpected arrival of our daughter, Athena Dawn Kirk-McCoy. Shortly after we returned to earth, I learned of the existence of my son, Thomas James Kirk." 

Jim looked over at Slim and smiled before continuing. "Starfleet has given permission for us to remain together. Addie and Slim will be with us for the duration of the mission. They will not be in the way, nor will I expect any member of the crew to take responsibility for them. But please make them feel welcome. After all...we're a family." 

Slim felt a glow of happiness come over him as his father added, "Strap in, everyone, we're heading off. Kirk out." 

Lieutenant Uhura closed the communication line. The people on the bridge were all looking at Slim, but to his relief, none of them seemed annoyed or upset. They were merely curious...or welcoming. He would be okay. 

"Mr. Sulu," Jim said, and Slim saw him sit up a little straighter, an expectant, happy look on his face. "Take us out." 

"Yes, sir." Sulu pressed a few buttons, then pushed forward on the throttle. 

Slim felt the ship move under his feet, saw the stars begin to move, and grinned, unable to suppress his feeling of deep and utter happiness. The _Enterprise_ was on her way. 

He was home.


	6. Don't Be Scared, My Child

Leo knew he probably ought to go to bed. The first day out was always kind of draining, in some ways, and he was tired. The kids were asleep, the duty nurse knew how to get in touch with him if there was an emergency in MedBay, and there was really nothing to keep him from crawling under the sheets and crashing before he had to go on shift again in the morning. 

Instead, he stood in the smaller of the two rooms that had been added onto the captain's quarters, looking down into the crib. Addie lay on her back, breathing lightly, a blanket covering her from the waist down (they'd had an argument about that--Bones saying it wasn't safe for babies to sleep with soft things until they were at least a year old, Jim insisting he wanted her to be warm, and finally compromising with the blanket as _far_ from her face as possible). Both he and Jim had made it clear that they didn't expect anyone on the _Enterprise_ to look after her, but Uhura, Carol, and (to Jim's amusement) Chekov had all insisted on taking a turn carrying her around. In fact, Leo had had a moment of panic when Gamma shift went on where he didn't know where she was before Slim poked his head into MedBay, his sister in his arms. 

It was really cute, Leo mused, how close Slim and Addie had become in the last two weeks. From the very beginning, the teenager had been enchanted with the baby, and she had certainly aided him in forming a bond with his father and stepfather. It was Leo who was having the hardest time dealing with the changes--not because he didn't like the kid, but because he was terrified. 

He'd already screwed up once. He didn't want it to happen again. 

"Bones?" 

Leo looked over his shoulder. Jim stood in the doorway, blinking a little sleepily. He was shirtless and barefoot. Even after nearly eleven years together, eight of them married, the sight still made Leo's breath catch and his heart beat a little more quickly. Jim just exuded this aura of undeniable sexiness. 

"Hey," he said, a little huskily. 

Jim indicated the crib. "She okay?" 

Leo nodded, turning back to their daughter. "She's just fine. Sleepin' like an angel." 

"She gets that from you." Jim came up behind Leo and slid his arms around his waist, resting his chin on Leo's shoulder. "C'mon, Bones, let's get to bed. You must be tired." 

"Yeah." Leo touched Addie's cheek lightly. He glanced at the baby monitor and made a fine adjustment to the sensitivity and volume. 

Jim sighed. "You do this every night. Do you _really_ think your little tweaks will make a difference?" 

Leo felt his back stiffen. "I can't help it. What if the one night I don't make sure everything is just right is the night something happens?" 

"Bones, we're right next door. If she cries, we'll hear her." 

"Yeah, but what if she stops breathing, or starts choking?" 

Jim sighed again. "Guess that's one of the hazards of marrying a doctor," he said with weary affection. "You're such an optimist." 

"I used to be, and look where it got me," Leo blurted, and immediately regretted it. 

There was silence for a minute. Jim broke it. "Bones, what are you talking about?" 

"Nothing," Leo muttered. "Forget it." 

"Does this have to do with what Archer said at that meeting I had?" Jim pressed, letting go of Leo and coming to stand next to him. "About how you _especially_ would want to spend time with Addie?" 

"Jim..." Leo knew he had to tell his husband, but he hadn't planned on doing it like this. 

Jim regarded Leo seriously. "You've got another kid, too, haven't you?" he said quietly. "You and Jocelyn, you had a baby." 

Leo sighed. "Yeah. Yeah, we did." 

"Boy or girl?" Jim prompted. 

"Girl," Leo admitted. "We named her Joanna. Spit and image of her mother." 

Jim was quiet for a moment. "How old is she? Sixteen, seventeen?" 

Leo closed his eyes. "The day the _Enterprise_ was scheduled to pull into port would've been her sixteenth birthday." 

"Would have been?" Jim said sharply. "What do you mean, _would have been?"_

Leo took a deep breath and said the words he hadn't said in more than fifteen years. "She's dead, Jim." 

He opened his eyes and looked down into the crib, unable to meet Jim's eyes, but he wasn't seeing Addie. He was seeing another baby, about the same size, but with a mere dusting of auburn hair instead of a thick dark mop, honey-brown eyes instead of blue, fine reddish-blonde lashes instead of black...and an unhealthy bluish tinge to her face. 

After a few long moments, Jim's arms slipped around Leo's waist again. In a small voice, he said, "What...what happened?" 

"They call it SIDS," Leo said heavily. "Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Nobody knows what causes it. Sometimes babies just...just die in their cribs and nobody knows why. That's what happened to Joanna. Jocelyn gave her a bath, I put her to bed, we turned in...I woke up in the middle of the night and went to check on her, and she wasn't breathing. She was just gone." 

"Oh, Bones," Jim murmured. He pressed his face against Leo's shoulder. 

Leo wiped at the tears that sprang to his eyes. "That's why our marriage finally fell apart. It had been kinda rocky before Joanna came along, but we were workin' it out...then Joanna died and Jocelyn blamed me." 

"No," Jim said, sudden strength in his voice. He tightened his embrace. "It's not your fault, Bones. It can't be. You just said...sometimes it happens..." 

"Yeah, but I'm a doctor," Leo replied. "I should've been able to save her. That's what Jocelyn said, anyway. I knew it wasn't my fault, but...hell, Jim, I was hurtin', too. I didn't fight the divorce too hard." He sighed. "The day we met on that shuttle? That was the one-year anniversary of her death." 

"Bones, why didn't you tell me?" Jim's voice was ragged with pain. 

Leo turned then, putting his arms around Jim and holding him close. "I should've. I know that. But...Joanna was somethin' I kept to myself. I've never told _anyone_ about her. An' then when we found out about Addie...I dunno, Jim. Maybe I was afraid _you'd_ blame me for Joanna's death, too, an' worry that we might lose Addie the same way. You know, I did everythin' right--everythin' I'm doin' now--an' we still lost her. I don't wanna lose Addie, too." He buried his face in Jim's hair. "I love you, Jim, an' I love that little girl, an' I love your son even though I didn't have anythin' to do with him comin' into this world. You're my family. I can't lose you." 

"You won't," Jim said firmly. He pulled back slightly and looked intently into Leo's eyes. "I love you, Bones. I've loved you for a long time. You've been the most important person in my life since that day on the shuttle. I will _never_ leave you. And I trust you. You'll keep any medical harm from coming to our children. I'll keep any physical harm from coming to them. Between the two of us, we'll keep them safe. But we have to work _together_ , Bones. You've gotta trust me." 

Leo swallowed hard. "I'm sorry, Jim. I should have told you before." 

"It's okay." Jim cupped Leo's jaw in one hand and kissed him deeply. At last, he broke the kiss. Without letting go of Leo, he adjusted the blanket over Addie, then turned off the light. "Come on, Bones. Let's get some sleep." 

Leo climbed into bed. Usually he was the "big spoon," curling protectively around Jim as they slept, but tonight Jim silently held him, encouraging him to be the protected one for once. Leo fell asleep in his husband's arms, feeling safe and comforted, and for once he didn't worry about whether or not Addie would still be alive in the morning. She would be okay. 

And so would they.


	7. A Million Thoughts

Jim rubbed his eyes as he stared out the viewscreen. The curve of Centauri IV showed just below them. They were on the verge of uncharted space. He was excited, of course--he always was--but he was also a little tired. 

The last three weeks had not necessarily gone as smoothly as he had expected. He'd known, in the back of his mind, that things would be different with Slim and Addie on board, but he hadn't quite been prepared for just how different. Bones couldn't have her around MedBay--it was too dangerous--and Slim, though willing, was only thirteen. Plus, as Jim had told his son, the boy had his own studies to keep up with. He couldn't be responsible for Addie for more than four hours at a stretch. Jim kept her with him on the bridge as much as he could, but he couldn't man the conn _and_ take care of the needs of a three-month-old baby. 

If it hadn't been for Uhura, Carol Marcus, and (surprisingly) Chekov, it probably wouldn't have worked this far. Carol had volunteered her services as a babysitter during Alpha shift, which was when Slim did his lessons. Uhura helped out during Beta shift, usually taking Addie for the first two hours. Chekov was always willing to fill in when necessary, which surprised Jim, but he'd fallen in love with the baby as soon as he met her. Most of the crew had. 

And they were all uniformly welcoming and accepting of Slim, too. Maybe there wasn't the universal adoration there was for Addie, but then he was a thirteen-year-old boy...and, Jim had to acknowledge (if only to himself), a mistake. If it hadn't been for the command staff, Jim suspected that the crew wouldn't have been as accepting as they were. But Chekov and Sulu treated him like a younger brother. Uhura had informed both of them that she was Slim's godmother, and was perfectly willing to fulfill those duties as often as possible. Spock, once he had accepted Slim's presence, treated him like any other passenger--the _Enterprise_ did take them on occasion. And Scotty--well, Scotty had surprised him. Jim had expected the man to be crotchety the first day he'd taken Slim down, introduced him, and explained the situation. And certainly he'd been _surprised_. But Slim hadn't paid much attention to Scotty--had instead stared at the warp core--and started asking questions, a light in his eyes that Jim had only seen when the boy had first set eyes on his sister. Twenty minutes later he'd left them chattering about specs and sublight engines. 

Since then, Slim spent ninety percent of his free time in Engineering. Both he and Scotty insisted that he was staying out of the way, merely watching and learning, but Jim knew that Scotty had discovered a mind to rival his own, perhaps someone he could hand the department over to someday, should he ever decide to retire. Jim couldn't help but feel a bit of pride in his son. 

"Captain?" 

Jim started and looked up at his first officer. "Hmm? Oh, yes, Spock, what is it?" 

"Captain, if you are planning to wear your working uniform to dinner, I will trouble you no further," Spock said pointedly. "But if you plan to wear anything else, now would be the time to change, as we will need to convene in the transporter room in thirty minutes." 

Jim swore softly under his breath. How could he have forgotten? "Thanks, Spock, I'll go change now." He rose from his seat and headed to quarters. 

Formal banquets. God, he hated them. It probably had something to do with having been raised in an Iowa cornfield. He always felt like some piss-poor relative everyone looked down on because he didn't know one fork from another. But as the captain of the _Enterprise_ , he'd had to go to a few of them. Usually he took Bones along with him to make sure he didn't do something stupid and cause a major diplomatic incident. This time, fortunately, the entire senior command staff had been invited, along with Jim's family. So he would have several people to hold him in check. 

As he entered the quarters, he found Slim, wearing his best clothes, curled up in an armchair and studying a PADD with a deeply absorbed expression on his face. Of Bones and Addie there was no sign. 

"What're you reading?" Jim asked. 

Slim jumped, looked up quickly, and smiled apologetically. "Um, _Far From the Madding Crowd,_ actually." 

"Good book?" 

"One of my favorites." Slim studied Jim. "Leo's changing Addie. He should be out in a minute." 

"Let's see if I can get dressed before he's done." Jim winked at his son before disappearing into the bedroom. 

The governor of Centauri IV had requested that the crew not arrive in their dress uniforms, so Jim changed into a nice pair of trousers and one of the shirts Bones had bought him to wear for their last anniversary, the last time they'd had shore leave. He was lacing up his shoes when Bones came in. 

"The answer," the doctor told him, heading for the closet, "is no. You can't get dressed in less time than it takes me to change a baby, especially not when I have a head start." 

Jim laughed. "Good to see you, too, Bones." 

Bones paused long enough to drop a kiss on Jim's cheek before heading to the closet and changing his clothes. Jim could have gone into the front room, but he stayed where he was, enjoying the view as Bones stripped. "Whaddaya say we skip this dinner and stay here all night?" 

Bones threw Jim a half-exasperated smirk over his shoulder. "I'd love the idea, except our kids are right in the living room and the rest of the crew is probably waiting for us in the Transporter Room. Not to mention the fact that skipping this banquet, as tedious as it's going to be, would put considerable strain on our relations with Centauri." 

"You're almost as bad about logic as Spock sometimes," Jim grumbled. 

"Bite your tongue." Bones sat down to put on his own shoes. 

They emerged from the bedroom arm-in-arm. Slim had set aside his PADD and was sitting with Addie on his lap, her head cupped in his hands, talking to her. She smiled and cooed back at him, waving her little fists. Bones picked up the carrier from the corner. "All right, let's get you loaded up, missy," he said affectionately. 

Slim was the one to carry his sister to the transporter room. As Bones had predicted, the rest of the group was waiting for them. Jim surveyed them--Uhura in her neat, flattering dress, Spock in an outfit she'd obviously picked out for him to coordinate with her, Scotty in his one and only nice outfit, Sulu and Chekov both looking uncomfortable but well turned-out--and smiled. "All right, everyone, let's get this over with." 

He stepped onto the transporter pads, followed by the others, and nodded to the technician on duty. "Beam us down." 

Twenty minutes later, the banquet was in full swing, although that was not the phrase that would ordinarily have occurred to Jim. Put frankly, he was bored stiff. Ambassador Fox, the man they would be escorting, was explaining his negotiating procedure to anyone who would listen, which seemed at the moment to consist of Spock, with an expression of infinite patience on his face. Uhura was practicing one of her languages on another official, who seemed gratified that someone else spoke his language. Bones and Scotty were exchanging glances as an older woman detailed her aches and pains to them. Chekov and Sulu were fending off the attentions of two rather pretty but decidedly alien women, mostly by trying to redirect their conversation to the baby, who sat in her carrier between the two young men and slept. Slim, down at the other end of the table, was quietly eating and trying not to be noticed. 

The governor, a man named Ahnmar, wiped his mouth delicately with a napkin and turned to Jim. "Well, Captain, I note that the _Enterprise_ will be heading into uncharted space again, her and her four hundred thirty souls." 

"Four hundred and thirty-two," Spock corrected him. 

Ahnmar paused. "Ah, yes. Four hundred thirty crew members brave and true...and two children. That does, indeed, add up to four hundred thirty-two. Tell me, Captain, why do you feel it necessary to bring them along?" 

Jim stared at his plate for a moment. Diplomacy, he told himself. Tact and diplomacy. He'd learned a good deal since the incident at Organia, fairly early in his first five-year mission, including how to deal with politicians and pompous windbags. He slowly looked up at Ahnmar. "They're my family, Governor," he said in a level tone of voice. "I could hardly leave them behind." 

"I beg to differ," Ahnmar replied. "I would point out, Captain, that we do have regular commerce with Earth. Should you so order it, I could arrange transport for your son and daughter on the next shuttle. Surely your mother would be willing to mind them for the next five years. Or Dr. McCoy's grandmother." 

The table fell silent. Chekov opened his mouth, then closed it and gave Sulu a look that implied to Jim the helmsman had kicked his friend under the table. Jim chose his words with care. "Both of the women you have named are elderly, Governor. I would not inflict on them the raising of two children. Besides, as I said, they are my family. These early years are incredibly important in Addie's life, and I've only just found Slim. I'm hardly going to send him away again." 

"Logical, you must admit," Spock interjected. 

Ahnmar's eyebrows met in a frown. "Surely, Mr. Spock, you of all people should understand the dangers in bringing a child into space." 

Spock's eyebrow quirked. "I do not follow, Governor Ahnmar." 

"I should think, after what happened on Deneva..." Ahnmar spread out his hands. 

Jim felt the bile rise in his throat. What had happened--or nearly happened--on Deneva was another one of those events that still gave him nightmares from time to time. He hadn't realized news of it had gotten out, but then, the incident _had_ been some years ago, the second year of the _Enterprise's_ second five-year mission. Perhaps it was not surprising that even this fat, pompous fool had learned of the incident. 

Bones put a hand on Jim's knee, gently restraining him, although the stricken look on his face indicated that he, too, had felt the shot go home. Uhura's lips thinned. Even Spock seemed momentarily taken aback, but he answered calmly. "Such a species could hardly have evolved twice, Governor. It is highly unlikely that such an event could happen again." 

"But the danger is great," Ahnmar argued. "Even for trained Starfleet officers such as yourselves. Surely you must realize that it is that much more dangerous for a child and an infant." 

Slim laid his fork carefully down and folded his hands in his lap. Jim caught his eye and saw a steady, calm gaze. Whatever emotions the boy was feeling, he was keeping them well in check. Jim took a deep breath and met the governor's gaze. 

"I thank you for your concern, Governor Ahnmar," he said, carefully and clearly enunciating each word. "But our minds are made up. Where we go, our children go. End of discussion."


	8. He'd Made a Few Mistakes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is basically taken from the episode of TOS entitled "Operation--Annihilate!" The episode was originally written by Steven W. Carabatsos. I've made a few adaptations and changes, obviously. (Side note for anyone who's seen the episode--this is based on the ORIGINAL script, the one that was adapted for novelization by James Blish, not the one that was actually filmed, which had the same basic plot but a different solution to the problem and also included Kirk's brother and his family.)

"Excuse me, may I talk with you for a minute?" 

Spock looked up in surprise. He was technically off duty, although he tended to remain on the bridge whenever the captain was at the conn. But there were limits to what even his Vulcan patience could stand, and the ambassador was sorely testing them. He had gone to the Recreation Room for a hot drink and a break. Although the room was open, few used it at this time of day. 

Thomas Kirk--Spock couldn't quite manage to use the boy's nickname--stood before him, looking both uncomfortable and pensive. In one hand was a glass of what Spock assumed was ice water, although, considering this was the captain's son, may have been a colorless alcohol. He banished the thought instantly. In the three weeks he'd been aboard the _Enterprise_ , Thomas had never been anything but respectful to the crew--not just the senior officers, all of them--and he showed no signs of his father's wildness. In temperament, he was far closer to Sulu than to Kirk: a gentle, if strong-willed, young man. 

"Certainly." Spock gestured to the seat opposite him. "Have you completed your studies for today?" 

"Yes, sir, thank you." Thomas set his glass down and fiddled with it slightly, obviously nervous. 

Spock watched him for a moment, then decided to put him out of his discomfort. "What is it you wished to discuss, Thomas?" 

Thomas folded his hands on his lap and took a deep breath. "What happened on Deneva?" 

Although Spock had suspected that was what the boy wanted to discuss, the abruptness of the question caught him off-guard. It was not human nature, he had noticed, to come so quickly to the point. Recovering, he said, "Perhaps you should ask your father." 

"He's busy with Ambassador Fox," Thomas replied. "And...I don't know. Something about the way he looked last night...I don't think Dr. McCoy will tell me." 

Spock hesitated. "Perhaps that is for the best." 

Thomas swallowed. "Has anyone from the _Enterprise_ ever met Governor Ahnmar before?" 

Frowning as he tried to follow the logical link between his previous statement and the question, Spock replied, "As far as I am aware, no." 

"Then he was a complete stranger," Thomas said. "And yet he knew what happened on Deneva, which seems like it had a big effect on the crew. I reckon--" He swallowed. "I reckon maybe I ought to have _some_ idea, at least." 

"I cannot deny the logic of that," Spock admitted. He stared into his mug thoughtfully. And Thomas had chosen the perfect person to ask, as Spock had been the one most affected. The incident had nearly cost him his life. 

At last, he raised his eyes and met Thomas's gaze. "Three years ago," he said slowly and quietly, "we arrived at Ingraham B, a planet in the Orion complex, within a year of the complete annihilation of its population. This was the third planet to succumb to a similar fate, the first having been Aldebaran Magnus Five and the second Cygni Theta 12. It was not warfare. The people had succumbed to a total, irrevocable insanity and fallen upon each other wherever they could until there were none left. I suggested that, though it seemed patternless, there must be a pattern to the spread of the insanity. Our computer model sugggested that the next outbreak was due within a month, and to my mind, it seemed logical that said outbreak would occur on Deneva." 

Thomas did not seem lost, which was gratifying. Spock continued, "We reached Deneva and--the first thing we spotted was a man flying his ship into the sun. We were unable to save him, but at the last minute, he announced, rather cryptically, that he was 'free' and that 'it' was gone. With nothing else to do, we opted to visit Deneva for ourselves. The captain, Dr. McCoy, and I beamed down with three other crew members. Five men charged towards us, screaming for us to run, that they did not wish to hurt us. We were forced to stun them, but Dr. McCoy noticed that they had high readings from their nervous systems. Before we could do anything further, we heard screaming from what seemed to be a signal center. Upon entering, we found an older man and a young woman. The man was unconscious and the woman was screaming. Dr. McCoy tranquilized the woman, then returned to the ship with them, hoping to get answers. Meanwhile, the rest of us stayed to continue looking around. 

"A security officer heard a buzzing noise. We followed it when an object flew over our head into an alley. The captain ordered us to shoot to kill, which we did. It took a long time for it to actually fall to the ground, which startled us. I took tricorder readings, but it did not register on the device. It looked like nothing more than an amorphous, colorless, gelatinous mass. We were heading back out into the light when another object launched itself out of the darkness, hit my back, and knocked me down. It clung to me, and then...melted into my body. 

"The creatures had arrived on Deneva approximately four months prior to our arrival, and had taken over the entire planet, save for the two people we had rescued earlier. Their only method of communication seemed to be through pain. They embedded themselves in the nervous system of their victims. Such is what happened to me. When I awoke from the sedation Dr. McCoy initially put me under, I attacked the nurse, fled sick bay, and attempted to gain the controls and take the ship down." 

Thomas gave a quick intake of breath. Spock lifted his eyebrows, concerned. "If you would prefer I stop..." 

Thomas shook his head. "If you don't mind telling me...I reckon the truth ain't any worse 'n what I can come up with in my head." 

Spock noted that, like McCoy, Scott, and Chekov, Thomas's accent broadened when he was in the grip of some powerful emotion that he was trying to keep in check. He nodded and continued his narrative. "Thankfully, before I was able to attain the controls, the bridge crew held me back, and Dr. McCoy arrived to sedate me again. While sedated, this time, I put my training as a Vulcan to use and managed to control the pain. Dr. McCoy and the captain asked me to remain in sick bay until both I and the doctor were convinced I could maintain that control. Fortunately, it did not take long, and I arrived back on the bridge in time to witness a Starfleet commodore ordering the captain to destroy the creatures--by any means necessary." 

Thomas frowned. "But if the creatures were embedded in the Denevans..." 

"Precisely," Spock said crisply. "Which is why the captain sought any alternative possible. He desired to capture one of the creatures, but feared to risk another man--which is why I was the one who went back onto the planet." He left out the discussion he and Kirk had had over the logic of the situation, but somehow, he thought the boy understood. "I returned with both a specimen of the creature and a man who was infected, as the primary problem was extracting the creature from the body. The creature resembled nothing so much as a huge individual brain cell." 

"In appearance or behavior?" Thomas asked. 

Spock actually smiled, pleased with the boy's quickness. "Both, actually. At least when the creature was splayed out. We applied logic to the situation and eventually reached the obvious conclusion: the way to destroy the creatures, or at least extract them from their host bodies, was to generate a moving electromagnetic field." 

Thomas frowned momentarily, then nodded slowly. "A sunspot. The man who flew his ship into the sun--that's what he meant when he said 'it's gone.' The creature had left his body, probably when he flew through a sunspot." 

"Well done," Spock said approvingly. "That was, indeed, the conclusion to which we came. I initially volunteered to be the test subject, but the woman we had rescued pointed out that, as I am only half human, there was no guarantee that it would work on the Deveran colonists, even if it worked on me. The man I had brought in was her fiancé, and she gave us her blessing to test the cure on him. Fortunately, it worked." He hesitated. "It was then that the captain, Dr. McCoy, and I realized the same thing: we had no possible way to apply this cure to the entire population of Deneva individually, and we could never envelope the whole of Deneva in such a field. We would have to destroy the planet if another solution could not be found." He paused, waiting to see if Thomas would work it out as well. 

Thomas bit his lip, staring into his water glass. Obviously he knew that Spock was testing him. Slowly, he said, "You said the creatures were little more than individual brain cells. Logically, there had to have been a central brain--something to give all the separate cells orders. Right? If you were able to find that and destroy it..." He spread out his hands, looking up at Spock. "That's the answer, isn't it? You found the central brain." 

"We did," Spock confirmed. "As I was infected, I was aware of the whole creature, not merely the part that was embedded in my system. I directed the ship to the critical Orion sector. Once we located the correct planet, the captain tried to convince me to allow him to extract the creature from my body, but I refused, as the final test would be whether or not the pain stopped when the creature's nucleus was destroyed." He glanced down at his hands, remembering the incident as vividly as if it had happened only that morning. "The captain ordered two missiles to be fired at the planet. Sure enough, when the planet was destroyed, and the creature, I felt an intense pain for a moment--I felt its death. But once the planet was fully gone, I felt...nothing. Dr McCoy extracted the remains of the creature, and Deneva was rescued." 

There was a long moment of silence. Thomas was staring into his water glass again. Spock, too, stared into his coffee cup. There was much he had left out of his telling--things which had no specific bearing on the incident, the more personal details. The emotions. Kirk's sorrow, the look on his face as he had repeated the man Menen's instructions--that if Spock meant anything to him, or to the ship, he should kill him instantly. Uhura's anger, reminding him of the volcano on Nibiru, pleading with him not to keep attempting to sacrifice himself for the good of the ship. Chekov's fear, the hurt and terror in the man's round eyes as Spock, in his first insanity, had thrown him violently backwards. 

At last, Thomas raised his head. "Thanks for telling me," he said quietly. "You know, somehow I think I'll sleep better tonight, knowing that story." 

Spock looked up in surprise. "Why do you say that?" 

"I know Governor Ahnmar intended for it to be a warning, a way of saying that Addie or I could get killed easily, or driven insane, or worse. But...well, what you just told me was that you were willing to sacrifice yourself for not only the ship's crew, but a planet full of innocent people. My dad and the rest of the crew were willing to put themselves in danger to look out for you. And between the lot of you, you came up with a solution that probably wouldn't have occurred to anyone else. So...I reckon we're gonna be okay." Thomas finished his water, got up from the table, and gave Spock a warm, friendly smile, the twin of his father's but with less mischief. "Thanks, Uncle Spock." 

Spock stilled, his eyes widening in surprise as he watched the boy leave the room. _Uncle Spock_. The words, so innocently spoken, so naturally said, rang in his head. Slowly, a smile curved its way across his face. He finished his drink and left the Recreation Room. 


	9. Through His Mind

"We should be within hailing range of Eminiar VII by tomorrow," Ambassador Fox said, pacing the bridge. "At which point you will permit me to--" 

"I'm familiar with procedure at this point, Ambassador," Jim interrupted. He'd had a headache for the last week and a half, and its name was Robert Fox. The man had a temper, unusual for a career diplomat, and next to no sense of humor. He was arrogant, rude, and insufferable. About his only saving grace was that he was damned good at his job. 

A voice in the back of his head whispered: _Sound familiar, Jimmy boy?_

"Shut up," Jim growled. 

Ambassador Fox stopped. "I beg your pardon, Captain?" he said icily. 

Jim cursed silently under his breath. "Nothing, Ambassador. Merely talking to myself." 

The door hissed. "Permission to come on the bridge, sir?" 

Jim turned and smiled. "Permission granted," he said. Once they'd got this ambassador off the ship, he vowed, he would go ahead and tell Slim that he didn't have to ask permission to come on the bridge--same as anyone else did. After all, Slim may have technically been a civilian--and the _Enterprise_ did carry them on occasion--but in another sense, he was part of the crew. 

Slim came over, holding a PADD. "I brought you the summary of the report on Eminiar VII from the U.S.S. _Valiant_ , as requested," he said. He held the device out to his father. 

Jim stood and faced his son. "Tell you what. Why don't you go ahead and summarize it for us?" 

"Yes, sir." Slim glanced at the PADD, then back up. "The _Valiant_ , second starship of that name, was a _Ranger_ -class vessel. In 2217, approximately fifty-two years ago, she was ordered to visit the planet Eminiar VII for purposes of evaluating potential diplomatic relations. Upon arrival, the _Valiant_ reported that Eminiar VII would be unavailable for diplomacy, as the planet was at war with its nearest neighbor..." He referred to the PADD again. "Vendikar, third planet in the system, of which Eminiar VII is the seventh. Reason for the war was unspecified, but the captain's report did note that Vendikar was originally a colony of Eminiar VII. Both planets had developed space flight, but neither had ventured out of the galaxy. Requests for further reports went unanswered, and the _Valiant_ never returned. In 2218, she was officially classified as missing in space. No further ships have been sent to the Eminiar system, and no further data is available." 

"A masterful summary," Jim said with a grin. And, he noted to himself, the boy had delivered his entire report in a clear, professional manner, with none of the colloquialisms or slang he usually used. Even his accent was minimized. 

Slim flushed with obvious pleasure. "Thank you, sir." 

Ambassador Fox eyed the boy. Jim braced himself--but was not prepared for what the man said. "Indeed. You have quite a grasp on politics, boy. I could use an assistant like you. Captain Kirk--" He turned to Jim. "Should you be willing to spare this young man, I would be incredibly grateful." 

The words _Not only no, but hell no_ rose to Jim's lips. He beat them back and tried the diplomatic tack. "Thank you, Ambassador, but I'm afraid you can't have my son. Among other things, he's only thirteen." 

Ambassador Fox's eyebrows shot up so far they almost disappeared into his hairline--a difficult feat, considering he was going bald. " _Thirteen?_ " he repeated incredulously. "I have heard trained diplomats of _twenty-two_ who couldn't summarize a situation that well. I _am_ impressed." 

Slim's blush deepened. "Thank you, sir," he repeated. 

"Thirteen," Ambassador Fox mused. "Well, when you reach adulthood, if you decide to be a diplomat, come look me up. I should be glad to take you on as an apprentice." 

Jim couldn't help the shudder of revulsion that came over him. Slim gave him an amused look, but his expression, when he turned back to the ambassador, was one of respectful politeness. "I appreciate the offer, sir, but I have every intention of joining Starfleet as a full member as soon as I'm old enough. Who knows what might happen between now and then, though? I'll keep it in mind." 

Ambassador Fox looked up at Jim with a look of faint disapproval. Jim wondered if the boy had offended him, but then Fox said, "Well, my boy, I must say, Starfleet should be grateful for someone like you. They have produced fine captains, scientists, doctors, navigators, security, communicators, and engineers--as witnessed by the crew of this ship--but they are sadly lacking in diplomats. You shall most definitely improve the breed." 

From somewhere between them and the door, Spock coughed. Jim raised an eyebrow at him. "Is there a problem, Mr. Spock?" 

Spock's look of blank innocence would have fooled anyone who didn't know him well. "Not at all, Captain. I was merely clearing my throat." 

Jim chuckled, good humor restored, and looked down at Slim. "Ask Dr. Marcus to come up here, will you? Take Addie for a little while. I'll see you in our quarters later." 

"Yes, sir." Slim nodded to the ambassador, gave Jim a smile, and headed off the bridge. 

As he passed Spock, the first officer absently reached out and patted the boy on the shoulder. Jim almost fell over in shock. The Vulcan race was one that rarely indulged in physical contact, and Spock's mother--a wonderful woman, by all accounts, and one Jim devoutly wished he had been able to get to know--had, in obedience to her husband's wishes, raised her son as though he were a full Vulcan. He rarely touched even Uhura, at least not in public, and they had been all but married for twelve years. To see him make physical contact with anyone at all, therefore, was incredible. But to see him make such a distinctly human gesture--Spock could not have startled Jim any more if he had actually started stripping on deck. 

_And that, right there, is a mental image I am going to do my best to forget,_ he added silently to himself. Aloud, he said, "Mr. Chekov, what is our time estimate on reaching Eminiar VII?" 

"Sewenteen hours," Chekov replied. 

"Any complications you can see?" 

"Smooth sailing, Keptin." Chekov looked over his shoulder and flashed Jim a brilliant smile. Jim couldn't help but smile back. However many new crew members they took on--and there were always new crew members, be they transfers from other ships or cadets fresh out of the Academy--most of the original crew still thought of Chekov as the "baby." He'd only been seventeen, technically too young to even be at the Academy, when he'd come aboard the _Enterprise_. The rest of the crew had always been incredibly protective of him, and when, eighteen months into their first five-year mission, he'd contracted the chicken pox and nearly died from the resulting secondary infection, it had almost suspended operation on the ship for two weeks. 

"Good." Jim patted his navigator on the shoulder, then turned to his helmsman. "Steady as she goes, Mr. Sulu." 

Sulu gave him a half-grin. "Aye, aye, sir." 

Jim smirked. As he did at least once per shift, he began slowly ambling around the bridge, chatting quietly with each crew member. In the first place, he'd found it was a good way to keep up morale; it let the crew know that their captain actually cared about them, and their well-being. In the second place, it was a good way for him to keep himself informed on what was going on aboard the ship and in its surrounding environment. 

"All quiet, Lieutenant?" Jim asked, pausing beside Uhura's chair. 

Uhura swivelled to face him. "No incoming or outgoing communications, Captain. And no reports from anywhere on board." 

Jim studied her face. "How many shifts have you worked in a row?" 

It was a shot in the dark, but he could tell from the way her eyes dropped briefly that it had gone home. There weren't a lot of signs, but her eyes looked strained and there was a slight hollowness to her cheeks. "This is my regular shift," she mumbled. 

"That isn't what I asked," Jim said gently. "I know Granger had to leave halfway through Beta shift to go to Med Bay, and you came on to cover the rest of his shift. Did Joelson show up for Gamma?" 

Uhura looked uncomfortable, but admitted, "No, sir." 

"So you've been on shift for twenty of the last twenty-four hours. At least." Jim gave her a stern look. "Go. Quarters. Get some food. Get some _sleep_. I'll call for you when we get within hailing range of Eminiar VII." 

"I'm fine, Captain," Uhura protested. 

Jim turned towards the science officer's console. "Mr. Spock," he said, raising his voice slightly, "in your opinion, what would be the logical course of action for a crew member who has spent no more than four hours away from his or her post in the last thirty hours?" 

Spock looked up, raising his eyebrows in evident surprise. "Logically, Captain, I should order that person _away_ from said post, as sleep deprivation--not to mention hunger--can cause errors in judgement." 

Jim turned back to Uhura pointedly. "So ordered, Lieutenant. I'd like you to be in charge of hailing Eminiar--you know how important this is to the Federation, and you're the only one I trust to do it properly. But I can't have you doing it if you're less than one hundred percent." He pointed at the door. "Go. Food. Sleep. Now. Granger ought to be able to come up here a little early. And believe me, I will be having a few words with Joelson." 

Seeing she was outflanked and outnumbered, Uhura threw up her hands in surrender and stood. "Yes, Captain." 

Spock rose from his seat and came to Jim's side as Uhura left. _"How_ long had she been on shift?" 

"Continuously? Since midway through Beta shift." Jim checked the chronometer inset on the viewscreen Uhura had just vacated. "Eighteen hours now. And she'd worked a full eight hour shift. That's, what, twenty-six hours?" 

"Indeed." Spock looked a little ashamed of himself. "I never noticed--" 

"Neither did I," Jim admitted. He headed to his chair. "Excuse me, Ambassador, I need to deal with some personnel matters." 

Ambassador Fox inclined his head. "Of course, Captain. I shall be in my quarters if you require me." With that, he left the bridge. 

_If you require me_ , Jim thought, picking up his communicator. There was not much Jim considered to be less likely than that he would need the assistance of Robert Fox.


	10. A Taste of Armageddon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter based on the episode "A Taste of Armageddon" by Robert Hamner.

It wasn't, Leo told himself, as though he was hovering around _hoping_ to be chosen for the landing party. It wasn't _exactly_ a given that he'd be included. It was just...well, he usually was. People always seemed to be getting hurt, one way or another, when a party went to a planet's surface. And if Jim was going, he usually took Leo with him. Leo pretended to believe it was just in case someone got hurt...but both of them felt safer when they were together. 

But when Jim told the ambassador who would be going down to the surface, Leo was startled--and a little hurt--that his name was not among them. 

He kept his mouth shut because Fox was arguing with Jim--largely because _he_ wasn't included in the initial party, either--and Jim didn't need another headache. _Headache_ , Leo thought, watching Jim's jaw tense as the older man railed at him. _Wonder if he's managed to shake the one he's had all week. Doubt it._

"They warned us away, Ambassador," Jim said at last, cutting off the ambassador mid-sentence. "They wouldn't have done that if there wasn't some risk of danger. The Federation has made it clear what they think you, and your mission, are worth. If I let you go down there without checking things out first, and something happens, it will be on my head. I will send for you as soon as I am certain it is safe." 

Every word was crisp, clipped, and crystal clear. Jim had chosen language remarkably similar to the kind Spock used in everyday conversation. It was obvious he was annoyed, stressed, and deadly serious. Leo decided not to argue about not being included in the party, either. 

"Dr. McCoy," Jim said, turning away from the ambassador at last. "A word, if you please." His eyes slid over to Spock. "Mr. Spock, I will meet you and the remainder of the landing party in the Transporter Room." 

"Acknowledged, Captain." Spock nodded crisply and left the bridge. 

Leo followed Jim into the hallway. As soon as the door slid shut behind them, Jim grabbed his husband's arm. The mask of determination fell away to reveal a man who was obviously weary and upset. Leo was instantly concerned. 

"Bones," he said in a low voice. "Listen to me, okay? I know you're upset I'm not taking you with me." Leo started; he hadn't expected Jim to realize just how upset he was. "But I _can't_. I need you to stay here." He swallowed hard. "I need Spock's logic--you know I'm not that good with diplomatic issues, and he can read situations better and more quickly than I can. I'm taking the security officers in case we run into trouble. But I...the rest of my senior staff...I need you to stay here." 

"Jim," Leo said, a little alarmed. "Are you sure you're up to this? You look like hell, and..." He trailed off, not wanting to admit that he thought Jim was losing hold of his reason. 

Jim shook his head. "I'm okay. It's just...I have a feeling about this. Code 710 isn't something anyone throws around lightly. I don't know what I'm walking into down there. It could be dangerous. _Really_ dangerous. Remember what happened on Organia?" 

"I'm not likely to ever forget," Leo said grimly. 

"I'm not just talking about what happened to Spock and me. I'm talking about the Klingon vessel. If we run into trouble down _there_ , and the _Enterprise_ runs into trouble up _here_...well, I'll give Scotty the same instructions I gave Sulu then." Jim ran a hand over his face. "Get the hell out of here until we can turn overwhelming odds into _under_ whelming ones. But I need as many people up here I can trust as possible." He looked up at Leo, anguished. "Bones, please, try to understand. I need you to stay up here and look after Slim and Addie." 

That was when it hit Leo. Jim was scared. He was trying his hardest to hide it, to fight it down, but he was terrified--of losing his son, his daughter, his husband, his crew. He wanted to minimize the number of his senior crew members on the planet's surface because he thought--probably correctly--that the _Enterprise_ had a better chance of survival than did those who were planetside. And he was counting on those he left behind to keep his children safe. 

Leo wrapped his arms around Jim, holding him close. "I promise, Jim," he whispered roughly, ashamed of his selfishness. "I'll take care of 'em. An' I'll look after the crew, too. Everything will be just fine 'til you get back." 

Jim rested his head on Leo's chest for a minute. "If I don't come back..." 

"Don't _say_ things like that," Leo said. "Of course you'll come back." 

"But if I _don't_ , Bones, remember I'm still counting on you. Make sure they stay safe." 

Leo felt the tears prick his eyes. "I will. I promise." 

Jim relaxed. He drew back and smiled up at Leo. "Thanks," he whispered. He slid one hand up behind Leo's head, pulled him closer, and kissed him, then headed down the corridor. 

Leo wished he didn't feel like he'd just been given a farewell kiss. 

Swallowing, he returned to the bridge. Scotty threw him an anxious look from where he stood, not exactly distancing himself from the captain's chair but certainly not sitting in it either. Wordlessly, Leo walked over to join him. Apart from being the senior crew members in terms of rank, they were also the two _oldest_ crew members at the moment, and they had to show it. But Leo could read much of his own worry in the chief engineer's face. 

Fox glowered at both men. "This is _highly_ irregular," he grumbled. "Captain Kirk--" 

"Is doing his duty, sir," Scotty said levelly. "He may have a responsibility to the mission, but he also has a responsibility to the crew. He has to make sure the situation is safe before he authorizes ye to go down there." 

"I see," Fox said, in a voice that implied the exact opposite. "I must go and prepare my documents. If I have not returned by the time Kirk sends the all-clear, please notify me at once." He turned on his heel and strode off the bridge. 

Scotty looked at Leo. "Not one to mince words, is he?" 

"How someone like that ever got to be a diplomat I'll never know," Leo grumbled. 

The door to the bridge slid open again. Slim stood there, Addie cradled in his arms. "Uh, permission to...?" he began. 

Scotty waved a hand dismissively. "Ye don't have to ask, laddie. Long as that ambassador isn't around, just come on out." 

Slim came on and joined the two older men. "I just left the Transporter Room," he said quietly. "They should be down there by now." 

"Kirk to _Enterprise_." Jim's voice came over the communicator almost before Slim had finished speaking. 

Scotty pressed the appropriate button. " _Enterprise_ here." 

"We made it, Scotty," Jim said. "Situation seems normal so far. Stand by for further instructions." 

"Aye, sir." 

"Kirk out." 

Leo eyed Slim. "Good timing." 

Slim smiled. Addie let out a string of baby babble, her contribution to the conversation. 

"I hear you, darlin'." Leo lifted Addie out of Slim's arms and cradled her. "When did you last eat?" 

"'Bout fifteen minutes ago," Slim answered. "I changed her diaper, too." 

"Good," Leo said. "Then you two can stay up here for a while." 

Slim rubbed the back of his neck. "Thanks. I'd like to know what's going on." 

Scotty looked at the viewscreen, which was showing the planet. "Aye," he said softly. "I'd like to know that, too."

It seemed like an intolerably long time before anything happened. Conversation on the bridge was subdued, quiet. Slim, temporarily relieved of the burden of caring for his sister, drifted over to the console to talk with Sulu and Chekov. Leo wasn't really paying attention until he heard Slim ask the question he'd been avoiding even considering. "You reckon it'll hurt the ambassador's chances?" 

"I don't think so," Sulu said slowly. "The captain's come a long way since Organia. He can be fairly diplomatic." 

Leo turned to see a faint grin on Slim's face. "I saw that from how he was dealing with Ambassador Fox yesterday. I'm not too worried that he'll say the wrong thing. I mean, would the Eminiarans be offended that he went first, 'stead of sending the ambassador right away?" 

Sulu and Chekov exchanged glances. Leo saw the worry in their eyes and decided to intervene. "Of course not. They'll understand how important this relation is to Starfleet, not just the Federation. And frankly, once they meet Ambassador Fox, they'll wonder why the Federation didn't just send Jim in the first place." 

"Zat makes sense," Chekov said. 

"Of course, Doctor," Sulu agreed. 

"Sure," Slim said. 

All three of them smiled, their expressions almost identical. Leo had the absurd feeling they were trying to reassure _him_. Irritation flared. "All right, if you don't agree with me, just say so!" 

Chekov wiped the smile off his face instantly. "Sorry, Doctor. I-it just..." He looked helplessly at Sulu. 

The helmsman took over. "We don't know enough about Eminiar to know for sure how they'll react. The _Valiant's_ report wasn't very complete." 

Slim looked down at his feet. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything." 

Leo relaxed slightly. "No, I'm sorry," he said, including the two men at the console in his gaze. "I shouldn't have snapped at you like that." He sighed. "Guess I'm just as nervous as you are." 

Addie gave a small sigh and twined her fingers into the fabric of Leo's blue uniform tunic. Slim smiled fondly at her. "Least there's one person on the ship who can still relax. Look, she's out like a light." 

Leo stroked her cheek with a forefinger. "I swear, she keeps a stricter schedule than the crew does." 

Chekov bit his lip and reached up. "Doctor, since we are not going anywhere soon, may I--?" 

"Of course," Leo said, startled. Carefully, he handed Addie over. 

The navigator cradled the baby as tenderly and carefully as though she were his own, and his blue eyes softened as he looked at her, smiling once more. Leo smiled as well. He realized that Chekov's nerves were more strained than even he let on; at nearly thirty, he was getting better at not showing it. Holding Addie clearly helped. 

The ship's communicator suddenly crackled to life. "Kirk to _Enterprise_." 

Scotty jumped, but said, _"Enterprise_ here." 

"Mr. Scott, do you detect any unusual activity on the planet's surface?" 

Scotty and Leo exchanged glances of extreme confusion. "No, sir," Scotty said slowly. "All screens show normal." 

"Thank you, Mr. Scott. As you were. Kirk out." 

Slim frowned at the viewscreen, still showing the planet below them. " _Should_ we have detected any unusual activity?" 

"I don't see why," Scotty answered, moving over to join the small group. "Perhaps he was informed of something..." 

Sulu turned around. "When he was on Organia, the captain said he met a telepath--someone who matter-of-factly informed him of things that had not happened yet, or that he had no business knowing. Perhaps he met someone claiming to be the same thing on Eminiar?" 

"It's possible," Scotty admitted. "Well, whatever it is they predicted, we've nae seen yet." 

Slim shook his head. "I reckon it wasn't a prediction, or he wouldn't have asked if we'd noticed anythin'." 

"You may be right," Leo admitted. 

The door to the bridge hissed, and Fox strode in, bringing with him an increase in tension. "Mr. Scott," he brayed. "Surely Captain Kirk has had enough time to ascertain that the planet is safe." 

Scotty squared his shoulders. "He hasnae communicated it tae me." 

The ambassador waved an arm at the viewscreen. "Does it look like there is any trouble down there?" 

"Trouble may be visible to the captain which is invisible to us," Sulu put in. 

"I did not ask for your opinion, Mr. Sulu," Fox said icily. 

"Nevertheless, he is correct," Scotty said, glaring at the man. "I cannae override the captain's orders." 

"I, however, can," Fox retorted. "I shall give you four more hours, Mr. Scott, and then I will exert my authority and order you to transport me down there--whether Captain Kirk has approved it or not." 

Scotty stood immobile for a moment, his fists clenched, then said, "Aye, sir." 

Slim moved a little closer to Leo. In a low voice, he asked, "Can he do that?" 

"Unfortunately, yeah, he can," Leo replied, also keeping his voice low. He reached out absently and put a hand on his stepson's shoulder. "Technically, this is his mission, we're just supporting him. Which means he can technically order us around." 

"Except for you," Scotty said, not bothering to keep his voice down. "Technically." 

Fox shot him a glare. Leo tensed, but Slim kept his face impassive. "Of course he can give me orders," he said, also raising his voice to a normal tone. "After all, I _am_ only thirteen." 

The ambassador almost smiled at that. "Have no worries, Mr. Kirk," he said, turning for the door. "I can think of no reasons I would have to give _you_ any orders." 

Sulu waited until the man had left before turning back to Slim. "How'd you learn how to handle people like that?" he asked, undisguised admiration in his voice. 

Slim blushed. "One of my foster families--'bout a year or so back--Mr. Lawson was pretty stubborn and didn't much like people. I had to learn quick how to handle him or--" He stopped. 

Leo looked sharply at Slim, but the boy was staring at his shoes and obviously not prepared to elaborate. From her console, Uhura spoke in a casual voice. "How long were you with the Lawsons, Slim?" 

"Seventy-four days," Slim answered promptly. His blush deepened, and he bit his lip. 

"Not that ye were countin'," Scotty muttered. He shook his head and said brusquely, "Status report, Mr. Sulu." 

Sulu quickly turned back to his console. "Everything quiet, Mr. Scott." 

"Good. Let's hope it stays that way."

The bridge was silent for a while. Uhura was compulsively checking her console; Sulu made minute adjustments every so often, less (Leo suspected) to actually keep the ship steady and more to give his hands something to do. Chekov rocked Addie, humming softly--Leo wasn't sure what it was, but Addie seemed to love it and kept giving little sighs of contentment in her sleep. Slim kept his eyes fixed on the image of the planet revolving slowly beneath them. Scotty paced. 

"Mr. Scott," Leo said eventually, "do you need a tranquilizer? You're making me dizzy." 

Scotty scowled, but he did stop pacing. "It's this damned waiting," he explained, his voice tense. "I cannae stand it. Why hasn't he _contacted_ us by now?" 

Leo tried to quell his own rising sense of panic. Jim always accused him of being paranoid and pessimistic, of getting worked up over the littlest things, but the long wait between his question about unusual activity and his next communication--whatever it may be--was unnerving. "I'm sure he has a good reason--" 

"Kirk to _Enterprise._ Come in, _Enterprise_." 

Scotty practically leapt the full width of the bridge to grab the communicator. _"Enterprise_ here," he said, obviously struggling to keep his voice steady. "Captain, is everything all right?" 

"Everything is fine," Jim's voice replied. "The Eminiarans are eager to establish diplomatic relations with the Federation. They've also extended an invitation to all personnel to come ashore for shore leave--they've assured me that our people will have a wonderful time." 

Leo frowned in bewilderment. That was unusual. Even planets that were excited at the idea of a new diplomatic relation didn't invite whole crews to visit at once. And until relations had been established, it could be dangerous, politically. 

Scotty, too, seemed puzzled. "Have they, sir?" 

"Yes, they have. And I've accepted. Start beaming the crew down at once. You have the coordinates. Mr. Spock and I will meet you there." 

"Aye, sir." 

Leo waited, but there was nothing further. Scotty, too, hesitated a moment, then switched off his device, frowning deeply. He looked up at Leo. "Did anything about that seem odd to you?" 

Leo spread out his hands. "Did anything about that seem _normal?_ " Leaving Slim with the two younger officers, he crossed to where Scotty now stood at the engineering console. "Even Jim wouldn't agree to shore leave a month into a mission. Not for the whole crew." 

"Aye. And it's not like him to--" Scotty broke off and turned to the console. "Computer, analyze voiceprint of last incoming transmission." 

The computer beeped. "Analyzed." 

"Is voiceprint a match for Captain James Tiberius Kirk?" 

The computer beeped again. "Negative. Voiceprints close but do not match." 

Scotty turned back to Leo. "There ye have it. That wasn't Jim." 

"A voice modifier," Leo mused. He suddenly stiffened. "Which means someone else has his communicator." 

"Which means he's probably been captured." Scotty dropped his voice as he spoke so that only Leo could hear. "And I cannae get a fix on him to beam him back up. The transporter focuses on the communicators, unless we have exact coordinates." 

"So he's trapped down there. And in danger." The panic was rising in Leo's chest again. 

Scotty motioned for him to keep his voice down, glancing at the console. Sulu, Chekov, and Slim were all staring at them with almost identical expressions of concern. "Ye ken our Jim. He'll get out of it if anyone can. An' he has Spock with him. They'll come up with somethin'." He rubbed his neck. "In the meantime, no one leaves this ship." 

The bridge door hissed again. Scotty sighed, not turning to look at it. "Why do we even have a door on this bridge?" he muttered to no one in particular. 

Leo smiled reluctantly as Ambassador Fox strode over to them. "Did I not just hear Captain Kirk? What did he say?" 

"It wasn't the captain," Scotty told the ambassador. "We ran a voiceprint--" 

"I am not interested in the opinions of your computer or your crew, Mr. Scott," Fox interrupted. "Did that communication clear me to land on the planet or not?" 

Scotty answered with obvious reluctance, "Aye, sir, it did, but--" 

"But nothing. I will be beaming down to the planet forthwith." 

"I cannae beam ye down while shields are up, sir," Scotty protested. "Not with any reasonable chance of beaming ye back up safely or quickly if needed." 

"Then lower the shields," Fox said. 

Scotty took a deep breath. "No, sir." 

Leo's eyebrows shot up. As they had discussed earlier, the ambassador technically had the right to give orders as far as his mission was concerned. And under Federation guidelines, as well as Starfleet regulations, they did have to obey. By refusing a direct order, Scotty was putting himself in danger of serious repercussions. 

Fox scowled. "I gave you a direct order, Mr. Scott. Lower the shields and beam me down." 

"Sir," Scotty said, speaking with careful emphasis on each word, "I have very good reason to suspect there may be danger to this ship, coming from Eminiar. The captain left me in charge of the safety of his ship, his crew-- _and his children._ I will not lower the shields and put four hundred and twenty-eight souls in danger. I'm sorry." 

The ambassador attempted to stare Scotty down, but the man didn't budge. Leo said nothing, merely moving to stand beside and a half-step behind the chief engineer, lending him silent support. At last, the ambassador snapped, "I have no desire to return quickly. And I trust you will lower the shields in order to beam your captain and first officer back aboard. With or without your assistance, I will be beaming down, so kindly alert the Transporter Room. And be sure that I shall note this carefully." Fox turned on his heel and strode out of the room. 

"Well, the haggis is really in the fire now," Scotty muttered. 

"Are you going to stop him?" Leo demanded. 

"How d'ye propose I do that, Doctor?" Scotty picked up the communicator. "Bridge to Transporter Room. Ambassador Fox is on his way. Beam him down as requested." 

"Yes, sir." The techician on duty sounded wary. "Uh, the shields are still up..." 

"I know," Scotty said heavily. "Try not to make any mistakes with the coordinates." 

"Yes, sir." 

"Scott out." Scotty turned off the communicator and looked helplessly at Leo. 

Leo felt a rush of sympathy for him. He'd never been marked for command, intending to spend his entire Starfleet career working with machines. Over his years on the _Enterprise_ , he'd taken the conn a time or two, but it wasn't his strong suit, and he never actually sat in the chair when he was running the bridge. And he'd never been in charge during such a touchy situation. 

"You're doing everything you can," he said. 

"Aye," Scotty said bleakly. "But is it enough?" 

Leo didn't have an answer for that. 

"WAAAAAAAH!" Addie chose that moment to announce her return to consciousness. Leo whirled around to see Chekov trying to calm her down with a look of concern on his face. 

Slim took his sister from Chekov's arms, patted her bottom, and nodded. "She just needs a change. I'll be back." 

Leo sighed with relief--whatever came next, Slim and Addie would be off the bridge. "She's probably hungry, too. Go ahead and give her something." 

"I will." Slim gave Leo a smile, then left. 

Chekov looked anxiously at Leo. "I did not..." 

"It's all right," Leo said reassuringly. "Like Slim said, she just needs to be changed. Nothing you did." 

Chekov relaxed. Leo turned back to Scotty. "What now?" 

"We wait." Scotty shrugged. "What else can we do?" 

Leo moved over and put a hand on the chief engineer's shoulder. The _Enterprise's_ senior staff had been close almost from the beginning, but Scotty was probably Leo's best friend on the ship besides Jim. "It's all right, Scotty." 

Scotty glared at him. "You're not turning into an optimist on me, are you, McCoy?" 

Leo threw up his hands in mock horror. "Fates forbid." 

Scotty smiled a little, but there was still worry in his eyes. He stared down at his communicator and muttered, "If only they would _call_." 

Time seemed to stretch out into infinity. Leo wondered what was taking Slim so long. Just as he was about to leave the bridge and go check on his children, the communicator chirped. "Kirk to _Enterprise_. Scotty, are you there?" 

Leo grabbed the nearest stable object for support, which happened to be the back of the captain's chair. Scotty fumbled with his communicator. "Aye, Captain, I'm here," he practically yelled. "Are ye all right?" 

"I'm fine, Scotty," Jim's voice replied. "We all are. I think things are settled down here. Still got the shields up?" 

"Aye, Captain." 

"It ought to be safe to drop them enough to work the transporter, but once we're safely aboard, I want you to put them back up, got it?" 

Scotty rolled his eyes at Leo, but the smile on his face negated any annoyance he might have attempted to convey. "I think I can understand simple instructions like that, Captain." 

Leo swore he could hear the grin in Jim's voice as he replied, "Good. Four to beam up, then." 

"Aye, Captain." Scotty paused. "Four?" 

"Ambassador Fox still has work to do. He'll be remaining behind. But the rest of us are ready when you are. Kirk out." 

Scotty was grinning like a fool as he turned to the console. "Lower shields, Mr. Sulu." 

Sulu smiled in reply. "Yes, sir." 

Less than ten minutes later, the door to the bridge slid open--no snarky comments about it this time--and Jim and Spock came through, both looking as whole and healthy as they had when they had stepped off the bridge--Leo glanced at the chronometer and did a double-take. According to the numbers, they had only actually been down there for four hours total. It had seemed so much longer. 

"Mr. Sulu, proceed out of the Eminiar system at normal speed," Jim said, coming over to take the conn. 

"Yes, sir." Sulu reached for the throttle. 

Jim looked up at Scotty. "Everything okay up here?" 

"Aye, Captain." Scotty swallowed. "I apologize for allowing Ambassador Fox to beam down--" 

Jim cut him off with a wave of the hand and a smile. "You didn't _let_ him beam down. He told me you'd refused to let him, and that he'd overridden you. Frankly, Scotty, I'm impressed you managed to stall him as long as you did." 

Scotty's shoulders sagged in relief. He smiled again. "I had a wee bit of help, sir." 

Leo smiled as well. "What happened down there, Jim?" 

Jim's smile disappeared. "That war Slim mentioned--it was still going on," he said quietly. "They'd been fighting for five hundred years. All of it by computer. The two planets would calculate missile launches and where they'd strike and how many people would die--and then they'd order those people to report to disintegration chambers. And they _did_ it. What kind of leader--" He checked himself. 

Leo winced sympathetically. Jim had no patience with leaders who ordered their people to die in such a callous fashion--or for followers who did it. He put a hand on the younger man's shoulder and squeezed gently. "How'd you talk them out of it?" 

"We--didn't, exactly," Jim admitted. "We destroyed one of the disintegration chambers, then destroyed their computer. At that point, Ambassador Fox took over and offered to help the Eminiarans with their negotiations to end the war." He shook his head. "I don't know if it'll end quickly, but I don't think it'll take too long." 

"How could you have known it would work?" Spock pressed. 

"Call it...cultural morphology," Jim replied. 

Leo suppressed a smile. "But _why_ , Jim? Why'd you take the risk in the first place?" 

Jim looked up in surprise. "You really have to ask, Bones?" he said softly. "This crew is my family. I couldn't just sit by and watch you all--" He broke off with a smile as the door opened. "Hey, there you are!" 

Leo turned and smiled as well. Slim came in, carrying Addie in his arms, a smile on his face as well. "Hi, Dad." 

As Jim took their daughter from Slim, the smile on his face told Leo everything he needed to know. There was a new dimension to Jim's protectiveness of the _Enterprise_ and her crew. He would do anything he could to save the ship. 

After all, it was carrying precious cargo.


	11. In His Younger Days

"Sir, we have an incoming transmission from New Vulcan," Uhura said, turning from her console. 

Slim, standing quietly to one side with Addie in his arms, looked up quickly. Part of his studies involved the history of space exploration, including the history and culture of the planets discovered. And the history of Vulcan was one that was important to the _Enterprise_ as well, so of course he knew it well. To date, however, he'd never even _seen_ a Vulcan, other than Spock. 

Jim tossed his son a grin before saying to Uhura, "Bring it up." 

The viewscreen shimmered, and then a face appeared. The figure was extremely elderly, his hair almost entirely silver, his face full of wrinkles. But his dark eyes were kind. "Captain Kirk," he said. 

Jim grinned. "Mr. Spock." 

Slim started and looked at Spock-- _their_ Spock--who had left his console and moved towards the center of the bridge, then looked back at the screen. He guessed that they were related somehow, although he wasn't sure how. They bore remarkable similarities, although the elder Spock's features were...Slim wasn't sure how to put it. It was like someone had rubbed a wet washcloth across the younger man's face. The _Enterprise's_ first officer was sharper, narrower, with more of an edge to him. 

The elder one, Slim noted, was also more expressive; he actually smiled back at Jim. "We noticed that the _Enterprise_ was within hailing distance. I thought I would take this opportunity to invite the senior staff to join me for an informal supper this evening." He paused. "Of course, your family is included in the offer as well." 

Jim smiled. "On behalf of my senior staff, I accept with pleasure." 

"Wonderful. I look forward to seeing you at 1800 hours." With a nod, the elder Spock terminated the conversation. 

"Short, sweet, and to the point," Jim commented. He checked the chronometer. "Slim, take Addie down and get her changed and cleaned up, would you?" 

"Yes, sir," Slim answered. 

Spock stirred. "With your permission, Captain, I will accompany him."

"Granted," Jim said, looking puzzled. 

Spock inclined his head slightly, then led Slim off the bridge. Slim had a feeling there was something he wanted to discuss, and so held his tongue. He was not disappointed. 

"You no doubt noticed a number of similarities between the Vulcan to whom your father just spoke and myself." 

"I did," Slim answered, looking up. "Is he a relative of yours?" 

Spock hesitated. "Not precisely. He is, in fact...me." 

Slim looked up quickly, but there was no trace of humor in Spock's face. Slowly, he asked, "What do you mean?" 

"He is me," Spock repeated. "From an alternate timeline. He was trapped here due to a temporal anomaly. It is rather a long story. But it was only through his assistance that we were able to defeat Nero and save Earth." 

Slim digested this. It was no less bizarre than anything else he had heard in the last two months. "How did he help?" 

Was it Slim's imagination, or did Spock look slightly embarrassed? "He...gave your father a bit of information that enabled him to effectively...command the ship." 

"I reckon," Slim said carefully, "he must have years more experience at running a ship than my dad did." He swallowed, sure he was missing something big, and added, "But Dad doesn't seem like the kind of guy to take that much instruction. Even from someone who oughta know more'n he does about running a ship." 

"You are, as usual, correct," Spock said with a sigh. "In fact, the information that Mr. Spock gave the captain was...how to _take_ command of the ship. Technically, _I_ was in command, as Christopher Pike, the true captain, had been captured. Your father, with Spock Prime's promptings...proved that I was emotionally compromised, and therefore unfit to command under Starfleet Regulation 619." 

Slim didn't press matters, sensing he had already pushed his luck too far. He remembered what he had read of the Vulcans' history--that they had learned to master their emotions in order to keep their race from extinguishing itself. He could only guess what it had cost Spock to admit he had been emotionally compromised--and what it had taken his father to bring him to that point. "He seems like a nice fella," he said, looking up at Spock. "Mr....Spock Prime, I mean." 

Spock relaxed slightly. "He is one of the finest officers Starfleet has ever seen. I only hope I can attain some measure of those qualities in my own lifetime." 

"I'm sure you will," Slim said warmly and sincerely. Addie let out a string of happy babble, and Slim smiled at his sister. "See? She agrees with me." 

"I do not think that qualifies as agreement," Spock said stiffly, but he was smiling. 

An hour later, Slim found himself sitting between Scotty and Chekov at an oblong table. The dishes were unfamiliar, but they tasted pretty good. The elder Spock was clearly enjoying himself, talking with the ship's officers about what had happened since he had last spoken to any of them. Slim, too, was enjoying himself. He was getting to hear about past missions without having to ask questions himself. The crew had worked their way backwards, and Jim and Spock were now taking it in turns to relate one of their earliest missions. 

"I cited regulation in order to remind the captain that the ship needed to remain hidden a while longer," Spock was saying. "Dr. McCoy made a suggestion I felt unable to comply with--" 

"Oh?" The elder Spock turned to the doctor with raised eyebrows. 

Leo smiled. "As I recall, my exact words were 'Shut up, Spock, we're trying to save you, dammit.'" 

"Only said at a slightly higher volume, and with slightly more emphasis," Sulu put in. 

The elder Spock chuckled--actually chuckled, which would probably have startled Slim an hour ago, but he'd realized this particular half-Vulcan allowed himself greater range of emotions than most, probably because he was almost two hundred years old and had had a great deal of practice. "My own Dr. McCoy said the same thing to me once, albeit in a somewhat different set of circumstances. As far as I can recall, the _Enterprise_ never traveled to the planet Nibiru." 

"That may be because in your timeline, it was destroyed by the volcano," Jim pointed out. 

"Perhaps." 

"A-ba-ba-ba," Addie babbled. Someone had found a beautifully carved high chair for her, and she was contentedly sitting in it. 

The elder Spock smiled warmly at the baby. "She favors you a great deal, Dr. McCoy. All but her eyes." 

"Yeah, she's got her daddy's eyes," Leo said affectionately. 

"Have you given thought to how she will address the two of you in the future?" the elder Spock asked. "She will obviously refer to the captain as 'Daddy,' but somehow I don't see you answering to something so formal as 'Father.' What do you intend to have her call you?" 

From the looks Leo and Jim gave one another, it was clear they'd discussed this in the past. "She'll call me 'Papa,'" Leo said firmly. "It's what I called mine." 

The elder Spock nodded, then turned his dark eyes onto Slim for the first time that meal. "You don't worry that it might confuse her, the way _you_ address him?" 

Slim hadn't thought about it. And if he had thought, he would have said that, or any one of a number of other things, admitting that he was nervous and worried about how to address his stepfather in the future to avoid upsetting his sister. But he didn't think. The words that came out of his mouth surprised him as much as they surprised anyone else at the table. 

"No, sir," he said. "I aim to call him 'Pa' myself." Suddenly realizing what he had said, he turned to Leo and added quickly, "I mean, if that's all right with you..." 

Leo looked momentarily startled, but recovered and smiled. "That's just fine, Slim. That's perfectly fine." 

Slim smiled in reply. The elder Spock nodded again. "It seems to me you'll do well on the _Enterprise_." 

"He already has," Sulu put in. "You should've heard the way he dealt with that stuffy Ambassador Fox." 

Spock nodded. "The man tried even my patience. One would have believed Thomas had taken lessons in diplomacy." 

"An' I've never met a lad who understood the warp core so well," Scotty added. 

Slim flushed scarlet. "Really, I'm not..." he mumbled, trailing off. He wasn't what? He didn't even know what he _was_ , let alone what he _wasn't_. He was barely a teenager. His voice had only just started changing. He certainly wasn't brilliant. The crew of the _Enterprise_ was made up of people who were quite frankly heroes to him. He could never measure up to them. Hearing them praise him was almost more than he could stand--especially since he was sure they didn't really mean it, that they were just saying it to be polite. 

"I apologize," the elder Spock said gently. "I didn't mean to embarrass you." With that, to Slim's relief, he changed the subject. 

As they prepared to leave at the end of the meal, the elder Spock spoke to each crew member personally. He kept his voice low, so that each conversation was private, but Slim could tell from the faces of the adults that whatever the half-Vulcan said, they were honored. He expected to be sent on his way with a smile and a nod, but to his surprise, the elder Spock shook his hand. 

"I meant what I said earlier," he said quietly. "You are an asset to the _Enterprise_. I hope you'll be assigned there when you graduate from the Academy." 

Slim blushed again. "I do, too, sir." 

"I don't know what lies ahead for you," the elder Spock continued. "If you existed in my own timeline, neither Kirk nor I was aware of it--and he would have told me. We were the closest of friends." A wistful look came into his eyes, and Slim was tempted to ask what had happened to his father in that alternate timeline--if he was still alive, or dead, and how long this Spock had been without his best friend. He quelled the desire as the elder Spock spoke again. "Nor can I say what you may encounter on this mission. But I am sure you will meet all challenges with aplomb. May I give you some advice?" 

"Please," Slim said. He'd take any help he could get. 

"Watch out for your sister. Guide her. Obey the senior command--in all universes, in all timelines, these seven exist, and they do know their jobs. But trust your own instincts. Don't follow orders blindly, no matter who gives them--or who _seems_ to be giving them." 

Slim thought back to the communication from Eminiar VII. He'd been ready to accept that it had been his father. Sulu and Chekov had seemed surprised when Scotty didn't immediately comply with the orders. But the Chief Engineer and the CMO had both been suspicious...and their suspicions had paid off. The elder Spock had implied that the same thing had happened in his own timeline. How often had such a thing happened? How often _would_ it happen? Slim straightened his back and looked the elder Spock in the eyes. "I understand, sir," he said quietly. "And I'll remember that." 

The elder Spock smiled. "You look a great deal like your father," he said, "and I imagine most people tell you that. But I must tell you--you are practically identical to the Jim Kirk I knew. He would have been proud to have a son like you." He touched Slim's shoulder gently, then turned to Leo, who was still holding Addie. "I have one last request of you, Doctor. May I hold your daughter?" 

Leo hesitated, then held her out. "Be careful. She--" 

"Don't worry," the elder Spock said, taking Addie. Slim was surprised at the way he automatically supported her head, bringing her to his shoulder in a secure but gentle grip. "I have held infants before, on occasion." 

"Yeah, but she just ate, and she tends to--" 

With a surprisingly quiet noise, Addie opened her mouth and burped up a good portion of her bottle, which spilled down the back of the elder Spock's immaculate outfit. Leo winced. "Uh, do that. Sorry." 

"No need to apologize. Clothing can be changed." The elder Spock's expression as he regarded Addie was filled with a combination of tenderness and...something else. Sorrow? Regret? Slim wasn't sure. The half-Vulcan murmured something in Addie's ear. He didn't know what it was, but Addie looked up at him and touched his jaw. She smiled at him and he smiled back--no, he positively _grinned_. 

Slim glanced at Jim, who gave him a crooked grin in reply. Slim realized he and his father were thinking the same thing--would _their_ Spock eventually loosen up this much, or had it been a quirk of the altered timeline that made him so straightlaced and rigid? 

The elder Spock handed Addie back to Leo, then turned to the crew at large. "Safe journey, my friends. I look forward to seeing you when the _Enterprise_ comes back this way in five years' time." Drawing himself upright, squaring his shoulders, he raised his right hand in the Vulcan salute. 

Spock-- _their_ Spock--copied the gesture, although his expression was a good deal more serious than the elder Spock's. Jim smiled and nodded gratefully, then thumbed his communicator. "Beam us up."


	12. The Galileo Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's late this week--I was temporarily internet-less. Shouldn't happen again.
> 
> Anyway, this chapter is (obviously) based on the TOS episode "The Galileo Seven", written by Oliver Crawford.

Jim was pretty sure the last two days had been the worst ones of his life, and he had quite a list to choose from. 

"Lieutenant, what word from the sensor section?" he snapped at Uhura. 

"At last report, they were beginning to get some readings, but they were completely scrambled." 

"I'm not interested in the last report! I want the current one!" 

"Dad," Slim said softly. "Yelling won't help." 

Jim closed his eyes, trying desperately to calm himself down. Slim was right--yelling wouldn't help, and it didn't even go very far towards making him feel better. Not for the first time, he wished he had Spock's ability to shut off his emotions at will, to stop feeling and look at a situation unemotionally and _think._ And wishing that didn't help matters. 

The door to the bridge hissed open. Jim didn't turn around. He didn't need to. High Commissioner Ferris--another headache he really didn't need--cleared his throat, then was beside him, looking at his watch in what Jim couldn't help but think was a highly theatrical manner. 

"You have three hours, Captain." 

"I am aware of the number of hours I have left," Jim said, biting off each word. 

"Delighted to hear it. However, I shall continue to remind you." 

"You do that." 

"Sir," Uhura broke in. "Sensor station reports continuing static. Estimate eighty percent undependable." 

"Radio communication?" 

"Clearing slowly but still incapable of transmission or reception." Uhura's words, too, were unusually crisp and clipped. The last time Jim had heard her talk like that had been when she and Spock had been fighting after the incident on Nibiru. 

"What do you intend to do?" Ferris asked, in a voice that didn't display much interest in the answer. 

What little restraint Jim had broke. He rounded on the man angrily. "Do?" he repeated. "I'll continue the search, foot by foot, inch by inch--by candlelight if I have to, so long as I have even a second left! And if you'd keep your ass off my bridge, I'd be thankful!" 

Ambassador Fox would have gotten offended. Ferris registered no change in expression, which was somehow worse. "I'm sure your diligence will please authorities, Captain. I am not sure they will appreciate the way you address a High Commissioner." 

_"I am in command here!"_ Jim barked. 

"You are, Captain. For exactly--" Ferris looked at his watch--"two hours and forty-two minutes." At which point, in compliance with Jim's not-exactly-gracious request, he turned and left the bridge. 

There was a moment of silence, and then Slim cleared his throat. "Do you want me to go, Dad?" 

"No," Jim murmured, drained of the anger that had propelled him to that point. "No, you can stay a little longer." 

He stared helplessly at the viewscreen, which showed the tumultuous surface of Taurus II--the only sensor currently operating. Three landing parties had been beamed down, the shuttle _Columbus_ was circling another quadrant...and somewhere, somewhere, was the shuttle _Galileo_ , grounded, probably helpless, its crew at the mercy of the planet and whatever might be there. At least, Jim hoped the _Galileo_ was down there. The alternative was too horrible to contemplate. 

Two days before, a team had shuttled out from the _Enterprise_ to investigate a celestial oddity charted only as Murasaki 312. Almost immediately there had been trouble. An ion storm had knocked out all sensors on the _Enterprise_ , and, Jim could only assume, on the _Galileo_ as well. They'd lost all contact with one another. Jim had immediately begun barking orders to find the shuttle and her crew, but so far they'd had no luck. 

Their difficulties were not helped by the fact that they were on an impossible time limit. The Enterprise was supposed to be transporting High Commissioner Ferris, and a supply of medication, to Makus III for transfer to the New Paris colonies, which were infected by a plague. The transfer was scheduled for three days hence--and it was a three-day journey to the planet. They had to leave precisely on time. And regulations were on Ferris's side. If Jim didn't order the _Enterprise_ to leave the sector, he would. 

It would have been hard enough for Jim to accept that under any circumstances, but these were particularly desperate ones. Because three of the senior staff were down there--Spock, Scotty, and Bones. Jim had wanted to accompany them, but he hadn't even raised the subject. Regulation technically stated that the captain and first officer were not to be on the same away mission. It was one of those regulations that the _Enterprise_ frequently ignored, and had done from the start, but with the High Commissioner on board he didn't dare. 

Spock, Scotty, and Bones. Jim's best friend, one of the few remaining father figures he had, and his husband. Three of the people who meant the most to him. And they were missing. And he didn't have enough time to find them. It was the _Kobayashi Maru_ scenario all over again--a situation that seemed designed to test his resolve. Only this was real. He wouldn't get a chance to try again if he failed. 

One of the consoles beeped. Jim looked around to see which one it was and noticed a light on the engineer's console flashing. "Oh, no..." he groaned. Just what they needed--another problem. 

Slim followed his gaze, then took a couple of steps closer to the console. "It's okay," he announced. "Just the intraship telecommunication system coming back online." 

Jim felt a slight lessening of the black depression that had settled on him. "You're sure?" 

"Positive." 

"So we now have full communication with the rest of the ship," Jim mused. "That helps, I guess. Wish we could communicate with the _rest_ of the universe." 

"We're doing our best, Captain," Uhura said. 

"I know you are, Lieutenant." Jim looked over at Uhura, and he felt a pang of conscience. The rigidity of her posture, the frostiness in her voice, didn't disguise her fear--at least, not from him. Maybe because he felt the same way. Softly, he said, "I'm sorry for yelling at you, Uhura." 

Uhura turned, and her eyes were bright with unshed tears. "It's all right," she said, her voice equally soft. "I understand." She swallowed hard. "They--they _will_ be all right, won't they?" 

Jim didn't answer. His mouth had suddenly gone dry. He could feel all eyes on the bridge looking at him, imploring him to reassure them. And the thing was, he knew if he reassured the crew that everyone who had gone down on the _Galileo_ would be all right, they would believe him. They would relax and go back to their stations, expecting for every minute of the next two hours to see the _Galileo_ on the slowly restoring sensors, secure in the knowledge that everything would be fine, because Captain Kirk had said it would be. 

But he couldn't. He couldn't reassure them of anything. Because the truth of it was, he _didn't know_. And statistics, logic, were not on their side. The _Galileo_ might not even be on Taurus II--which would mean the crew had been dead for two days, and he'd been wasting time on a fruitless search. Even if they were...they only had two hours left. It would take a miracle to find them now. 

Jim Kirk didn't believe in no-win scenarios. Given time, he knew he would have been able to find a solution, and at the very least, find the remnants of the shuttle and the bodies of her crew. But time was something he didn't have. And in two hours, the decision would be taken out of his hands. 

Taking a deep breath, he managed to say, "If anyone can get them out of there safely, Spock can. And he's got the best damned engineer in Starfleet helping him." 

Well, it wasn't exactly complete reassurance, he thought wryly, but at least it had the virtue of being true and logical. And it relaxed Uhura, even if it didn't seem to relax anyone else. 

Slim came back over to stand next to the captain's chair. Jim turned to watch him. He stood perfectly still, his hands clasped behind his back, his eyes fixed on the viewscreen. One could almost believe he was half-Vulcan himself. Only his expression betrayed his fear and anxiety. 

"Slim," Jim said softly. 

Slim started and turned to look at his father. "Yes, sir?" 

"How'd you learn to stand so still?" Just about everyone on the bridge was fidgeting, and they'd been Academy-trained. Jim knew if he'd been standing, he'd have been pacing the bridge restlessly. 

"Practice, I guess," Slim answered. 

Sulu looked over his shoulder, frowning slightly. "The Lawsons?" 

Slim blushed. "Yeah." 

"The Lawsons?" Jim repeated. 

"Foster family I stayed with when I was goin' on twelve," Slim said. He was obviously attempting to be casual. "It's how I learned to deal with people like Ambassador Fox." 

Jim narrowed his eyes. Something about the way Slim stood, the way he spoke, told him there was a lot more to the story than the boy was saying. And although it wasn't of immediate concern, it at least kept his mind off of the _Galileo's_ crew. "Did they mistreat you?" 

"I was only there a couple of months," Slim began. 

"Not what I asked, Slim." 

Slim bit his lip, then nodded. "Yeah." 

Jim's hand curled involuntarily into a fist. He was about to say something when Uhura turned from her console. "Captain, incoming transmission from the Transporter Room on the telescreen." 

Forgetting his son's problem, at least for the moment, Jim stood from his chair and crossed to Spock's station. Within seconds, he had the screen up and running. He started at the sight of the leader of Landing Party Two, smudged, scratched, and with his uniform torn. "Lieutenant Kelowitz, what happened?" 

"We were attacked, sir," Kelowitz replied. "Huge, furry creatures. Anthropoid, similar to life forms discovered on Hansen's planet--I asked--but much larger. Ten, twelve feet in height..." 

"Your casualties?" Jim asked, hoping against hope that Kelowitz was the worst. There had been six in the party. 

"Ensign O'Neill was speared even before we knew they were around." Jim's jaw tensed; O'Neill was one of the newest recruits, fresh out of the Academy only a few weeks before the _Enterprise_ had set out on her mission. "Crewman Immamura has a dislocated shoulder and severe lacerations, but he'll make it all right." Kelowitz's eyes glazed over momentarily; Jim knew he was seeing those creatures again. "Captain, they're all over the place. If the _Galileo_ is down on that planet..." 

Jim nodded. Part of command was keeping a straight face when you wanted to scream, but he was being tested to the limit. "Thank you, Lieutenant. You'd better report to MedBay yourself." _And, God help me, I wish Bones was there to treat you,_ he added silently. 

"Aye, aye, sir." 

The image faded. Jim was about to say something to Uhura when Ferris strode onto the bridge, looking determined. "Captain Kirk, your time is up." 

With effort, Jim controlled his anger. "Commissioner, my men are still out there." 

"So are the plague victims on New Paris!" Ferris drew himself up. "I now assume the authority granted me under Title Fifteen, Galactic Emergency Procedures. I order you to abandon search. Captain," he added, with perhaps the faintest trace of disdain in his voice. 

"Shuttlecraft _Columbus_ hasn't returned yet," Jim pointed out. "I also have two search parties still out." 

"You have your orders, Captain. Recall your search parties and proceed to Makus III immediately." 

Jim realized he had lost. He turned to Uhura and spoke in a voice with no inflection whatsoever. "Lieutenant, order the Transporter Room to beam up the search parties still on the surface. Attempt contact with the _Columbus."_

"I'm in partial contact with them now, sir." Uhura looked at him with eyes full of pleading, begging him not to discontinue the search. Jim couldn't meet them. 

"Have them return at once." Leaving Spock's station--no, _the science officer's station,_ he reminded himself firmly--he returned to the command chair. "Mr. Sulu, prepare to abandon search. Set course for Makus III." 

Ferris left the bridge--and the air of stiff attention to duty left Jim. He slumped in his chair. It was too late. There was nothing he could do, nothing he could say. He was a widower, a single father. And it was all his fault. Spock, Bones, Scotty--they were gone, dead on that savage planet. Maybe they'd been dead for a long time. He'd lost three more people he loved, people who were depending on him, people he cared about. Had their deaths been easy? Of course not. How could they have been? 

"Sir," Uhura said, her voice raised, and Jim realized she had tried to say something already. "The sensor beams are working again." 

Jim wanted to break down crying, but there wasn't time. There wasn't time for anything. 

"The other systems?" he asked Uhura, hopelessly. Of course there would be nothing. 

"No, sir," Uhura replied, still giving him those pleading eyes. "Still too much interference." 

Sulu spoke up from the console. "Course set for Makus III, Captain." 

"Thank you, Sulu. Steady on post. Uhura, how long before the _Columbus_ comes aboard?" 

"Twenty-three minutes, sir." 

"Twenty-three minutes," Jim repeated. He continued to stare at the viewscreen. It was too much to hope that they would see any sign of the _Galileo_ in that time, but it was at least twenty-three minutes where he could pretend, for his crew's sake, that there was a chance. "Slim..." 

Slim nodded and turned for the door. His eyes were bright with unshed tears, and Jim wanted to hug him and reassure him--but how could he, when he was barely holding it together himself? "I'll send Dr. Marcus up once I've got Addie," he said softly. 

Jim nodded as he watched the boy leave. Dr. Carol Marcus, the science officer he hadn't requested eleven years before but who had become a part of the family anyway. He'd never had cause to regret her presence. Well, he could replace his science officer, obviously. Sulu was the natural choice for First Officer. M'Benga could take over as CMO. He wouldn't ask Chekov to go back to Engineering--the man was much more comfortable as navigator--but Keenser could probably run the department just fine. 

Replacing officers was easy. Replacing friends--family--was harder. And Jim knew he would never forgive himself for letting them go into that mess. Their deaths were on his head. He gripped his left hand tightly, twisting the ring Bones had put there eight years before. It hadn't left his finger since, and he vowed it never would. After all, that was all he had left of his husband and his happy marriage--that and Addie. 

Carol came onto the bridge, wisely not saying anything as she took her place at the science officer's console. Jim, his chin in his hand, kept staring at the viewscreen. As if from a long way away, he heard Uhura say, " _Columbus_ back on board, sir." 

Jim thought of the description of the planet's inhabitants that Kelowitz had given him, and of the crew members at their mercy. Suddenly, he reached a decision. 

"Mr. Sulu," he said, straightening up. "Proceed on course as ordered for Makus III. At space normal speed." 

Sulu and Chekov both turned, surprised. "But, sir," Sulu ventured, "all systems report secured for warp factors. Space normal speed?" 

"You heard me, Mr. Sulu." Jim turned. "Lieutenant Uhura, order all sensor sections to direct beams aft, full function, continuous operation until further notice." 

From the way Uhura and Sulu both sat up a little straighter, Jim knew they had realized what he was doing. If this was a _Kobayashi Maru_ scenario, they were going to beat it the Jim Kirk way. Namely, by bending the rules until the ends touched. Ferris, with his attention to minutae and regulations, had failed to specify that they proceed at warp. 

Jim was going to give the _Galileo's_ crew every possible chance of rescue. 

Ten minutes later his hopes were lower. He looked down at his hands, unable to disguise the pain in his face. He'd gambled, and he'd lost. Just like the _Galileo_. They were gone. 

Sulu suddenly gave a cry. Jim looked up quickly. "Yes, Mr. Sulu?" 

"The screen, Captain!" Sulu yelled. "Something's back there! At Taurus II!" 

Jim suspected his helmsman was hallucinating. He, Chekov, and Uhura had all refused to leave the bridge unless Jim did while the _Galileo's_ fate was unknown, and Slim, with his gentle persistence, had only succeeded in getting them to leave the bridge once in the last forty-eight hours. They were tired, hungry, and worn out by strain. "The screen," he repeated. Then he looked up at it. "Sensors? A meteorite?" 

"No, sir. It's holding a lateral line! There it is again--on the screen. Captain, it's holding steady!" 

And then Jim saw what Sulu did. A streak of blue flame against the blackness of space. A flare. It could only be... 

Jim practically leapt from his chair. "One hundred and eighty degrees about, Mr. Sulu! Lieutenant Uhura! Contact Transporter Room! All beams ready! Full normal speed!" 

The bridge jumped to action, renewed hope surging through all of them. As they managed to turn around, the flame on the screen flickered and died. Jim didn't take his eyes from where he had last seen it and prayed the Transporter Room had it locked on. He crossed his fingers and shouted, _"Activate transporter beams!"_

And then there was nothing to do but wait. Sulu said, "Whatever it was, Captain, it just burned up in the atmosphere." 

"Yes, I can see it for myself, Sulu." Jim could feel sweat breaking from every pore. If what they'd seen hadn't been the _Galileo_...if the transporters hadn't worked... 

Uhura grabbed at her earpiece. "Sir," she practically shouted. "Transporter room reports five crew members come through, safe and sound!" 

Jim expelled the breath he'd seemed to be holding for the past two days. The bridge crew broke into smiles of relief. A couple of people laughed with delight. Turning slightly, Jim caught Uhura's glance and both of them grinned at each other. 

A small voice spoke up from behind them. "Only five?" 

The grin froze on Jim's face. He turned to see Slim, who was holding Addie. The little girl's blue eyes roamed the bridge, as though wondering what was going on. Slim's face was pale, his eyes worried--just as he'd looked when he'd left the bridge half an hour before. 

Jim turned back to Uhura; her expression mirrored his. Of course, how could he have forgotten? They'd sent seven crew members down. Spock, Bones, Scotty, Lieutenant Boma, Lieutenant Gaetano, Yeoman Mears, and Lieutenant Latimer. Seven went down. Five came back. Who had been left behind? 

Struggling to keep his voice normal, Jim said, "Mr. Sulu, set course for Makus III at warp factor one." 

"Warp One, Captain," Sulu replied. He turned back to his controls, but Jim had seen his jaw working and knew the helmsman was as nervous as he was. 

Well, maybe not as nervous. As far as Jim knew, Sulu was not romantically involved with anyone. Certainly not anyone who had been on the _Galileo_. He was friends with Scotty and Bones, and perhaps with Latimer, who was a navigator, but that was as far as it went. 

Uhura, on the other hand...Jim turned again and met her eyes. The look of fear on her face was one he could understand all too well. She and Spock weren't married, but they'd been together for more than a decade, and she never faced the possibility of losing him well. Jim, on the other hand, didn't just have his own needs to consider, although the thought of going on living without his Bones was one that he genuinely could not grasp. But they had _children_. 

Jim glanced over his shoulder again. "C'mere," he said quietly. 

Slim obediently came closer. Jim stood up and wrapped his arms around his son and daughter. "It's gonna be okay," he said brokenly. "It's...I'm sure he's okay." 

Slim freed one arm from supporting Addie and hugged Jim back. "I wish it hadn't taken so long," he mumbled. 

At the pneumatic hiss of the bridge door, Jim released Slim and looked up anxiously. Spock was striding through, looking a touch battered but overall none the worse for the wear. Behind him... 

Jim couldn't help the small sob of relief that escaped his throat at the sight of Bones, his hair rumpled but otherwise fine. Scotty was there, too. Behind them, Jim saw Lieutenant Boma and Yeoman Mears. Mears was completely unscathed. Boma looked somewhat shamefaced, but he, too, seemed to be in one piece. 

Uhura sprang out of her chair as though rocket-propelled and threw her arms around Spock's neck. He looked a little startled--and slightly embarrassed--but he hugged her back. Bones came over to Jim's side. He ruffled Slim's hair affectionately, kissed Addie's cheek, and then looked at Jim with eyes that spoke volumes. 

What he said was, "We made it." 

"You did," Jim agreed with a smile. He sat down and indicated the spot next to him. "Why don't you have a seat and tell me all about it."


	13. He Would Have Been There

Slim was glad they were finally beyond known space, done running errands and shuttling diplomats and commissioners. The ship was running a bit quieter now. In the month since they'd transferred the medicine to the ship bound for New Paris, everything had been routine. No hostile encounters, no dramatic rescues, not even any glitches in the ship's system. About the only issue they had had was that Addie, who was almost seven months old now, was teething. 

Even that, Slim thought, watching her chew on a teething ring they kept in the freezer for her, wouldn't have been a problem. Except that she took it into her head to chew on whatever she could reach. Generally speaking, people didn't seem to mind her chomping on their fingers--the first tooth hadn't popped through her gums yet--but they did mind when she got hold of, say, a PADD, or a chess piece, especially when she took it from a player's hand. And she cried when they took things back from her. 

The door to their quarters beeped. Addie took the teething ring out of her mouth and lit up, but Slim knew it wasn't Leo or Jim--they both had access to the quarters. Wondering who would be looking for either of them at this time of day, Slim crossed to the door and opened it. 

"Oh--hello, Aunt Nyota," he said with a smile. 

Uhura returned the smile as she came in. "Hi, Slim. I just thought I'd come by and see you. Haven't had a chance to talk in a while." 

Slim gestured to the sofa. Uhura sat down, smiling at Addie, who crawled over and started hauling herself upwards. "She'll be walking any day now." 

"Yeah," Slim agreed. "I don't reckon anyone's given thought to baby-proofing the _Enterprise_." 

"I certainly hadn't," Uhura admitted. "I doubt anyone else has, either. But this is a first, you know. I mean, the uncharted space program is pretty new anyway, but nobody's ever taken a family on a voyage before." 

Slim couldn't help but blush. "I never meant...I mean..." He fumbled over his words. When his dad had offered him the chance to go into space, he'd jumped at it. It hadn't occurred to him how that might affect the crew, or the running of the ship. He and Addie had managed to stay out of the way during the last two missions--mostly--but as his sister got more mobile, would that continue to be the case? And what if they got into a _really_ dangerous situation--a danger that affected the _Enterprise_ itself? 

"No, Slim, I didn't mean it like that," Uhura said quickly. "I just meant...well, this is an experiment. Jim told me that Starfleet expects him to keep a supplemental log about how you and Addie being here affects everything. And aren't you keeping a journal?" 

Slim nodded. "It's part of my studies." 

"Well, there you go. They want to know how this goes. I think if this works, you might be the first kids to go with a starship on a mission, but you won't be the last." 

Slim felt a lurch in his stomach. "So if I mess up, I ruin it for everyone?" 

"You know, you worry too much." Uhura laughed. "You won't ruin it. Anyway, that's not what I came up here to talk about. Your birthday is coming up, isn't it?" 

"Yeah, next week." Slim looked at her in surprise. "How'd you know that?" 

Uhura looked equally surprised. "I'm your godmother. I remember when you were born, of course. And part of my job is keeping track of the days." 

Slim blushed. "Guess I'm just not used to people noticing." 

"What do you usually do on your birthday?" Uhura asked. 

"Usually? Go to the Roxie." Slim smiled at the memory. "My foster homes were never more'n an hour away. I used to go once a week, more if I could, but on my birthday I'd spend the whole day there." 

Uhura smiled. "What's the Roxie?" 

"Movie house back in Oklahoma," Slim said. "A dollar bought you a seat, and you could stay all day if you wanted. Ten cents for a box of popcorn, a nickel for a soda. They mostly played old films from the first half of the twentieth century, but during the week they played old television shows, too. I used to go Monday afternoons if I could only make it once a week. That's when they played my favorites." 

"Sounds like a relic from the 1940s," Uhura said. 

Slim chuckled. "That was the idea. The man who owned it was rich--he made his money elsewhere--so he opened this theater 'cause it reminded him of what he used to hear about from his grandmother, who heard about it from _her_ grandmother, and so on and so forth. It never made much money, but it didn't have to." 

Uhura smiled. "It sounds like you had a lot of fun. What was your favorite?" 

" _The Adventures of Robin Hood,_ 1938," Slim replied unhesitatingly. "With Errol Flynn as Robin Hood and Olivia de Havilland as Maid Marian." 

"I know the story, but I've never seen that version," Uhura said. "Honestly, I've never seen anything more than a hundred years old." 

"You can't beat the classics. Modern special effects are all well and good, but there's just...there's somethin' about the old movies." Slim thought for a minute. "Maybe it's how much they did with how little they had to work with. You ever heard of _Psycho_? One of the first horror movies ever. There's a scene where someone gets stabbed in the shower. Know how they did the blood?" Uhura shook her head. "Chocolate syrup. I reckon that's what I mean. Watching how they made people believe they were seeing something real...when they didn't have a tenth of the technology we have today to fake it. It's impressive." 

Uhura laughed softly. "You're your father's son, all right. Your mom couldn't have cared less about technology. A real nature girl." 

Slim hesitated. In four months, he'd resisted the urge to ask any questions of a personal nature. But the fact remains that Uhura was the only person onboard who'd known his mother well. And while Slim had adapted to his new family--and loved them--he didn't want to shut her out of his memory completely. "Aunt Nyota," he said slowly. "What--what was my mom like?" 

Uhura's smile faded as well. She stared vacantly across the room. "You know," she said softly, "I've been wondering when you were going to ask about her, and what I'd say when you did. And even though it's all I've thought about for the last four months...I'm still not sure where to start." 

Addie, who was scooting herself along the furniture, bumped into Slim's knees; he picked her up and sat her on his lap, giving her his finger to chew on. "How'd you meet her?" 

"She got lost on her way to her dorm," Uhura answered. Having a starting point seemed to help. Slim listened as the words flowed from her. "The new term hadn't started yet. I'd gone out with my roommate Gaila, and she'd gone off with a guy. I was heading back alone when I bumped into Alice, clutching her bag and looking bewildered. Turned out she had the room three doors down from mine. She was scared to death and totally lost, so I offered to walk with her. We started chatting and I ended up inviting her in for a cup of coffee. By the time Gaila came back, we'd formed a real friendship. 

"She had a boyfriend, of course. He was the reason she was at the Academy. I forget his name, but he was from a little town in Oklahoma, same as her. Not that you'd know it to look at her. I mean, Alice knew more about style and fashion and big-city living than Gaila and I combined, and we'd been living in San Francisco for a year--and before that, Gaila was from one of the high-rolling cities on her own planet. Not exactly backwoods farm folk. But Alice...she made you believe she'd been raised in one of the culture capitals of the world. Swore she was never going home. That's why her boyfriend had joined Starfleet as soon as he turned eighteen. Security track, I think. He'd gone back to see her a few times when he had time off, and as soon as she was old enough, she joined up, too. They were hoping to be assigned to the same ship when they graduated. 

"I didn't like him--he was a jerk. I tried to talk Alice out of dating him. She ignored me. Said he was sweet and handsome and strong, and that they'd been intended since they were children." Uhura's eyes took on a vacant look again. "But they did fight. I guess that's how you came about. She'd been at the Academy for only a couple of months when they had a fight. He didn't want her on the Navigation track--wanted her to train to be a nurse. She went off in a huff and told me she was going to head to the local bar. I offered to go with her, but she said no, I had a test the next day and needed my head clear. Against my better judgement, I agreed. When I saw her the next day...she looked tired, but assured me she was fine." She sighed. "Then a couple months later, she showed up in our room crying and told us she was pregnant, and that she was pretty sure it wasn't Bobby's-- _Bobby!_ " She sat upright. " _That_ was his name. I knew it was in there somewhere." 

Slim chuckled. "But she didn't tell you whose it was?" 

"No. I asked. She said she wasn't sure. And then she said it _might_ be Bobby's. And then she refused to discuss the subject again." Uhura sighed. "Drove me crazy. Did I _suspect_ who your father was? Sure. In the back of my mind, maybe. Half the women at the Academy--" She stopped. 

Slim covered Addie's ears jokingly, as though a seven-month-old baby could understand, or remember. "Pa told me that Dad led a wild life 'fore they got married." 

"I don't want to--" Uhura began, then stopped again. "Who am I kidding? I _hated_ him back then. He was arrogant, a womanizer, and ready to fight at the drop of a hat. It wasn't until a lot later that I found out there even _was_ another side to him, much less what it was." She studied Slim, her expression softening. "Your mom liked him, you know. Even though she never talked to him again. Or to Bobby after he found out she was pregnant and that it probably wasn't his. Actually, he quit the Academy after that and went home. But your dad...her second year at the Academy, your mom and I had one of our only fights over him. I said I didn't see a single redeeming quality in him. Your mom insisted he was a good man, and that there were hidden depths to him. I remember saying they must have been _really_ well-hidden." 

Slim laughed, letting go of his sister's ears. Addie joined in, which she usually did when someone laughed near her. Uhura grinned. "She was a good-hearted woman, your mother. As evidenced by the fact that she saw the good in your father when I suspect only two other people in the _country_ even noticed it." 

"Who were they?" Slim guessed that one was his grandmother, but he couldn't think who the other was. Spock maybe. He looked at things so logically that he must have known... 

"Leo--Dr. McCoy--and a man named Christopher Pike." A wistful expression came over Uhura's face. "He was an admiral in Starfleet. Actually, he was the first captain of the _Enterprise_. For about two days. He's the one who talked your dad into joining in the first place. He was a wonderful man. A great man." 

Slim decided not to press matters about Christopher Pike. Instead, he sat quietly, waiting for Uhura to resume her narrative. After a while, she shook herself and smiled at Slim. "Anyway...that's basically your mom in a nutshell. I wish I'd known she was gone. I'd have...I don't know. I'd have tried to do my duty as your godmother, at the very least." 

"But then you wouldn't have stayed on the _Enterprise_ ," Slim pointed out. "Or if you did, I'd have just ended up...I don't know. With a guardian you designated for me. And then I never would have found out about my dad." 

"True," Uhura admitted. 

Slim hesitated, then smiled up at his godmother. "I'm glad it worked out this way. I don't reckon there's anyplace better to be than the _Enterprise_ , or any family better than her crew." 

"I can attest to that." Uhura's smile returned. "God, how long have I been here nattering away? And I never asked the question I actually came by to ask. What do you want for your birthday?" 

The question caught Slim off guard. Nobody had ever asked him that question before--and he'd never received anything, except maybe some extra pocket money, or free refills on soda at the Roxie, or--on one occasion--twenty minutes to pack his things and get out the door, bound for another foster home. He'd never been given a birthday present, or a Christmas present, or in fact _any_ kind of present. And certainly no one had ever asked him what he would _like_ for such a thing. 

Anyway, what could he say? He already had more than he could have desired in his wildest dreams. A father-- _his_ father. The opportunity to go into space. A sister who adored him, a stepfather who accepted him without question. Unexpected friends in the rest of the crew. And his past, his family history. What more could he ask for? 

"I--I don't know," he stammered. "What do you get someone who has everything?" 

Uhura started, staring at him. "You know," she said eventually, "I really believe you mean that." 

"I do," Slim said. "I've got a family and a home. I've got love and a future. What else do I need?" 

"If I could answer that, Slim, I'd be a lot wiser than I am." Uhura crossed the room and gave him a hug. "You know, Ambassador Spock was right. You can most _definitely_ teach us something."


	14. The Last Gunfight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry about how late this is! I was doing NaNoWriMo and got behind, so I've spent the last week playing catch-up. Which is why I'm posting on Sunday evening instead of Tuesday or Wednesday. I promise I'll get back on a schedule now that NaNo is over.
> 
> That being said...thank you so much to everyone who's read and reviewed so far! I really think you're going to like where this story is going. I know I am.
> 
> Also--and I completely forgot to mention this before--this chapter is based on the episode "The Spectre of a Gun." I used the original episode title instead.

"Sensors picking up a buoy, sir." 

Jim rubbed the back of his neck. The _Enterprise_ had orders to contact the Melkotians at all costs, but in Jim's opinion, "all costs" did not include the destruction of his ship and the death of his crew, and people who posted buoys on the outskirts of their planet's orbit tended to shoot first and ask questions later if people didn't follow proper protocols. And with his children on board... 

"Fly closer, Mr. Sulu," he said. "Let's see what they have to say." 

As Sulu complied, the door to the bridge hissed open, and Slim's voice came from behind him. "Sir, Mr. Scott asked me to let you know that we'll be within transporter range in two minutes." 

Jim turned in surprise. That was the sort of thing they usually used the intercom to relate. Then he noticed that Slim had Addie on his hip, and that there were the traces of tears on her face. "What happened?" 

"She tried to pull herself up on something and she slipped. She's okay." Slim stroked his sister's hair lightly. "Surprised you couldn't hear her wailing all the way up here, though. They could down in Engineering." 

"Got a set of pipes on her," Jim agreed. He started to take her out of his son's arms, then was stopped by Uhura's voice. "Captain, incoming transmission from the buoy." 

Jim checked his reach for his daughter. They were in the middle of a mission. He couldn't let himself be distracted. "Play it, Lieutenant," he said, straightening and trying to look professional. 

Uhura twisted a knob. A voice projected into the bridge. "Aliens. You have encroached on the space of the Melkot. You will turn back immediately. This is the only warning you will receive." 

Jim's stomach twisted with unease, tempered slightly with surprise at the fact that the message was in English. He hadn't expected that from a planet that hadn't made space contact. 

Uhura's eyes were wide as she turned from the console. "Uh, the message is, 'Aliens--'" 

"I heard what they said, Lieutenant," Jim replied. 

Uhura looked surprised. "I didn't know you spoke Swahili." 

" _Swahili?_ " Jim repeated, frowning as he turned to look at his Communications officer. 

Chekov turned around, his baby-blue eyes wide with worry. "Zat was Russian, Keptin." 

"In point of fact, Mr. Chekov," Spock said calmly, "I heard the message in Vulcan." 

Jim turned to Sulu, who looked puzzled. "Mr. Sulu?" 

"It was definitely English, sir," Sulu replied. Slim nodded. 

The knot of uneasiness returned to Jim's stomach. He kept his voice calm with effort. "In other words, all of us heard the message in our native languages. Without effort. Mr. Spock, analysis?" 

"It would appear that the Melkotians are telepaths," Spock replied. "I would advise caution." 

Jim raised his eyebrows. "You mean, try not to think anything dirty?" 

Spock stared at him. "I mean, Captain, that we may be in for a very serious encounter. True telepaths can be very formidable." 

Jim sighed. "I was afraid you'd say something like that. Unfortunately, we've got no choice. We have our orders." He debated momentarily. "Lieutenant, send a message towards the planet. Tell them we come in peace." 

"Yes, Captain." Uhura sent the message. There was a long stretch of silence before she shook her head. "No response." 

"All right. Mr. Sulu, bring us within transporter range." He hesitated, then added, "Once we're within range, you'll have the conn. Mr. Spock, Mr. Chekov, you're coming down with me." 

Spock stood from his station. Chekov also rose warily. Jim turned to Slim. "Slim...why don't you and Addie stay up here? I'm taking Dr. McCoy and Mr. Scott with us. I'd just feel a lot safer if you were here." 

Slim looked up at him seriously. "Sure thing, Dad." 

Jim smiled and clapped his son on the shoulder, then led his officers off the bridge. 

In obedience to his commed instructions, Bones and Scotty were both waiting in the Transporter Room. Bones's eyebrows shot upwards at the sight of the rest of the party. "Jim, are you sure about this? You're taking most of the senior command staff down there." 

"I'm sure, Bones," Jim replied quietly. "The Federation has made it explicitly clear that they consider this mission to be of top priority. My guess is that they're already aware that the Melkotians are telepaths. We're going to make as good an impression as we can." 

"Is the wee lassie all right?" Scotty asked. 

"Just fine," Jim assured him. "Slim's got her up on the bridge." He led the party onto the transporter platform, then turned to the technician. "All right. Beam us down." 

Jim blinked in surprise when they materialized. They were surrounded by twisting fog, on a landscape that seemed almost without substance or form--unrecognizeable shapes, indistinct colors, unidentifiable feelings. "Pardon the unprofessionalism," he said, his voice strangely muted in the fog, "but what the hell?" 

Spock pulled out his tricorder and fiddled with the dials. A frown puckered his forehead. "Captain, I am getting no readings whatsoever." 

"What?" Scotty practically snatched the tricorder out of his hands and turned it over several times. "It's working fine." 

"I am aware of that, Mr. Scott," Spock replied. "Nevertheless, nothing is registering. The tricorder picks up no information whatosever about our surroundings." 

Bones shivered slightly. "It's like we're in a dead zone." 

Jim slipped his hand into Bones' and squeezed it lightly, merely reassuring him that they were together. "Or the eye of a hurricane." 

"Keptin!" Chekov's eyes widened. 

Jim turned to see an image materialize in front of them--like a projection on the fog. Essentially humanoid, the figure was tall and thin, wearing long robes, above which was a cold, pale face, a high forehead, and eyes that made Spock look dangerously emotional. He guessed this was one of the Melkotians. 

"Our warning was plain," he said. From the look on Chekov's face, he was doing his illusion of many languages again. "You have disregarded it. You, Captain Kirk, ordered this disobedience. Therefore from you we shall draw the pattern of your death." 

"Death!" Jim practically shouted. "For trespassing? You call _that_ civilized?" 

"You are Outside." The figure seemed to effortlessly pronounce the capital letter. "You are Disease. We do not argue with malignant organisms; we destroy them. It is done." With that, the figure vanished. 

Jim felt his mouth go dry. He was about to say something when the fog vanished, too. In its place was bright, hot sunlight and dry, empty desert. As they watched, buildings began popping into existence, two stories high at best. 

"Spock, evaluation," Jim said, focusing on one particular building. The sign over it read "Tombstone Hotel." _Tombstone...now where do I know that name from?_

"American frontier, circa 1880," Spock answered promptly. 

"Sir? What is zis?" Chekov drew his phaser--except it wasn't a phaser. Jim was a little surprised that he _did_ recognize it, but he'd seen pictures in his grandfather Tiberius's house, when he was a little boy. 

"It's a Colt .45," he answered. "Perfect for the period." He glanced at his waist, then at the others'. "We all seem to have them. My ancestors came from a background like this." 

"Perfect, but dangerous, Captain," Spock pointed out. He drew his own gun gingerly. "I suggest we dispose of them." 

"No way, Spock," Jim said gently. He gestured for the men to reholster their weapons. "I don't know what the Melkotians have planned for us, but whatever it is, we're not gonna like it. At close range, these things are as deadly as phasers. We might as well hold on to them." 

Bones was looking around. "Jim, that over there--that looks like a newspaper office. Maybe we can pick up a little more information." 

"Good idea. Let's go." 

As they crossed the road, Jim looked at the rest of his crew. They were still in their uniforms, which looked out of place anyway. But he suspected that, even had his men been in period clothes, they would still look out of place. Spock, of course, came from another planet. But Chekov was Russian and Scotty was, well, Scottish. Even Bones, who was as American as Jim was, had come from a different part of the country. Georgia in 1880 was as far removed from the "Wild West" as it was from Vulcan. 

"Tombstone, Arizona," Spock said, studying the copy of the day's paper tacked outside the newspaper office. "October twenty-sixth, 1881." 

"Back in time, Mr. Spock?" Jim left unspoken the word _Again?_

Bones laced his fingers through Jim's, and the two exchanged glances. The _Enterprise_ had had two encounters in the past with time travel. The last one, four years prior, had left both of them raw and shaken. If this was another one of those adventures... 

But Spock was shaking his head. "And an instantaneous space crossing as well, Captain? The amount of energy needed--" 

"Yes, thank you, Spock, a simple 'no' would have sufficed." Jim pinched the bridge of his nose. The date was nagging at him. It was something significant...something else he remembered from his grandfather's living room. A story...

Before he could say anything, an unshaven man came around a corner, saw the five men, and started before exclaiming, "Well, I'll be jiggered! Ike! Frank, Billy, Tom!" He came closer. "I was afraid you weren't gonna show!" 

"I'll be _what?_ " Scotty whispered. 

"Shh," Bones hissed. 

"I knew you wouldn't let 'em scare you away," the man continued, obviously not having heard. "They're a lotta hot air, if you ask me. But now they'll have to fight, after the way they've shot off their mouths." 

It was like listening to Slim when he got agitated. Jim tried his hardest to sound like a Starship captain and not a...well, a corn-fed hick. "Listen, obviously you think you know us. But we don't know _you_. We've never seen you before." 

The man winked solemnly. "I getcha. I ain't seen ya today, neither. That's what I like about you, Ike, you always see the funny side. An' nobody can say Johnny Behan doesn't have a sense of humor." 

"Barrel of laughs, that's me," Jim said. "But look, Mr. Behan..." 

"Just one thing," Behan said quickly. "I wouldn't take 'em too lightly if'n I was you. They may shoot wild, but they're gonna have to shoot." With that, the man looked over his shoulder, then scuttled off. 

_Tombstone. October 26, 1881. They're gonna have to shoot._ Jim's memory suddenly sharpened, focused on exactly what it was he'd been trying to recall. "The Earps!" 

Everyone looked at him in complete bafflement. "He called me Ike, and the rest of you..." Jim shook his head. "That's Ike and Billy Clanton, Frank and Tom McClowery, and Billy Claiborne." 

Spock shook his head. "I know something about this segment of Earth history--enough to identify the scene, at least--but those names mean nothing to me." 

"Me, either," Bones put in. 

"All right. Try Wyatt Earp. Morgan Earp. Virgil Earp. Doc Holliday." 

"Still nothing, Jim." 

Jim stared down the street, remembering how his grandfather had told the story. "It goes like this. In the late 1800s, there were two rival factions fighting it out in Tombstone, Arizona--the Earps, the town marshals, versus the Clantons, teamed up with the County Sheriff. Control of the city. And on October 26, they had it out." 

"And?" Chekov's voice trembled slightly. 

Jim turned back to look at the navigator. "The Clantons lost, Mr. Chekov." 

A moment of silence followed. Spock broke it. "A most fanciful method of execution. But what did they mean by--" 

A woman's scream cut him off. From the saloon came the sound of men's voices, the crash of glasses and the clang of tables. Then the doors swung open and a man stumbled out backwards, falling down the steps. Another man followed. The first tried to get up, reaching for his holster, but he was far too late. The other man fired with a surprisingly loud bang. 

Jim jumped as the body flew back almost to his feet. The man who had shot him went back into the saloon without a word, where things seemed to have settled down. Bones knelt and felt for the body's pulse, which Jim could have told him was useless. 

"Cold-blooded murder," Bones said angrily. 

"'Frontier justice,' they called it," Jim said grimly, pulling his husband to his feet. 

"It can't be real," Chekov said, his voice shaking. "It's just...an illusion." 

Jim wanted to reassure his navigator, but he couldn't. A piano started playing and someone laughed. Jim slid an arm around Bones' waist briefly, then looked over at the saloon. "I think we'd better find out what's happening." 

"Go in _zere?_ " Chekov blurted. 

"Anyone got any better ideas?" When no one spoke up, Jim let go of Bones--it wouldn't do to be seen as homosexual in this era--and led his men into the saloon, wishing he didn't feel like he was leading them to an execution. 

There was a bartender, a waitress who couldn't have been more than seventeen at most, and maybe a dozen customers, including the man who had shot the body out on the street. Almost as soon as they'd sat down--and been greeted as friends, to Jim's relief--the waitress came over and sat on Chekov's lap. Under any other circumstances, Jim would have grinned at his navigator's obvious embarrassment and delight, but what he learned was not comforting. The man who had gunned the other down was Morgan Earp, and although he left shortly after they arrived, Jim was still uneasy. It didn't help that everyone seemed absolutely convinced, despite the fact that they were still in uniform, that they were the Clanton gang. He tried to argue with the bartender and succeeded only in scaring him by twirling his gun around without meaning to. 

"Captain," Spock said quietly as Jim rejoined the group, "the Melkotian said that he would 'draw the pattern' of our deaths from you." 

"Your point being?" Jim said. 

"You are familiar with this period in American history--it means something special to you. He drew on your mind to create this environment, what he considered to be the perfect time and place for our punishment." Spock studied Jim. "While you were pacing up there, I could not help but recall several recordings on the ship's computer. You unconsciously adopted the true 'gunfighter's slouch,' I believe it is called. And a moment ago, you were handling the weapon like an expert." 

Jim looked down at the Colt in his holster. Bones frowned. "Acquired characteristics can't be inherited." 

"I am aware, Doctor," Spock said stiffly. "On the other hand, the possibility of ancestral memories has never been disproven. And you observed the Captain's behavior yourself. Would you care to draw your own gun and twirl it, then return it smoothly to its holster, as the Captain did?" 

"I'd probably shoot myself in the foot--or worse," Bones admitted. 

"Let me get this straight," Jim interrupted. "Do you think the Melkotian is counting on me to act completely like one of these frontiersmen? To--to just automatically respond to the Earps' challenge, and bring about our...end?" 

"It is a possibility you must be on guard against." 

"I'll try to remember that," Jim answered wryly. The truth was, he realized, that it was always a danger. Fifteen years ago when he'd stepped off the shuttle in San Francisco, he'd been impulsive, angry, quick to fight and slow to reason. Pretty much a stereotypical Wild Westerner. It was why stories like this had always fascinated him as a boy--because he saw himself as a cowboy, in a way. Twelve years at the command of a starship had smoothed most of those edges off, or so he'd thought. Now he wondered if they weren't just covered up--if he'd been destined for this all along.

Pushing the thought aside, he asked, "Does anyone have any other suggestions for breaking this pattern?" 

"Why don't we just get out of town, Keptin?" Chekov suggested brightly. 

Jim smiled despite the seriousness of the situation. "It's 'get outta Dodge,' not 'get outta Tombstone.'" 

"What?" Poor Chekov looked puzzled. 

"Never mind. Unfortunately, I don't think we _can_ get out of town. Remember, we're actually on Melkot. If we left, what's to stop them from just putting us right back here?" 

Bones thumped his fist lightly on the table. "If only we had a phaser--or better yet, a communicator! I'd love to see the looks on those Earps' faces as we were beamed back to the ship exactly thirty seconds before the big blow-down, or whatever it's called." 

"You've got a point, Bones," Jim said thoughtfully. "Spock, when we were--" He stopped. After four years, the memory was still too painful to put into specific words. He tried again. "The last time we were thrown back in time, you managed to construct a functioning computer out of your tricorder. And you've still got that here." 

"But we were thrown to New York of the 1930s," Spock reminded him. "At which time technology had just barely reached the point of being able to supply me with the most basic of materials. You will recall that I told--that I described it as 'building a mnemonic circuit out of flint knives and bearskins.' Here, we do not even have a source of electricity." 

Jim noticed the slight hesitation in Spock's voice and realized, with a rush of gratitude towards his first officer, that he had refrained from mentioning the woman's name. Scotty, who had never been told the whole story, was nodding. "He's right, Captain. I couldn't turn the trick myself under these conditions." 

"Scratch that, then," Jim sighed. "We would seem to be limited to contemporary solutions." 

Bones suddenly sat up. "Maybe not. We've got gunpowder in these things. And you said one of the Earp gang was called 'Doc'..." 

"He was a dentist," Jim said, not sure where Bones was going. 

"Still, he must have drugs, some kind of herbs. Cotton wadding. A mortar and pestle. Alcohol--well, obviously we can get that here if we have to." 

"Bones, what are you thinking?" 

"What would happen if we turned up at the OK Corral with no guns at all--just slingshots--and _tranquilizer darts?_ " 

The immediate answer was _we'd get laughed_ at, but the more he thought about it, the more Jim liked the idea. "Brilliant idea, Bones. What's the first step?" 

"I'll go see Doc Holliday." 

Jim tensed. "He's one of the opposition. We'd better all go." 

"No, Jim," Bones said gently. "That would start the shooting for sure. I'd better go by myself and see what I can get out of him, one medical man to another. I suggest the rest of you keep out of sight until I get back." 

Suddenly, Jim didn't like the idea anymore. It was one thing to suggest cooking up amateur tranquilizer darts--which couldn't be much worse than the hypos Bones occasionally attacked him with. But it was quite another to realize that getting the materials for them meant that one of the men would have to walk into enemy territory. Under ordinary circumstances, Jim would have told Bones to stay put and gone himself. They'd have wasted about half an hour going around in circles and it probably would have ended up with both of them going, or neither. But these circumstances were far from ordinary. Jim had learned to trust his judgement--to think with his head instead of his heart--and although his heart was screaming not to let Bones, _his_ Bones, his husband, out of his sight, his head was pointing out (in a voice that sounded annoyingly like Spock's) that this was the _only_ way. 

"All right, Bones," he said at last. "But be careful." 

"Don't worry." Bones slipped one hand under the table and squeezed Jim's tightly, running his thumb over his wedding band. "I've got a lot to be careful for." 

But Jim, as he watched Bones stride out of the saloon, _did_ worry. He couldn't help it. He took a deep breath and stood. "All right, you heard the man. Let's make ourselves scarce." 

The pretty young waitress, Sylvia, blew Chekov a kiss as they dropped a couple coins on the table and left the saloon. This time Jim _did_ grin a little at the look on Chekov's face. "You've got it bad, kid." 

"She is nice," Chekov said defensively. 

Jim put a hand on the navigator's shoulder briefly as they skirted the buildings and slunk into the shadow of an alley. "I'm just teasing you. You know that." 

Chekov relaxed. "Yes, Keptin." 

Scotty pulled out his gun, looked at it, and sighed. "I hope this plan of McCoy's works. I dinnae think I can use one o' these. A claymore, perhaps, but..." 

"Yeah," Jim said absently, staring down the street at the barbershop where he suspected Holliday plied his trade. "I think Bones would be more comfortable with a pair of dueling pistols. What was it you said, Spock? 'Ancestral memories?'" 

Scotty sighed, sticking his gun awkwardly back into its holster. "Too bad Slim's not here," he mused. "Be useful." 

An emotion flared in Jim's chest--a combination of anger and fear. He whirled on Scotty. "You think for _one minute_ I'd put my son in this kind of danger?" 

Scotty threw up his hands quickly in a defensive gesture. "No, Captain, that's not what I'm saying at all!" he said quickly. "I was just thinkin'--he's much less removed from all this than ye are." 

"He used zat phrase--what was it you said? 'Get out of Dodge.'" Chekov's attempt at Slim's southwestern accent would have been hilarious if they'd been on the bridge of the _Enterprise_. 

Jim forced himself to calm down. Scotty and Chekov cared about Slim almost as much as he and Bones did. They wouldn't seriously want him in this kind of trouble. "You're right. You're right. I'm sorry." He took a deep breath. "Guess I'm just a little on edge right now." 

"That would seem to be an understatement, Captain," Spock observed. 

"Mr. Spock, when I want your opinion, I'll ask for it." 

"If I waited to express my opinion until it was requested, you would do a great deal more foolhardy things than you already do." 

A reluctant half-smile tugged at Jim's lips. "If I didn't know better, I'd swear you were trying to cheer me up." 

"Hardly, Captain." Spock's offended look was almost comically exaggerated. 

"Hey," Chekov blurted suddenly, looking over Jim's shoulder. 

Jim turned. His first thought--one of relief--was that Bones had just stepped out of the barbershop, carrying a small bag. But then he noticed what Chekov had seen. Three men--Morgan Earp and two other men who had to be his brothers--stood on the porch of the Marshal's office. Morgan had intercepted Sylvia as she tried to walk past, and he was clearly giving the young waitress a hard time.

Chekov's blue eyes flashed with anger, and he set his jaw. Jim read the younger man's intentions and paled. "Oh, no. Mr. Chekov, don't--" 

"Zey can't _do_ zat," Chekov said angrily. 

"Chekov!" Jim made a grab for him, but it was too late. The navigator sprang out of the alley and marched down the street towards the Earps. 

"Captain--" Spock began, but Jim ignored him. He and Scotty both rushed to the mouth of the alley in time to see Morgan, apparently in response to something Chekov had said, abruptly shove Sylvia to one side. Chekov reached for his gun--Sylvia screamed--there was a loud explosion-- 

"No!" Jim shouted, breaking cover, Scotty a half-step behind him. Chekov fell flat on his face. Bones was running at him from the other direction. He reached Chekov first, fell to his knees, and took hold of him, turning him over. As Jim reached his side, he looked up. 

"Bones?" Jim half-whispered, begging him, _pleading_ with his eyes. 

But the look on Bones' face--one Jim hadn't seen in more than ten years--told him everything. "There's nothing I can do, Jim." 

Jim slowly raised his head and glared daggers at the Earps. All three were smirking. 

"Well, Ike?" one said softly. "Want to finish it now?" 

Jim did. He wanted to avenge Chekov's senseless death, to gun down all three of these men--and Doc Holliday, who had just come out onto his porch--to punish them for their so-called "frontier justice" and their smug faces and the fact that they had just _murdered one of his crew members_. His vision began to be faintly tinged with red, as though his eyes were filling with blood. One hand went to his hip as he started to move forward. 

Before he could, however, someone grabbed him from either side, almost simultaneously. "Let me go," he said in a low voice, almost a growl. 

"Yeah, let him go," Morgan sneered. "See how much of a stomach he's got." 

"Control yourself, Captain," Spock said in his calm, logical voice. Jim had never wanted to hit him so hard. 

Bones' voice was next. "Easy, Jim. You wouldn't stand a chance. None of us would." 

"He _murdered_ that boy!" Jim struggled against the hands restraining him. He turned away from where he'd heard Spock's voice, assuming that Bones and Spock were the ones restraining him, looking to Scotty for support. To his surprise, it was Scotty who was helping to hold him back, although his eyes were bright with the tears he was trying to fight back. 

"Jim," he said in a soft voice that probably didn't carry any farther than the two of them. "Ye have tae calm doon. Ye lose _your_ head an' whar'll we be? Nae jus' the laddie, but _all_ o' us." 

It was Scotty's words--the fact that he could still be sensible through his grief--that got through to Jim. Slowly, his face wracked with pain, he allowed himself to be turned away. He could feel the Earps' mocking looks boring into the back of his neck as they headed up the street.

They ended up in the back room of the saloon. Sylvia, who had been distraught by Chekov's death--or, at least, by Billy Claiborne's--had set them up there, readily supplying them with what materials Bones hadn't been able to get from Doc Holliday. Spock and Bones were doing the work on the tranquilizer darts, leaving Scotty and Jim to work on a set of crude slingshots. The two scientific men talked quietly about proportions and ratios, while the other two worked in silence. 

At last, Jim said, "Thanks for stopping me back there, Scotty." 

Scotty paused in the act of setting the last slingshot aside. He looked up, and his eyes were red-rimmed and haunted. Jim knew that look well. It was the one that had greeted him in the mirror over the mantlepiece before he'd sat down, and one he knew would greet him in every mirror for the rest of his life. Quietly, he said, "I've already lost one family member today. I cannae lose another." 

Jim reached over and squeezed Scotty's hand lightly. He glanced at the crudely made slingshots and realized that, unconsciously, they had _still_ made five of them. It was as though they expected Chekov to get up, come in as bright-eyed and brisk as ever, with his cheerful greeting and his..."God," Jim said aloud as a thought suddenly occurred to him, bringing with it a renewed surge of pain. "What am I gonna tell Sulu? Or Slim?" His senior helmsman and senior navigator had been the best of friends, and they had struck up a friendship with his son as well. Jim remembered walking into the Recreation Room a week before and finding the three of them playing a card game that they were evidently making up as they went along, but having a good time doing it. How could he tell them what had happened? 

"That may not be an issue, Captain," Spock said without looking up from his task. "If these tranquilizer darts do not perform as desired, we will all die." 

Bones flared with anger. "Well, isn't that a wonderful thought!" 

"It is only logical, Doctor," Spock said. "We have no guarantee these will fly true, nor that the chemicals--" 

"To hell with your logic!" Bones shouted. "I'm sick to death of hearing about logic!" 

"If you would allow me to finish--" 

"Why? So you can keep crushing what little hope we have left?" 

"Stop it!" Scotty suddenly shouted, his eyes flooding with tears. "The laddie is _dead_ an' all ye can think aboot is--" He broke off and turned away. "Och, I dinna ken. Every time I think I've cried it all out..." 

"I understand your feelings, Mr. Scott," Spock said. 

Bones' lip curled back. "You understand his feelings," he repeated, his voice dripping with scorn. "What about _your_ feelings?" He waved a hand. "Right, I forgot. You don't _have_ any feelings." 

Spock's hands stilled. Through the entire conversation, he had not looked up. Jim was aghast. He'd thought, after all these years, that they would realize the truth. But both Scotty and Bones had looked away, their faces twisted with anger and grief. 

"'You mistake my choice to not feel,'" Jim quoted softly, his eyes fixed on his First Officer, "'as a reflection of my not caring, while I assure you the truth is exactly the opposite.'" 

Spock slowly lifted his head and met Jim's eyes. And Jim knew that what he had suspected was right: that Spock, far from being emotionless on the subject, was as deeply moved as any of them. 

"You have a remarkable memory, Captain," he said quietly. 

"As often as I've had to remind myself that you said that over the years..." Jim raised his eyebrows slightly. 

Spock nodded, then turned to look at Scotty, who looked confused, and Bones, who still just looked angry. "I meant no disrespect to your grief," he said. "I, too, miss Lieutenant Chekov." 

The anger faded from Bones' face, to be replaced with chagrin. He opened his mouth once or twice, but nothing came out, so he simply nodded. Jim knew that was the closest Spock would get to an apology. 

Somewhere over their heads, a clock struck two. Bones had already told them that the showdown was arranged for three that afternoon, something he'd learned from Doc Holliday inadvertently while picking up the chemicals he needed. They were running out of time. 

"Captain," Spock said, looking up, his mask fully in place once more, "I've been thinking. I know nothing about this famous gunfight we are expected to reenact. Did the whole Clanton gang participate?" 

Jim nodded. "Yeah, that's probably why the Melkot chose it, out of all the stories of the Old West I heard when I was a kid. Five losers, five of us." 

"Did any of them survive?" 

Bones' face suddenly took on a slightly hopeful look. Jim frowned, trying to think--and fairly certain Spock wasn't asking to figure out who would be left to bear the news of their demise to the _Enterprise_. "Yeah, two," he answered at last. "Ike Clanton and Billy Claiborne-- _Billy Claiborne!_ " 

Spock nodded. "You see, we have already encountered a double paradox. The real Billy Claiborne fought in the gunfight. 'Ours' will not. The real Billy Claiborne survived the gunfight. 'Ours' is already dead. History has already been changed." 

"You mean we can change it again." Jim didn't dwell on the fact that the only other survivor had been Ike Clanton. That was _him_. The Melkot must not have dug deeply enough into his memory to have realized that--or maybe it had assumed history would take a different course anyway, simply because neither Jim nor his compatriots were comfortable with Colt .45 pistols. This wasn't a reenactment or a recording. He turned to Bones. "How long will that tranquilizer goo of yours take to work?" 

Bones frowned at one of the darts. "No more than three or four seconds. 'Course, we can't test that. No experimental animals." 

"Try it on me," Scotty offered, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. "I feel about half animal right now." 

Bones hesitated. "Well...a dilute, maybe. Okay, roll up your sleeve." 

Spock held up a hand. "May I suggest we also use this opportunity to test the effectiveness of the darts? We can put Dr. McCoy's dilute in one." 

Jim shook his head. "Slingshots can kill even at a short range. Remember David and Goliath." 

"Only vaguely. However, I do not propose to use a sling. Throwing should suffice." 

"All right, go ahead." 

Spock and Bones worked together and quickly prepared a watered-down dart. Scotty crossed the room and propped himself up against the mantle, one hand on his hip. "How's that?" 

"Just fine, Mr. Scott." Spock threw the dart in a gentle, underhand manner. It flew straight and true--so there was that to its credit--and stuck Scotty in the left thigh. 

"Ow!" he yelped, but maintained his posture. Jim counted the seconds silently. Nothing happened. They continued to wait. 

"Well, Bones?" he said at last. "Maybe you diluted it too much?" 

Bones walked over and pulled out the dart, shaking his head. "No, even watered down, this should've worked after five minutes. I don't understand. Full strength, this ought to have stopped an elephant." 

"Would it work in gas form?" Scotty asked. 

"And how, exactly, do you propose we _dispense_ it in gas form?" 

"Fascinating," Spock said. 

"Fascinating?" Jim repeated. "Mr. Spock, under any other circumstances, I can tolerate your use of that word, but you do realize we are _out of time?_ We can't come up with anything else!" 

Spock shook his head. "Nevertheless, it is fascinating. First a violation of physics, then a violation of history, now a violation of human physiology. This cannot be a coincidence. These three violations must have some logical connection." 

"Great," Jim said. "And you're welcome to work it out at your leisure. Because if we're allowed to change history--which it would seem we are--we're going to change it by staying put. They want us at the OK Corral by three? Fine. They can wait for us. We're staying here."

Hardly had the words left his mouth when the parlor shimmered around them--and the four men, minus slingshots, darts, and anything else they hadn't been holding, stood in the hot desert sun, facing the Earps and Doc Holliday, who were standing under a sign that said OK CORRAL in rather obvious letters. 

"Well," Bones said dryly. "That worked." 

"This way!" Jim vaulted over a fence and took off running, back in the direction of town. The others followed, but the OK Corral reappeared in front of them. No matter which way they turned, trying to escape, the corral appeared in front of them, the Earp gang waiting. 

At last, Jim stopped. Running didn't appeal to him anyway--not after Chekov. "All right, it seems we have to fight. Remember, these are heavier than phasers, so--" 

"Captain!" Spock interrupted him. "Attempting to fight would be suicide--we are none of us trained in these weapons. And obviously we cannot escape. But let me ask you, quickly-- _what killed Lieutenant Chekov?_ " 

"The same thing that's goin' tae kill us!" Scotty yelped. "A bullet!" 

"No, Mr. Scott. He was killed by his own mind." Jim stared at Spock as he continued. "Listen to me, please. This is urgent. The failure of Dr. McCoy's drug was the clue. _This place is not real._ It is a telepathic forgery by the Melkotians. Nothing that happens here is real. Nothing at all." 

"Chekov is dead," Scotty said, but with less conviction than he'd used earlier. 

"In this environment, yes. Elsewhere--we cannot know. We can judge reality only by the responses of our senses. Once we are convinced of the reality of a given situation, our minds abide by its rules--" 

"Spock," Jim interrupted, his eyes fixed ahead. "I see the Earps coming towards us, and they look pretty convincingly real. So do their guns. So does the passage of time, which tells me we do _not_ have time for a lecture, much as you enjoy giving them. Make it short. You think you can stop them just by disbelieving in them?" 

"I can only protect myself, Captain. You must entertain your own disbelief--totally." Spock looked at the three men. "One doubt, and you will die." 

The Earps advanced on them slowly, pedestrians scattering out of the way. Jim swallowed. "We can't just turn disbelief on and off like a switch. I know you can, but we're only human." 

"The Vulcan mind meld," Bones said suddenly. 

Spock nodded. "I could not have suggested it myself; I have cultural blocks against invading another man's mind. However, if you will risk it..." 

Jim hesitated. Bones didn't. "I will."

Bones stepped back, pressing against the wagon box behind them. Jim didn't take his eyes off the advancing Earps; if they started shooting, it would be necessary to do something, at least until he was sure Bones would be safe. The idea of the Vulcan mind-meld made him nervous. Spock Prime had done one on him, back on Delta Vega all those years ago, and it had been a somewhat unpleasant experience, painful and leaving him breathless and shaky. He'd almost rather face the Earps' bullets. Behind him, he could hear Spock's voice softly addressing Bones. 

After a moment, Spock moved over and placed his fingers on Jim's face. Softly, he said, "They are unreal--without body. Listen to me, Jim. Be with me. They are only illusion, shadows without substance. They cannot affect you. My mind to your mind, my thoughts to your thoughts. My heart to your heart, I promise you." 

It didn't hurt this time. The penetration, the contact, was as gentle and easy as Bones' tenderness after a nightmare. First Jim wondered if it was just that he was prepared this time. Then he wondered if it was that Spock was treating him more carefully, being deliberately gentler than the other Spock had. Then he wondered if he was making a sex metaphor out of the concept of a Vulcan mind-meld. Then he stopped caring. 

Jim felt his mind blank. Suddenly he knew--he _believed_ \--what Spock had told him. They were not real. He closed his eyes, then opened them. Spock moved on to Scotty and said his own words. As he finished, the Earps stopped and Wyatt demanded, "Draw." 

Jim glanced over his shoulder. Both Bones and Scotty had glassy-eyed, almost tranquil looks on their faces. He nodded slightly and put his hand on the butt of his gun. 

The Earps drew. There was a barrage of shots--Jim didn't know enough about guns to distinguish between the Earps' pistols and Doc Holliday's shotgun, although there were two that sounded different--and a cloud of smoke and black powder. Neither Jim nor the rest of the _Enterprise's_ men had fired a single shot. 

"Thank you, Mr. Spock," Jim said calmly, staring into the eyes of their astonished opponents. "And now, gentlemen, if you please, let's finish this up--fast, hard, and good." 

All four men were experienced fighters. The Earps may have been used to shoot-outs, pistol-whipping, and barroom brawls, but against the advanced fighting techniques taught at Starfleet Academy three hundred and fifty years in the future, not to mention Spock's knowledge of pressure points and vulnerabilities in the human nervous system, they stood no chance. Within moments, the presumed victors were unconscious in the dust. Out of the corner of his eye, Jim saw Sylvia move out of the shadow of a building... 

...And Tombstone, Arizona faded away, leaving them in a foggy, almost incorporeal limbo once more. 

The effects of Spock's mind-meld faded as Jim turned towards where he'd seen Sylvia and found Chekov standing next to him, completely unharmed and slightly bewildered. Scotty gave a hoarse yelp of surprise and delight. Jim had to swallow twice before he was able to say, "Welcome back, kid." 

Before he could say anything else, the Melkot's image reappeared in front of them. Jim wanted to hit him, but it would be like punching fog--literally. 

However, the Melkot seemed to have something else on its mind. "Explain." 

"Gladly," Jim said, his voice cold. "What would you like explained?" 

"To you, the bullets were unreal. To the players we put against you, the bullets were real, and would kill. But you did not kill them." 

Surprise overtook Jim's anger. The Melkot had tried to kill them--to separate them forever from their crew, and from Jim's children--but was it possible that he just hadn't understood? "We kill only in self-defense. Once we saw that it was unnecessary to kill your...'players'...we protected ourselves less wastefully." 

"Is this the way of your kind?" the Melkot asked. 

Jim thought of the long-dead Admiral Marcus, who had tried to start a war, and of a few other people he'd met in his time as captain of the _Enterprise_. "By and large. We're not all alike. But in general, we prefer peace." He nodded at Spock. "And I speak not just for my own species, but for a vast alliance of fellow creatures who believe the same. We were sent here to ask you to join it." 

There was a long silence. Jim was beginning to wonder if he'd said the wrong thing--if the Melkot was going to pluck some memory out of Bones' mind, or Scotty's, and try executing them again--when the world dissolved around them again, and they were standing on the bridge of the _Enterprise_. 

All was as they had left it, and nobody seemed surprised to see them. Chekov looked completely bewildered, the poor kid, and glanced over his shoulder. "What happened?" 

"She tried to pull herself up on something and she slipped. She's okay." 

Jim jumped slightly at Slim's voice from behind him, but he turned to see him cradling his sister, still with the traces of her tears on her face. "Surprised you couldn't hear her wailing all the way up here, though. They could in Engineering." 

Jim smiled fondly, and this time he _did_ take his daughter. Surprisingly, no time seemed to have elapsed. Turning back to Chekov, he said quietly, "Where do you think you've been, Mr. Chekov?" 

"Right here, Keptin," Chekov said slowly. "But zere was a girl..." 

"Remember anything else?" 

"No, sir, b-but she seemed so real..." 

Jim glanced at Spock, whose face was impassive. "Maybe that's why you're here," he murmured. "Nothing else was real to you." 

Chekov looked even more bewildered than before. "Sir?" 

"Captain," Uhura said from her station, "incoming transmission from the buoy." 

"I'll explain later, Mr. Chekov," Jim said quietly, then turned to Uhura. "Play the message, Lieutenant." 

This time, it was a good deal more positive than the last one. "Aliens! You have entered the space of the Melkot. We welcome you and promise peaceful contact." 

"Glad to hear it," Jim said with a smile. _Guess we impressed them._ "Lieutenant, ask them to specify a meeting place." He glanced at Slim, who had drifted up to the console to watch, and talk quietly with, Chekov and Sulu. Looking at the three of them, he felt a glow of contentment. _Somehow_ , he thought to himself, _it all works out in the end._


	15. The Man We Found

Leo reached up and made one final adjustment to the bunch of balloons he'd hung from the ceiling of the Recreation Room. They hadn't done anything like this since Chekov's twenty-first birthday, but just like then, most of the crew had enthusiastically joined in the planning. Leo was glad. 

Sulu slipped into the room, barely containing his excitement. "Chekov's bringing him up now." 

"Good." Jim looked around. "Places, everyone." 

Jim, Leo, and Uhura had put their heads together. When Uhura had told them (rather indigantly) that Slim had never had his birthday celebrated at _all_ , they'd decided on a surprise party. There was a stack of presents sitting on one table, perhaps a dozen in all, but each lovingly selected. Slim had the gift of making friends. 

Sulu's communicator chirped. He looked at it and whispered hoarsely, "Here they come!" 

Leo joined the rest of the party behind the two tables--one with the presents, one with a rather impressive cake and a few other goodies. Spock ordered the lights to one percent. Addie whimpered, and someone hushed her quickly. 

The door slid open, framing two figures in the doorway. Slim's voice sounded puzzled. "Why are the lights off?" 

"SURPRISE!" 

Slim yelped, jumping, as Spock called the lights back up. "What--who--" he spluttered. 

Jim came from behind the table, grabbed Slim in a one-armed bear hug, and tousled his hair roughly. Slim laughed and squirmed. "Happy birthday, kiddo," Jim said affectionately. 

Slim's eyes were wide as he looked at the assembled group--the senior command staff and a few other people, mostly from Engineering, who had gotten to know him over the last four months. "I--this is--" He swallowed, hard, then smiled. "Thank you guys so much." 

Leo grinned as Sulu and Chekov dragged Slim into the party. Carol was manning the refreshments, handing out cups of punch. 

"Thanks." Leo accepted a cup, then glanced at his husband. "You didn't let Jim anywhere near this, did you?" 

"I heard that," Jim called, shooting him a mock glare. "And I wouldn't do that at a _fourteen_ -year-old's birthday party." 

Leo would have kept teasing, but in truth, he did know better. Jim might spike the drinks at _a_ fourteen-year-old's birthday party, but not his _son's_. 

"Come on, Slim, open your presents," Uhura urged. Leo suspected that, grown woman or not, she was more excited about this than the rest of them put together. 

Slim looked startled again. "Oh--really, you shouldn't have..." 

"Yeah, but that's what birthdays are all about," Sulu said, nudging him companionably. "Getting things you don't need, from people who don't have to give them to you. C'mon." 

Leo moved closer, watching as Slim slowly opened his presents, his fingers fumbling over the papers. The gifts were relatively small--space was at a premium on a starship--but each one had been lovingly selected. Some were no surprise--a deck of playing cards, a chess set for the running tournament on the ship, a set of data chips. Slim warmly--and genuinely--thanked each person for the gift. 

He opened Scotty's gift and found a set of small, delicate tools. A grin split his face. "Thanks, Uncle Scotty!" 

Leo squinted. "Those for what I think they are?" 

Scotty's face was a study in nonchalance. "Well, I'm certainly not suggesting he use them to repair the _Enterprise_ , but if he wants to, say, do a bit o' work on the electronics in your quarters, maybe adjust a bed or two..." 

Jim laughed. "You're not fooling anyone, Scotty." 

Slim set the tools aside gently, then picked up a slightly larger package, this one from Uhura and Spock. Leo suspected that Uhura had been the one to pick it out, and simply signed Spock's name so that he wouldn't give Slim something ruthlessly practical and boring. When Slim got the paper off, he gasped. "This is...wow. It's beautiful." 

Leo's eyebrows shot up. The box was made of laquered wood, intricately carved with patterns of galaxies and what appeared to be the Starfleet insignia. Slim ran his fingers over it, obviously awed. Leo was about to ask where Uhura had found it when she said, "That part's from Spock. My part is inside." 

Slowly, Slim raised the lid, then lifted out a pair of soft-looking black shoes. He turned them over, then looked up at Uhura. "Thank you, Aunt Nyota." He couldn't quite disguise his look of confusion. "Uh...are they...?" 

"They're dancing shoes," Uhura explained. She looked a little embarrassed. "I know it's silly, but your mother liked to dance and I thought you might, too." 

"Oh!" Slim grinned. "Yeah, actually. I've always wanted to learn to dance. Thanks." He replaced the shoes in the box and closed the lid. "And thank you, Uncle Spock." 

"You are welcome, Thomas," Spock replied with a faint smile. Uhura gave him a light kiss on the cheek. 

The three presents remaining were considerably larger than the others. Leo knew what one of them was--he and Jim were giving it together--and the other two, a bit smaller than theirs, were from Chekov and Sulu. Slim opened the one from his parents first. His face lit up as he unfolded the warm-looking quilt. "Thanks, Dad--thanks, Pa!" 

Leo felt a glow of satisfaction. The quilt was one his grandmother had made, and he'd never used. It had taken a couple of runs through the laundry before either he or Jim was satisfied that it didn't _smell_ that way, but Slim obviously loved it. He folded it back up carefully. 

"Do his first," Chekov said, nudging Sulu's present forward. He looked a little embarrassed as he glanced at his own offering. Leo wondered what he'd given him--a scrapbook of Russian history, perhaps. Whatever it was, Slim would love it--or at least pretend to love it. 

Obediently, Slim unwrapped Sulu's present. Lifting out the first item, he started chuckling, holding up a mesh face mask attached to a thick white cowl. "Fencing gear?" 

"Fencing gear," Sulu confirmed. 

"Thanks, Uncle Sulu. I'd love to learn." 

"Good, I'd love to teach you." Sulu grinned. 

Slim smiled, too. And Leo breathed a silent sigh of relief. He'd been wondering how to broach the subject of self-defence classes with Jim. Slim needed to know how to defend himself. Fencing wasn't exactly hand-to-hand combat, but it had saved Sulu's life--and thereby Jim's--on a few occasions, and Slim would be pretty good at it. Probably. 

Chekov looked embarrassed as Slim began undoing his present. But as Slim saw what was in the paper, he froze, his eyes widening. Speechlessly, he looked up at Chekov. 

"It's not official," Chekov said, a little haltingly. "But I thought...it might help you feel more at home on ze bridge." 

Jim frowned slightly, craning his neck. "What is it?" 

Slowly, Slim lifted it clear of the paper. Leo gasped in surprise. Slim was holding up a near-perfect replica of a red uniform shirt. The only difference was that it didn't have the insignia sewn on it, and the fabric was of a slightly different weave. As Chekov said, it wasn't official, but it was damned close. 

"Where the hell did you find that?" Leo asked. 

Chekov's face was as red as the shirt. "I made it. I--I bought ze fabric on Centauri and--" He stopped and looked down at his feet. 

Slim set the shirt back down in the paper and gave Chekov a hug. "I love it. Thank you so much, Uncle Chekov." 

Chekov brightened and hugged Slim back. "You're welcome, Slim. Happy birthday." 

A buzz of chatter started up. Most of the comments directed at Chekov were variants on "I didn't know you sewed," which Chekov took with a mixture of embarrassment and humility. Leo caught Slim and gave him a sideways hug. "You really like the quilt?" 

"I really do," Slim assured him. He looked somewhat overwhelmed. "I--I never expected anything like this. I mean...nobody's ever made a _fuss_ over me before." 

"Get used to it, kid." Leo ruffled his hair fondly. "You're family. We're gonna spoil you rotten--you an' Addie." 

Carol joined them. "Speaking of Addie, she'll be walking soon, won't she?" 

"Couple of months or so," Leo said. "Nine to twelve months is when most babies take their first steps. She's pullin' up on things, though." 

"Yes, I can see that." Carol pointed.

Leo turned. Whoever had been holding Addie earlier had set her down, and she was "cruising" along the furniture, her tiny face creased in concentration. Leo felt a surge of pride. "You know, most kids don't start doing that until eight or nine months." 

Uhura joined them. "Keep in mind, she's the daughter of Jim four-years-I'll-do-it-in-three Kirk," she said teasingly. "Stubborn, independent, and fiercely determined to do everything _first_ and _now..._ " 

Jim turned and gave her a mock glare. "Are you maligning my daughter, Lieutenant?" 

"No, I'm maligning her father." 

"Ah, well, that's acceptable then." Jim turned back to their daughter and picked her up. She giggled as he made a face at her, then brought her over to join the group. She beamed sunnily at them all. 

Leo touched her cheek. "She's such a good-natured kid." 

"Makes things easier," Uhura agreed. "You're going to be in trouble when she starts talking, though. She'll never _stop_." 

"Maligning Jim again?" Carol said with a wink for Leo. 

"Hey!" Jim protested. "I do occasionally stop talking." 

Slim laughed. "Mrs. Tergar used to say the same thing about me." 

"Was that before or after you stayed with the Lawsons?" Uhura asked. 

"Before." 

Jim's eyes darkened briefly. "One of these days, you're gonna have to give me a run-down of your foster families. I can't keep track half the time." 

Leo suppressed the urge to sigh. He knew what Jim really meant: that they were going to have a talk about the Lawsons. Partly due to his upbringing and partly due to his nature, Jim couldn't stand people who mistreated others, especially children. Leo was just thankful that it would be five years before they returned to Earth, and that Jim probably wouldn't have time to visit the Lawsons personally. Starfleet wouldn't take kindly to their best captain getting arrested for murder. 

Addie broke the tension with a string of babble. Leo turned and smiled at her. Carol drew the conversation to her. "Speaking of talking, it won't be too much longer before she starts." 

"Bones and I have a bet going," Jim said, his smile returning. 

"Oh?" Uhura raised an eyebrow. 

"I say her first word is gonna be 'Daddy.' Bones says it'll be 'Papa.'" 

"My first word was 'mama,'" Uhura said. "Which, before you say a word, Jim Kirk, is the Swahili word for 'mother.'" 

Carol laughed. "Mine was 'sir.' My mother used to say that I heard so many people calling my father 'sir' that I thought it was his name." 

"Mine was 'papa,'" Leo put in. "Most kids, their first word is related to what's most important to 'em. And I was my daddy's boy." 

Uhura suddenly chuckled. "That explains a lot about you, doesn't it?" she said to Slim. "As I recall, your first word was 'Starfleet.'" 

Slim blushed. "You're joking." 

"I'm not, I swear." 

Jim joined in the laughter. "I never asked what my first word was, but knowing me, it was probably something that shouldn't be repeated in polite company." 

Although Leo smiled, he felt a pang. Jim rarely discussed his upbringing with anyone, even Leo, but it had left some deep scars. And although he joked about it, it obviously hurt him that nobody had ever cared enough about him as a child to tell him what his first word was. 

Addie wriggled in Jim's arms, so he set her down on the floor. She crawled over to the nearest level surface, which happened to be one of the benches built against the wall. Her little fingers wrapped around the metal rim at the top, right before the cushion, and she began hauling herself upwards. Jim shook his head. "Look at that! She's seriously going to--" 

A crack suddenly widened on the bench, and the entire front panel pulled away. Addie, surprised and off-balance, fell hard and fast, landing on her bottom. Her face screwed up, but even before she'd started to wail, Jim had scooped her up again and was bouncing her to comfort her. 

Scotty frowned and knelt down. "Oughtn't have done that, I'd no idea it was so--" he began, then stopped. "Jim? Did ye know these benches were designed for storage?" 

Jim paused, frowning. "No, I didn't." 

Leo raised his eyebrows. "I didn't, either." 

"Twelve years on this ship and none of us knew that?" Uhura demanded. 

Scotty reached into the space. "Someone knows. Look." He drew out a small object and held it out on his palm. "Anyone belong to this?" 

Spock lifted the object and studied it. "By the accumulation of dust, I would estimate this has been inside this bench for a number of years," he said in his calm, logical voice. "Perhaps the person who put it there forgot." 

Scotty snapped the panel back in place and stood up, brushing off his knees. "I'm not even sure what that is." 

"Nor am I." Spock turned the object over several times, then handed it to Uhura, who was next to him. She turned it over, frowned, shook her head, and handed it to Leo. 

Once he had the object in his hand, Leo realized what it was. He'd seen one in his favorite uncle's hands a time or two when he was younger. "It's a harmonica." 

"A what?" Chekov looked puzzled. 

"A harmonica," Leo repeated. "It's a musical instrument." 

"Do you play, Bones?" Jim asked. 

Leo shook his head vigorously. "No way. Had an uncle who did, when I was little, but that was years ago. I never learned. Never really wanted to." 

"Can I see?" Slim asked. 

Leo handed it over. Slim brushed the dust off of it and studied the back end. He gave a low whistle. "Wow," he said softly. 

"What is it?" Leo asked. 

"It's a sixteen-hole chromatic. They're more expensive than the regular kind, and a lot harder to play." Slim ran a finger over the top, grimaced, and began polishing it on his sleeve. "Whoever owns this must be really good." 

Leo grinned a little. "I take it you play." 

"Yeah," Slim admitted. "I've played a chromatic before, but I never owned one. I just had a basic C harmonica, made of plastic. Got stepped on 'bout a year ago." 

"The Lawsons?" Jim asked. 

Slim looked faintly amused. "Not everything bad that happened to me was the Lawsons' fault, Dad. It fell out of my pocket at school and got stepped on by mistake." 

Sulu was still staring at the harmonica. "There has to be some clue to who owns it." 

Slim finished polishing the harmonica and turned it over a couple of times, running his finger over what appeared to be a line of engraving. "C. Pike?" 

The room went utterly silent. All the color drained out of Jim's face. Quietly, he said, "Where does it say that?" 

"Right there." Slim handed it over, pointing to a spot in the engraving. 

Jim set Addie down and took the harmonica, staring it. Slowly, he sank onto the bench. Leo held his breath as he watched. All of them had had a great deal of respect for Christopher Pike, but none so much as Jim. He'd been like a father figure to him. Jim owed everything to Pike, and his death had hit him incredibly hard. They rarely discussed him, but Leo knew he still thought about it. He'd held Jim during enough nightmares to know that. 

"I never knew he played," Jim said at last, his voice still soft. 

Spock shook his head. "In truth, neither did I." He studied Jim and the harmonica. "I think...he would have wanted you to have that, Captain." 

Jim stared a moment longer, then took a deep breath. "Thank you for that, Spock," he said. "But if I keep this, it'll just sit around for another twelve years collecting dust. He'd have wanted it to go to someone who can really appreciate it." He turned and held it out to Slim, managing a small smile. "Go on, kiddo. Why don't you play something for us?" 

Hesitantly, Slim accepted the harmonica. He brought it up to his lips and blew into it, moving quickly up the register, and stopped at one particular note, which he blew several times. With a soft "ah" of satisfaction, he grinned, lowering the harmonica briefly. Then he began to play. 

Leo started as the melody washed over them. It was one he recognized--one he'd heard just the other day, coming from the tinny piano in the saloon the Melkot had conjured out of Jim's mind. Glancing around, he noticed that Jim, Spock, Scotty, and Chekov each seemed in their own way affected. Obviously they had recognized it, too. Addie pulled herself up on the bench again--it held this time--and leaned her head on Jim's legs. Absently, he picked her up. 

"Where'd you learn that, Slim?" Leo finally asked, breaking in at what he hoped was the end of the song. It certainly sounded like it. 

Slim lowered the harmonica, looking a little surprised. "It's one of the first songs I ever learned to play. Most folks who play the harmonica learn it, sooner or later." 

"I have heard the song," Spock said, slowly and carefully, "but I am not familiar with its title." 

"It's called 'Red River Valley.' Old cowboy tune. I sing it to Addie every now an' then when she's fussy." Slim began to sing softly. Leo half-closed his eyes, surprised by the boy's voice. The words seemed to fill the room. _"Come and sit by my side if you love me...do not hasten to bid me adieu...but remember the Red River Valley...and the cowboy who loved you so true..."_

Addie's eyelids flickered as she leaned her head on Jim's chest. Leo smiled slightly, realizing she was half-asleep. "Well, it certainly seems to work on Addie." 

"Go on, Slim," Chekov urged. "Don't stop. Play some more." 

"Mmm..." Slim contemplated the harmonica for a minute, then started in playing another song, this one a little quicker and more upbeat. Leo found himself clapping along. The party got back into full swing, and everyone seemed a lot happier. 

Almost. Leo kept an eye on Jim. Addie, despite the noise, was obviously quite drowsy, and Jim stayed sort of off to one side, participating but still slightly distant. If anyone had asked, Leo realized, he would have used Addie as an excuse. But no one did. Indeed, it seemed at first as though no one noticed. Even when the party started tapering off, no one said anything. Most people, tired after their shifts, drifted off to go to bed, or to get (as Leo heard the kid from Engineering put it) _real_ food. 

Sulu, Chekov, and Slim decided to break in Slim's new deck of playing cards with some strange card game, and they'd roped Scotty into it. Jim and Spock were talking quietly, Addie asleep between them. Leo drifted over to help Carol and Uhura start cleaning up. 

"Seems like a successful party," Uhura said in an undertone. "I _still_ can't believe Slim's never had a birthday party before." 

"That he can remember," Carol pointed out. "Surely his mother..." 

But Uhura shook her head sadly. "Alice thought--and for what it's worth, I agree with her--that anything under three was really too young for a party. Anyway, who would he have had a party _with?_ Starfleet Academy wasn't exactly full of kids." She sighed, rubbing the back of her neck. "I feel so awful for him. I can't believe I didn't know he was in the system." 

"At least you knew he existed," Leo said pointedly. 

Uhura blushed, glancing over at Jim. "I'll admit, he's a lot better of a father than I would have thought fifteen years ago." 

Leo nodded absently. From the card table, he heard Sulu say, "No, see, the nearest planet has an even number of moons, so clubs count half, but hearts count double--" 

"Ye're makin' this up as ye go!" Scotty said accusingly. 

"No, he's right, that's in the rules," Slim insisted. 

Carol looked at Leo. "They're totally making it up as they go." 

Leo laughed so hard he hurt his jaw.


	16. In His Dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is pretty angst-heavy. I make passing reference to three TOS episodes ("For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky," "The City on the Edge of Forever," and "Where No Man Has Gone Before") but don't really go into details. However, this is the first of (so far) two chapters that deals with Tarsus IV. Have a box of tissues handy and consider yourselves warned.

Jim knew it was going to be one of those nights. 

He'd stayed through the entire party, even stayed to talk with Spock afterwards, but ever since Slim had found the engraved name on that harmonica, he'd just wanted to leave. Finally he'd left with the excuse that Addie needed to get to bed or she'd be up all night. It was as good an excuse as any and had the added virtue of being true. 

Addie was now in her crib, in a fresh diaper and fuzzy yellow sleeper, her lower body covered in a baby blanket Leo's grandmother had knitted for her, sleeping like an angel. The stuffed tribble Jim's mother had sent her, and which Bones refused to let her have in the crib until she was at least twelve months old, sat on the dresser like a silent guardian. The monitor system, which was so sensitive it could detect a gnat coughing in the next room, picked up her soft sighs and little popping sounds as she slept and dreamed. 

Jim lay on his bed with the lights off, curled on his side in the fetal position. He hadn't bothered undressing or crawling under the covers, hadn't closed his eyes. He was _afraid_ to close his eyes, for fear he'd see things he never wanted to see again. 

And he _would_ see them, there was no doubt about that. He couldn't stay awake forever. He probably couldn't even stay awake until he was calm enough to not think about the horrors in his past. If they'd been on Earth, he'd have drunk himself into a stupor, but he couldn't do that here. He was the captain and had to be alert at all times. He could work through a hangover--he'd done it before, especially during his Academy days--but if there was a crisis during the overnight shift, he'd have to deal with it, and he would need to be stone-cold sober for that. A drunk decision could get everyone on board killed. 

_C. Pike._ Did Slim have any idea who that was--or what Christopher Pike had meant to him? A great man, a wonderful captain, and one of only two people in the entire universe who had believed in Jim from day one. He'd gone to bat for Jim countless times, getting him a spot on the shuttle to the Academy, talking Hackett into approving his petition to skip a year's worth of classes, convincing the senior staff to give him one more chance, making him first officer of the _Enterprise_ when by rights he ought to have been shipped back to the Academy to finish that other year. Jim never forgot what he owed the man. 

Pike's death still haunted Jim, all these years later. Not just the way he had died, but the fact that Jim hadn't been quick enough to stop it--and that he hadn't been at his side. According to Spock, Pike had drawn his last breath mere seconds before Jim arrived on the scene, breathless and anxious. And as soon as he realized he was too late, he had broken down completely, sobbing hysterically, silently pleading with Pike to get up, get _up_ , don't be dead, _please_ , don't leave me, don't be just another person I have to say goodbye to... 

Jim bit his lips hard, trying to stave off the memories, but it was too late. Another face swam before him in his mind: a tall young man with light brown hair, light brown eyes, a determined expression on his face--and the same young man, that face disfigured with bruises and dirt, eyes wide open, blood spilling onto the dirt of a planet whose name and memory Jim cursed in every language he knew. 

Tarsus IV. Probably only a dozen people onboard the _Enterprise_ had even heard of it. But Jim remembered. It was indelibly imprinted on his mind. 

After all, he had been there. 

Bones knew he'd been on the planet. It was in his medical records, since he'd returned to Earth suffering from severe malnutrition, and he had lingering psychological effects. But Jim had also seen those files. He knew they only mentioned that Jim had been _on_ Tarsus IV. It didn't mention anything further. He'd insisted he was fine, that he was over being upset and that he could take care of himself--and his mother hadn't forced him into counseling. Maybe she'd believed him. Maybe she'd just been afraid to push him. After all--he realized now, with the perspective of thirty years' distance--she'd been hurt, too. Even though she hadn't been there. 

Jim had nightmares about it occasionally. Usually when he did, he woke up soaked with sweat, his throat raw and his eyes burning...but with Bones' arms wrapped tightly around him, his hand tangled in his hair. Even before they'd been lovers, back when they'd just been friends, Bones had always been there. But he'd never asked, never pressed Jim to talk about his experiences. And Jim had never asked Bones what he said when he cried out in his sleep. _If_ he said anything. But he probably did. He probably wasn't just screaming. 

How much did Bones actually know, how much had he guessed? Jim was afraid to ask. Partly because he didn't want to talk about it. There were a lot of things he didn't like talking about. But usually there was someone else who could tell whatever story it was Jim didn't want to tell. Nobody else knew the story of Tarsus. The Federation had hushed it up, had sealed all records, tried to convince everyone--even themselves--that those things didn't happen. The most anyone knew was that there had been a colony there, that there had been some sort of plague, that people had died, that a relief ship had--eventually--shown up. They didn't even talk about it in Academy history classes. 

But it was one thing to know that four thousand people-- _four thousand and thirty-two,_ a treacherous voice in the back of his mind whispered--had died. It was another thing to be able to put names to them, to see the faces in your mind's eye. 

Worse to know that one of them, at least, would never have died if it hadn't been for you. 

That had been the first one, the first time Jim had consciously, specifically believed that someone had died because of him, that a person's death was his fault and his fault alone, even though he wasn't the one who had done the actual deed. But it hadn't been the last. It hadn't been anywhere _near_ the last. 

Jim curled tighter into himself. The room seemed suddenly to be full of ghosts, all of them whispering, the last words they'd said to him, the last orders they had given, the last acts of defiance... 

_They can't_ do _that..._

_I'd really love to see it, Jim..._

_For the world is hollow, and I have touched the sky..._

_Aye, aye, Captain..._

_Sir, I can't hold on..._

_You want me off this ship, you better kill me..._

_It's gonna be all right, son..._

_We did it, the two of us, we led them, us and us alone..._

_Jimmy, whatever you do, don't say anything, promise me you won't say anything, no matter what he says..._

So many voices, so many whispers...too many all at once, why did it sound so loud, why didn't they take _turns_ , all this noise was gonna wake Addie up, he couldn't let them wake his daughter, couldn't let this touch her, she was pure, she was innocent, she was _safe_ , dammit, his ghosts wouldn't touch her, wouldn't harm her, not his Addie, not his Slim, not his... 

"Jim?" 

_No, oh, God, not him, it can't be him,_ Jim cried in the panicked recesses of his brain. It was Bones' voice, but Bones couldn't be there, the room was full of ghosts and Bones couldn't be a ghost...Jim couldn't hold back a strangled sob, terror and grief mingling. 

"Jim, oh, God." And suddenly there were Bones' arms, wrapping around him, holding him close, warm and solid and _real_. Jim could feel his heart thumping, pounding against Jim's back. No ghost felt this convincing. "Wake up, Jim. It's a nightmare, wake up." 

Jim wanted to tell Bones that he wasn't asleep, but he couldn't manage to say it. All he managed to do was to somehow turn in his husband's arms, to clutch Bones' shirt tightly and bury his face in his chest. The voices had stilled momentarily when Bones spoke, but now they started up again, louder and more insistent. "No," Jim mumbled, and suddenly he was crying, or maybe he'd already been crying and only just noticed it. "No, please, I...I'm sorry..." 

"Shh, it's all right," Bones said. He tangled one hand in Jim's hair and rubbed his back gently with the other. "You don't need to apologize..." 

"Sam," Jim sobbed. 

Bones' hand suddenly stilled on Jim's back. "No, darlin', it's me." 

But Jim wasn't listening. He looked over Bones' shoulder, swearing he could see them all--bloodied, burnt, bruised and blue--staring at him accusingly. "Sam, Tony, Pike," he whispered, beginning to name them, as if by calling their names he could let them know he remembered them all, remembered what had happened, and still blamed himself. "Admiral Marcus. Dr. Dehner. Jensen. Besadny. Edith. Chekov..." 

"Jim, what are you--? Aw, hell." Bones shook Jim sharply. "Jim, _wake up!"_

Jim looked up. His eyes met Bones'--and suddenly the ghosts faded away. Suddenly he knew where he was, knew what was real and what wasn't. 

"Bones," he whimpered, sliding his arms around his husband's neck. 

Bones sighed with relief. "Jim, thank God." He resumed rubbing Jim's back. "I thought you were gonna tear yourself apart in your sleep..." 

"I wasn't asleep, Bones." Jim's voice was still ragged with emotion, but at least he was back on the right side of sanity. 

"Then why the hell didn't you tell me that?" 

Jim swallowed hard. "I--I couldn't get it out. The ghosts..." 

"Ghosts?" Bones' expression softened. "Oh. Findin' Pike's harmonica opened Pandora's box, didn't it?" 

"You could say that." Jim curled against Bones' side and leaned his head against his chest. The comforting thump of his heartbeat, the steady rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, soothed him faster than anything. 

Bones sighed. "Worse 'n usual. I mean, apart from the fact that you were awake, wasn't that different than your usual nightmares, except there were more--" He stopped abruptly. 

Jim looked up at Bones and saw an expression of terrible pain. In that moment, he knew he had to ask the question he'd been avoiding for fifteen years. "Bones. When I have these nightmares...what do I say?" 

"What makes you think you say anything?" Bones replied guardedly. 

"Well, I know I'm doing a lot of yelling," Jim replied, feeling his heart sink. _Oh, God, don't tell me..._ "I usually wake up with my throat hurting. I don't figure it's all 'no' over and over again. So what do I say?" 

Bones was quiet for a long moment. Finally, he said softly, "'Sam.' You keep crying for Sam." 

Jim closed his eyes. " _Damn_ it, Bones," he whispered. "I should have asked you sooner. I...God, I'm so sorry." 

"No, no," Bones said, a little half-heartedly. He managed a small half-smile. "I'm the one you married, after all." 

"It's not like that, Bones." Jim swallowed hard. "Sam is...he was my big brother."

Bones froze, holding his breath. Jim looked up anxiously--if it weren't for the fact that he could still feel his heartbeat, he would have been afraid Bones had spontaneously died. After a moment, however, Bones said in a carefully neutral voice, "The one who ran away from home?" 

"Yes...and no," Jim said softly. "He...he died. On Tarsus." 

"Oh, God, Jim," Bones whispered roughly. He tightened his embrace, pulling Jim close. "Why didn't you _tell_ me?" 

"Same reason you never told me about Joanna, I guess," Jim said. He wasn't intending to be accusing--they'd been over that already, and as far as Jim was concerned, it was forgiven--just stating a fact. "It was too personal. Too painful. I...I just don't _talk_ about Tarsus. It..." Tears pricked his eyes again. "It's my fault, Bones. My fault he died." 

"No," Bones said. "Jim, it wasn't you. I know it's not something anyone is supposed to know, but...I know what happened. I know about the genocide. Kodos is the one who..." He swallowed. "It was his fault. Not yours." 

"No, it was my fault," Jim insisted. "He wouldn't have been there if it wasn't for me." 

"Jim--" 

"No, listen." Jim sat up. Bones sat up, too, a look of surprise on his face. "Remember what I said--remember when I told you I stole Frank's car and crashed it?" Bones nodded. "What I didn't tell you...the reason I did that...Frank was emotionally abusing me, both of us, while Mom was off-planet. And Sam finally couldn't take it anymore, and he ran away from home. I didn't want him to go, but..." Jim swallowed hard, remembering Frank's caustic words. _No one cares what you want._ "I was scared and upset and...I stole the car, just to make Frank mad, to make him hurt the way I was hurting. But...but I got banged up, and had to go to the hospital. _And_ he came back, Bones. Sam came back to make sure I was okay." 

"Jim," Bones said hoarsely. 

Jim looked down at his hands. "Frank convinced Mom--she was away still, but he contacted her anyway, interrupted her work--he convinced her that Sam and I were nothing but trouble, and talked her into sending us to stay with her brother, my uncle Ken, and his family. They were part of the Tarsus colony. Sam and I went up there to stay with 'em." He looked up again, his eyes haunted. "Six months later the plague hit the crops." 

"Jim," Bones said again. He reached out and grabbed Jim's hands tightly. "Jim, listen to me. It's not your fault, what happened to him." 

There was more to the story. So much more. "Bones...how much do you _really_ know about Tarsus? I mean, do you know what happened after Kodos ordered...?" Jim couldn't finish the sentence. 

Bones hesitated. "No. I know the Federation ship--the _Lexington_ , I think--arrived a week later, and that all they found was Kodos' burnt body. Don't think I ever knew how he got that way." 

"Bones, _I_ don't even know how he got that way. It sure as hell wasn't us." 

"Us?" Bones said sharply. 

Jim took a deep breath. This was going to be hell. "You know most of the survivors--maybe ninety-five percent--were kids. You know, his damned eugenics program, he only wanted..." He swallowed hard. "Anyway, the--three of them formed a band of maybe three dozen, led them in a revolt against Kodos. And they failed. Kodos had his own army, about sixty in all, well-trained adults. They put the revolution down, hard. Only about ten of us survived, and the soldiers brought us to Kodos for punishment. Kodos said--" He broke off, brushing a hand over his eyes. 

Bones wrapped his arms around Jim again, pulling him close. "Jim, if you don't wanna talk about it..." 

"No, I've gone this far," Jim said. "Kodos said that--he regretted our comrades' deaths. He said he would spare us if the leaders turned themselves in. He promised he'd be merciful. Two of the leaders, the girl and a guy, stepped forward and said they were the ones, that they had started everything. Kodos told his soldiers to release everyone else--that we were free to go, then looked at the leaders and said, 'And as for you...' And then he--" He choked back a sob. "He--he killed them, Bones. Right in front of us. He stabbed them in the heart with this curved sword he carried, just--just ran them through. And then he wiped his sword on the boy's carcass and said in this dispassionate voice, 'As you see, I kept my word. They died swiftly. I was merciful.' And then he _left_ , Bones." The tears rolled down his cheeks again. "He just _walked away_ and left them in the dirt..." 

Bones hugged Jim tighter. "And the boy--the one who died--that was...?" 

"George Samuel Kirk," Jim whispered. "I was the only one who called him Sam. The girl's name was Antonia Jane Blish--we called her Tony." 

"And the one who didn't stand up--the third leader?" Bones' voice had a note of anger in it. "The _coward_ who let your brother take the heat? What was _his_ excuse?" 

Jim looked away. "His big brother made him promise to say nothing, no matter what Kodos said, no matter what he promised." 

"His--?" Bones sounded confused, then froze. "Oh, God. Oh, God, Jim..." He buried his face in Jim's hair. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I never should have said that. I didn't know..." 

"No, you're right. I was a coward. I should've stood up anyway." 

"And gotten killed?" Bones pulled back slightly and looked down at Jim, his eyebrows drawn together. "Jim, listen to me. _Listen_ to me. Your brother gave his life for you. He _loved_ you. That's why he came back. That's why he told you to keep quiet. That's why he told Kodos there were only two leaders. _That's why he let you live._ Would you have done the same, if you'd had the chance?" 

"Yes," Jim said instantly. "Without hesitation." 

"Then why deprive your brother of his sacrifice? You _weren't_ a coward. You've _never_ been a coward." 

Jim chuckled weakly, without any real humor. "You forget what you walked into here." 

Bones sighed. He pulled Jim back into his arms. "'Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that there is something more important than fear,'" he quoted. "An' everyone gets scared once in a while." He paused. "All those names you said...you blame yourself for all of 'em, don't you?" 

"They're all my fault," Jim mumbled. 

"No, they're _not,_ " Bones said sternly. "'Cept for your brother and Tony, I was there for all those deaths, remember? All those people you mentioned, they died because of evil. _Evil_ , Jim, and not evil that has anythin' to do with you. You didn't open fire on a roomful of Starfleet's top brass or crush a man's skull with your bare hands. You didn't infect a woman with the worst kind of mutant madness or shoot a man with poisoned darts. You didn't trap an entire race inside a spaceship disguised as a planet..." 

"Okay, Bones, I get the picture." 

"The thing is, Jim, you still think you're some kind of superhero. You still believe you ought to be able to save the universe single-handed. And you _can't._ Everyone needs help. Even you. Maybe _especially_ you." 

"The hell of it is, I know that. I just..." Jim looked up helplessly. "You know how old I was when Sam died? I was _nine_. I was way too young for what I went through. And before that, with Frank...I guess I just wanted control over _something._ I just never knew how to get it. The only way I could think of was to do everything by myself. To be faster and stronger and braver and truer than anyone ever before. The lone wolf." He leaned his head against Bones' chest again. 

Bones took Jim's left hand in his and held it out in front of them. "You remember when I put that ring on your finger?" 

"Not likely to ever forget it," Jim replied, with a real smile this time. "It was the happiest day of my life." 

"Remember our vows? We promised to work together 'to foster and cherish a relationship of equality knowing that together we will build a life far better than either of us could imagine alone.' I promised to 'care for you, stand beside you, and share with you all of life’s adversities and all of its joys from this day forward, and all the days of my life.'" Bones kissed Jim's wedding ring. "You don't have to go it alone anymore. I won't take that control away from you--but I'll share your burdens. I'll help you fight your ghosts. And I swear by every deity in the known universe, I will never leave you. _Never."_

Jim felt a lump in his throat. "I love you. So much." 

"I love you, too," Bones said softly. "I always have. I always will." He let go of Jim's hand, caught his chin, and kissed him deeply. 

When at last he let him up for air, he added, "Think you can sleep now?" 

"Only one way to find out." Jim smiled, then glanced down at his clothes. "Maybe I should get undressed?" 

Bones waggled his eyebrows. "Don't bother getting dressed again." 

The smile faded. "Bones..." 

"No, I'm kidding, Jim," Bones said instantly. "You know I wouldn't take advantage of you when you're in a state like this." He stood up. "C'mon. Let's change and get to bed. It's been a long couple of days and we've got more ahead." 

Jim stood as well, but before he reached for the grey sweatpants he usually slept in, he put his arms around Bones' neck. "Hey, Bones?" 

"Yeah, darlin'?" 

Jim pulled his head down--not far, they were almost the same height--and kissed him. "Thanks."


	17. Will He Be

Slim looked around the small gymnasium. Few ever used it--indeed, on his initial tour of the _Enterprise_ , his father hadn't even mentioned it. There was a much bigger one, and a slightly smaller one that the officers used. This one was largely empty except for a fencing dummy, a pile of mats in one corner, and a sword rack with five pairs of swords. 

Sulu and Slim had an appointment for his first fencing lesson. He'd come down wearing the jerkin, but carrying the gloves in his face mask. Mask under his arm, Slim drifted over to study the swords. The top one had a thin blade, a flat circle of metal above the handle, and what appeared to be a button on the pointy end of it. The second looked similar, but it had a heavier-looking blade and the circle of metal was a dome. The third had a slightly curved blade and a handle that, well, looked like a handle. The other two were _incredibly_ serious pieces of equipment. One pair had an ornate handle and a blade about an inch wide, sharpened on both sides. The ones on the bottom were nearly five feet long, broad-bladed and with a grip that probably took both hands. They had a large, round stone at the end--one red, one green. 

"Nice, aren't they?" Sulu's voice said behind him. 

Slim jumped and turned. Sulu was wearing his protective jerkin and carrying his own mask and gloves, and he was smiling slightly. "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you. Are you familiar with what the different blades are called?" 

"No," Slim admitted. "I just know they're swords." 

Sulu came up next to him and touched them one by one, starting at the top. "A foil," he said. "Designed for thrusting _only_. When you're fencing with a foil, you only aim for the torso. An epée, built like a foil but a lot heavier. Also a thrusting weapon, but the whole body is a target. Sabres, for both thrusting and cutting, a lighter weapon but still pretty serious. Target is the entire upper body, excluding the hands." He paused. "Keep in mind, what I'm saying about targets--that's just for competitive fencing. I mostly do classical fencing." 

"What's the difference?" Slim asked. 

"It's a little looser with the rules, a little closer to the way it was in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries," Sulu answered. "Like, well, it was done in the old days. In the classics." 

"The Three Musketeers," Slim said, remembering a few movies he'd seen, books he'd read. "Zorro. Robin Hood. The Dread Pirate Roberts. That kind of thing?" 

"I only know who half of those are, but if Zorro and the Dread Pirate Roberts fence anything like the Musketeers do, then yes." 

"What about the two on the bottom?" 

"A rapier," Sulu said, indicating the smaller one, "and a claymore. They're not really sporting equipment. Actually, they're fairly accurate reproductions of traditional sixteenth-century weapons." 

"Seems kind of dangerous," Slim said lightly. 

"Well...don't tell your father, but they're _all_ sharpened. That's what the buttons on the ends of the foil and the epée are for, and also what the protective equipment is for--to keep us from getting seriously hurt." Sulu grinned. "All right. We're going to start off with the foils, just because they're lighter and a little easier to get techniques down by. Don't worry about the face mask at first. We're just gonna drill." 

Slim put on his gloves as Sulu pulled down the pair of foils. He held one by the blade, hilt towards Slim. "Here. It's a one-handed weapon. See how it feels." 

Slim accepted the sword, hefting it in his hand slightly. "It feels like there's nothing to it," he murmured. Then he glanced up and saw Sulu's face. "Am I doing it wrong?" 

"Are you left-handed?" Sulu asked. 

"Well, it's my stronger hand, but I'm technically ambidextrous," Slim answered. "Is, uh, is that a problem?" 

"No, no--it's just been a long time since I fought a southpaw," Sulu said. He laughed suddenly. "Long time since I fought _anyone_ , really. But if you're ambidextrous...we'll run one set of drills with each hand. That way you'll be able to fence equally well with either hand." 

Slim had his doubts about that, but he didn't say anything. Sulu brought him over to the center of the room. "Okay. Position your feet shoulder width apart. Left foot pointing forward. Right foot perpendicular to the left. Knees bent. Position your weight over you front leg. Now...extend your sword slightly forward. Stretch your right hand out behind you. That's it!" 

"I feel like I'm going to fall," Slim said, adjusting his right arm. He was surprised when that stabilized him. 

"If you ever feel like that again, just adjust your arm," Sulu told him. "That's what it's there for. It's all about balance." 

For the next hour, Sulu put Slim through his paces, alternating between holding the sword in his left and right hand. He taught him the basics of footwork and nine standard parries. The drills were repetitious and somewhat monotonous, and it was with difficulty that Slim kept himself from complaining. After all, that was how one learned, by repetition. How many hours had he spent saying the same words to Addie over and over, trying to teach her a word or two? 

"Ready to take a break?" Sulu asked at last. 

Slim was halfway through a drill and didn't dare stop as he answered. "Yes, please." 

Sulu laughed. "Come on, then, let's get some water." 

Without exactly meaning to, Slim collapsed rather heavily onto the pile of mats in the corner. Sulu grinned again as he handed him a bottle of water and sat next to him. "I take it you don't exercise much." 

Slim shrugged. "I do, just not--you know, drilling. Farmwork isn't this repetitive." 

"You grew up on a farm?" Sulu looked interested. 

"Couple farms, couple ranches," Slim replied. "Few houses. I moved around a lot." 

The door to the gym opened. Sulu turned and smiled warmly. "Hey!" 

Chekov returned the smile. "I came to watch your practice. Did I miss it?" 

"No, we were just taking a break," Sulu said, scooting over slightly to accommodate Chekov. "He's doing pretty well, for a beginner." 

"For a beginner," Slim said with a slight smirk. "For a normal human being..." 

"Stop, you're doing just fine." Sulu cuffed him lightly. 

Chekov chuckled. "Better zan I did, I'm sure." 

Slim looked across Sulu to the navigator. "You fence, too?" 

"No," Chekov said promptly. "He tried to teach me and I almost stabbed myself in ze nose." 

Sulu gave Chekov a good-natured shove. "He exaggerates." 

"Not much." 

The three of them laughed. Sulu turned back to Slim. "Not to change the subject, but back to what we were talking about before...how come you moved around so much?" 

Slim's smile faded. "Few different reasons. Some of the foster homes I stayed in were only ever intended to be temporary--you know, just while they were finding someplace for me. Others didn't want someone my age." 

"What do you mean by zat?" Chekov asked, his own smile disappearing, puzzlement in his blue eyes. 

"Oh, you know, some foster families only want small children, on the theory that they're easier to take care of, they don't eat as much. Others only want teenagers, with the idea of using them for free labor." Slim shrugged, trying to play it off as if it didn't matter. "I got a couple of those. Longest time I ever stayed with a foster family was the last one--the Kincaids. Seven months." 

"What was the shortest?" Sulu asked curiously. 

"Probably the Lawsons," Slim said without thinking. 

Sulu frowned. "Seventy-four days, I think you said." 

"Seventy-four days, five hours, and about twelve minutes," Slim said. "Not that I was counting or anything." 

"Zat's...two months, yes?" Chekov said. 

"Two and a half," Sulu replied. "Ten weeks." 

"Ten and a half," Slim corrected him. 

Sulu and Chekov both looked at him seriously. Finally, Chekov asked quietly, "What did zey _do_ to you?" 

Slim sighed. His father had asked him that same question, and he'd managed to softpedal it, but somehow, he wanted to tell these two the truth. He'd never had friends before. "Mr. Lawson was just a bully. If I did something he didn't like, or didn't do something fast enough, he'd take a swing at me. I learned how to handle him pretty quickly, like I said. It was Mrs. Lawson who was the real problem. She was just..." He shook his head, a lump forming in his throat. "She never laid a finger on me, but she'd say things. Nasty comments about unwed mothers and unwanted children and..." He swallowed hard. "Things designed to make me feel bad about myself. Feel like I wasn't worth anything." 

"Is that why they moved you so quickly?" Sulu asked. 

Slim bit his lip. "No," he admitted. "Mrs. O'Leary didn't know what was going on. I never told her. The only reason that I got moved was that it was the end of summer. The nearest school was an hour away, and the Lawsons hadn't made any provisions for me to attend one." 

Chekov and Sulu looked at one another. "Why didn't you tell her?" 

"I didn't tell _anyone_. Not until you all sort of surprised it out of me." Slim blushed. "She wouldn't have believed me." 

"I'm sure she would have," Sulu said gently. 

"She never had before," Slim said, then wished he hadn't. 

Chekov turned white. He opened his mouth to say something, but Sulu shook his head and stood. "Slim, you ready to try some actual fencing?" 

"Sure," Slim said, grateful for the reprive. He popped to his feet and picked up his face mask. 

Sulu got to his feet as well. "All right. Remember those parries I showed you?" Slim nodded. "We'll do the same sort of drills we did before, only this time, I'll be thrusting at you. Try to parry." 

"I'll do my best," Slim promised. 

Chekov settled back to watch as the two took up the appropriate stance. Sulu lowered the mask over his face. "First things first. Dueling etiquette--you salute your opponent." He placed the guard of the foil against his mask, then snapped the sword forward, then down. 

Slim copied the motion, a little awkwardly. Sulu nodded. "And now-- _en garde--"_

Slim got into the correct position. The two stood for a moment, balanced on the balls of their feet. Then Sulu lunged forward with a thrust. Slim turned his blade for a _prime_ parry. Sulu laughed. "Good! Very good! Keep it up!" 

As the two went into the next set of drills, Slim realized that the repetition was actually helping. He was able to parry Sulu's blade fairly easily, and although he suspected the helmsman was going easy on him, it was still something of a confidence-booster. 

And it helped keep his mind off the conversation they'd had.


	18. Never Again Will You Ever Be Alone

"How come you named her Athena?" 

The question came out of left field and completely flummoxed Leo. He was alone with the kids in their quarters, Jim having to deal with some minor crisis or other. Leo was lounging on the loveseat, one arm flung across the back, reading a twenty-first century classic Jim had given him on their third wedding anniversary (where the man had found a first-edition hardcover p-book in such good condition, Leo didn't know and hadn't asked). Slim was squatting on the floor coaxing Addie to walk, while she smiled at him and continued to "cruise" along the furniture. 

"What?" Leo asked, somewhat stupidly. 

Slim laughed, standing up and getting into the armchair behind him. "I know, that kind of came from nowhere. But I've just been wondering. Athena Dawn is a pretty name. Wisdom and beauty, like Uncle Spock said. I was just wondering where you got those names from." 

Leo tried to remember. "We decided on names pretty much as soon as we arranged for those zygotes in the first place, and that was before the _first_ five-year mission. Athena Dawn for a girl, Christopher David for a boy." 

"Christopher--that's after Christopher Pike, I guess?" Slim said. 

"Yeah. He was pretty important to your dad--the man who convinced him to join Starfleet in the first place. Probably the only person in the universe besides me who really cared about him." Leo was simplifying a good deal, but it was really Jim's place to explain all the details. "David was my father's name." 

"So you would've named him after his grandfathers. Kind of like my dad was." 

Leo blinked in surprise. "I never thought of it that way, but you're right." 

Slim nodded, then looked at Addie. "So how'd you come up with Athena Dawn?" 

"I don't know," Leo said honestly, trying to think. "Your dad just blurted out 'Athena.' I thought Dawn sounded good with that. And--okay, yeah, I know where I got the Dawn part from." He smiled at the sudden memory. "After the Battle for Earth, the night after we got back, everyone was celebrating, everyone was gushing about your dad, and I just...got tired of it all. I wound up sitting on the roof of the dorm building where I lived back then with a bottle of bourbon in the middle of the night. You can't really see the stars in San Francisco--too much light pollution--but the dorm faced out over the bay, and someone was shooting off fireworks. Guess that's why I didn't hear your dad come out onto the roof. We talked for a while, then sort of fell asleep. Woke up just in time to watch the sun rise together." 

Slim smiled, the same crooked grin that so often lit his father's face. "That's cute. So whenever you look at her, you can remember that moment." 

"Exactly," Leo agreed. "I guess you can say she was kind of born out of that night, and moments like it. You know, all the things I saw in your dad that the rest of the universe never did." 

Slim looked down at Addie, who was still scooting back and forth along the couch. "Wonder where he got Athena from. It's not his mom's name, is it?" 

"No, her name is Winona. Actually, at first he didn't want to name any of our kids after anyone," Leo admitted. "He said they ought to be allowed to be their own persons, without growing up in someone else's shadow. I can understand that. You two are going to get enough of that with the last name of Kirk. Why burden you any more?" 

Slim ran a hand through his hair, his smile fading. "Maybe I'd better have stuck with Johnson," he muttered. 

Leo bit his lip. He'd thought the boy was okay with his new family, but now he wondered. "Slim, you know, your dad never meant to pressure you into anything. If you'd rather keep your mom's name..." 

"It's not that," Slim said quickly. "It's just...well, it's like you said. Kirk's a pretty important name. My dad's the youngest captain in Starfleet history, an' _his_ dad was the pilot of the _Kelvin_ , wasn't he? An' now that you've said his mom's name is Winona, I can place her. She's a xenobotanist, pretty famous. She's done a lot. That's a lot to live up to, you know?" He scuffed his toe against the floor. "I don't know if I can do it." 

"Sure you can," Leo said, hating the note of false brightness in his voice. "You've got unlimited potential." 

"Yeah, but...but who _am_ I, Pa?" Slim blurted, looking up at Leo appealingly. "Some days I feel like I'm s'pposed to be Thomas Kirk, third-generation hero. Other days I feel like a fraud. I ain't nothin' but Slim Johnson, the boy nobody wants." 

Leo set down his book and sat up, astonished. Did Slim really feel that way? How often? He cursed himself for sixty different kinds of an idiot. They'd been on the _Enterprise_ for almost six months now. How much of that had he spent, _really_ spent, with Slim? Okay, he wasn't Slim's biological father, but he'd made a promise, a commitment. And he loved Slim. He _did,_ so much it hurt sometimes. Not any more or less than he did Addie, just different. But had he ever _said_ that? 

"Slim..." he began, his voice cracking. 

Before he could say anything else, the door slid open, and Jim came in, a fixed grin on his face. "Mail call," he announced. "There were a couple of things waiting for us at Starbase Twelve, and--" He stopped when he saw Slim and Leo's faces. "What's up?" 

"Just a small existential crisis." Slim tried to smile but failed miserably. 

"You don't think you're getting away with that, do you?" Jim sat down next to Leo, but kept his eyes fixed on Slim. 

With obvious reluctance, Slim said, "It's just...you know, everyone talks about you. Not just on the _Enterprise_ , but everywhere. Everybody knows what you've done. An' your folks...even in small-town Oklahoma, they talk about George Kirk an' the _Kelvin_. An' anyone who knows anythin' about extraterrestrial plant life knows Winona Kirk's name. Sometimes I feel like I won't ever be able to live up to that. I ain't a Kirk. Not really. I'm just Slim Johnson, the boy without a family. The unwanted bastard." 

Jim stared at Slim. Quietly, he said, "The Lawsons, huh?" 

Slim started. "What?" 

"They're the ones that told you all this, right? That you weren't wanted, that you were a burden? That in the grand scheme of things, you didn't matter. That you'd never have a home, a family, anywhere you belonged." 

"Well, yeah, but..." Slim looked flustered. 

"But you'd always suspected that anyway," Jim completed. "They just put it into words." He leaned forward. "Slim, believe me, I know _exactly_ what you mean. My mom remarried when I was six or seven. Guy's name was Frank. Mom was away a lot, so Frank was in charge...he was emotionally abusive. Used to tell me I was worthless, that I'd never amount to anything, that nobody really wanted me around. That it didn't matter what I wanted. That I was nothing. And I believed him. I'd always figured, well, that's why Mom worked so much--because she couldn't stand to be around me, but she felt some kind of _obligation_ not to give me up." 

Leo, who had had a happy and loving home life in Georgia, felt like an interloper in this conversation. Sure, he had his moments of crippling self-doubt, but they were all-- _okay, with one exception_ \--constructs of his own mind. Nobody ever deliberately tried to put him down. He had a string of accolades and confidence-boosters, dating back to his mother praising him for a bouquet he'd put together at age four when his grandmother had first taught him floriology and leading all the way up to the day he'd found out that Christopher Pike had tapped him for service on the _Enterprise_ even before he'd officially started his second year at the Academy. He'd never felt unwanted. Unworthy, maybe, but never unwanted. 

Jim clasped his hands together tightly. "Let me tell you something. When CPS first told us about you, they said we had a choice--especially since I'd already signed on for another five-year mission. They said I could choose to pay a stipend for your keeping, that you'd remain in a foster home but be taken off the list of adoptable children, that you'd never know I'd been found but that you'd be taken care of. And we never hesitated. We said no. We wanted you. Do you hear what I'm saying, Slim? _We wanted you before we even knew you._ Both of us. You _are _wanted. You _are_ loved. And that's never gonna change. _Ever."___

Slim's eyes filled with tears. "I just...I hear what you're sayin' an' I wanna believe it, but...but sometimes I wonder. Who _am_ I, Dad?" 

"'Lim." 

Leo started and looked down, his eyes wide. Jim and Slim were staring, too. Addie had let go of the sofa and sat down on the floor, and now she was looking up at Slim. When she saw she had his attention, she smiled, the big, wide smile with the deep dimples that had enchanted Leo from the moment he first saw it, and held out her arms to him. "'Lim," she repeated, loud and clear. 

Slim automatically bent down and scooped her into his arms. She patted his cheek with her chubby hand, smiling broadly. He smiled back, resting his forehead against hers, and she giggled. "'Lim," she said for the third time. 

Leo felt a lump in his throat. As long as they had been trying to get Addie to speak, as many jokes as he and Jim had made about whether Addie's first word would be "daddy" or "papa," and somehow they'd overlooked the obvious. He remembered what he'd said at Slim's birthday party: _Most kids, their first word is related to what's most important to 'em._ A smile crossed his face. 

"Well, Slim," he said softly, "I think you have your answer." 

Slim's answering smile was the best thing Leo had seen all day. 

Jim grinned, then wiped his eyes with the back of his hand before picking up a small computer chip he'd set down on the coffee table and handing it to Leo. "This was in the package from Starbase for you." 

"Thanks." Leo accepted the chip and grabbed his PADD from where it rested on the bookshelf. As Slim got back down on the floor to play with Addie, he plugged in the chip, only to discover exactly what he didn't want to see--a letter from Jocelyn Darnell. 

Something in his face must've changed, because Jim slid closer and dropped his voice. "What's wrong?" 

Leo, realizing that Jim was trying to keep Slim from worrying again, also kept his voice low. "Letter from my ex." 

Jim got a funny look on his face. "If I'd known that, I would've thrown it out the nearest airlock as soon as I got my hands on it." 

Leo chuckled, a little darkly, and kissed Jim's cheek, then opened the letter. 

_Dear Leonard,_

_Your grandfather told me the news. I would have preferred to hear it from you._

_Bad enough that you didn't tell me you were getting married again. I found out three years after the fact that you'd promised your life to James Tiberius Kirk. Tell me, after eight years of marriage, are you enjoying it any more than you did with me? I can't imagine it's as safe. Doubtless you're having problems by now._

_But now I find out you've got a new child. Is that why you've got the baby? To try and fix a marriage that's falling apart? You of all people should know that trick never works. Even if by some miracle it does, I can't believe you would take an innocent child into space. Do you have the faintest idea how dangerous that is? You're a doctor, Leonard. You ought to know the dangers of space. Especially after all the years you claim to have spent in it._

_Never mind. It's not my business to care what happens to you or your new "family." But don't come crying to me when Jim gets tired of pretending and leaves you with a baby. Don't expect sympathy when she gets eaten by a cannibal race or suffers some incurable alien disease or just dies in her sleep._

_What angers me the most is that you have replaced Joanna. How could you, Leonard? You claimed to love her. You claimed she was something special. And then, not only did you let her die, you chose to displace her memory with that of this other little brat, something you did unnaturally with a man whose genes will probably cost you everything. Even if she survives to adulthood, do you really think she'll be any less of a problem than Jim Kirk was? Heartbreak, Leonard. That's all you have to look forward to._

_Enjoy it while it lasts, Leonard. Because happiness, especially happiness with Jim Kirk, is ephemeral._

_Sincerely,_

_Jocelyn ~~Darnell~~ Treadway_

_P.S. I nearly forgot my purpose in writing this letter in the first place. I have remarried. As per our agreement, your most recent alimony payment will be your last. Do not contact me again._

Leo had to resist the urge to throw the PADD across the room. Damn the woman, why did she have to do this _now?_ He'd finally managed to lay most of his fears to rest, set them aside. Addie was nine months old and healthy as a horse. She was loved, she was wanted, she was safe. And Jim...since the night of Slim's party when he had nearly fallen apart in Leo's arms, he'd seemed so much stronger and happier. Leo had begun to believe that their family was going to work. And with a few poisonous sentences, Jocelyn had destroyed all of that. 

"Bones?" Jim's voice was studiously casual. "What's she got to say?" 

"You're a philandering asshole, I'm a horrible father, and Addie's going to die a gruesome horrible death," Leo said, his voice flat and emotionless. "You know. The usual." 

Jim pulled the PADD out of Leo's hands and read the letter once, quickly. Then he read it two more times, his jaw tensing. With a sudden movement, he ripped the chip out and snapped it in half. The loud noise startled Addie, who began to cry. Slim gathered his sister into his arms, trying to comfort her. 

"Bones," Jim said in a low voice. "You didn't believe a word of that crap, did you?" 

"Well, not the part about you, but..." Leo raised his eyes to his husband. "Jim, you know that conversation we just had, about how you and Slim still feel sometimes? Yeah, you don't have a monopoly on that. My past still haunts me, too." 

Addie lifted her head from where it was resting on Slim's chest. Two big tears still stood in her eyes, but she stretched out her arms imploringly towards Leo. He took her, cuddling her close. All the terror Jocelyn's words had conjured up hit him full force, and he wanted nothing more than to protect her, to prevent anything from touching her or hurting her. 

Jim wrapped an arm around Leo's shoulders. Slim got up from his position and, to Leo's surprise, slipped into the space between him and the arm, then put his own arms around Leo and Addie. Addie's little arms snaked around his neck. He was surrounded by Kirks--by family-- _his_ family--and by love. Overcome, he burst into tears. 

Gently, Jim pressed a kiss to the side of Leo's head. "It's okay, Bones," he said softly. "It's okay. We're here. We love you." 

"We're family," Slim added, looking up. "And that ain't gonna change." 

"'Lim," Addie put in. 

Leo couldn't help but laugh at that.


	19. Miri

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the episode of the same name.

Jim waited patiently while Uhura tried again to hail the planet. None of them were even sure what it was called--the people who had originally lived there had called it Earth, as it was almost an exact duplicate, but the Terrans on the ship were naturally reluctant to call it that. At last, she looked up and shook her head. "No response, Captain. Just the SOS, repeating over and over again. And I'm not picking up any of the usual hum of city life." 

"Whatever the trouble was," Spock said, "we are evidently too late." 

"Evidently," Jim agreed. "But we have to go down and see. Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy--" he hesitated for a moment--"Yeoman Rand, and two security guards. Grab your gear and let's go down there." 

Slim met them in the Transporter Room, an anxious look on his face and a PADD in one hand. "Dad, there's something I wanted to show you," he said. 

"Not now, Slim," Jim said, brushing past. 

"But, Dad, it's--" 

"Slim! I'm busy!" Jim interrupted. He gave his son a stern look. "I'll take a look at--whatever it is--when I get back, okay? For now, just go back to quarters." 

Slim looked, if anything, even more anxious, but he said quietly, "Yes, sir." 

Rand watched Slim leave the room. "Whatever it is he wanted to show you, it must've been important." 

"To him," Spock said. "Not necessarily to anyone else, at this moment. And we do have work to do." 

"But he's--he's still just a child," Rand protested. 

"He has to grow up sometime, Yeoman," Spock pointed out. "He may as well begin now." 

Jim didn't say anything. He knew Spock was right, but that didn't mean he had to like it. "Energize," he said shortly to the technician. 

A minute later they were on the surface of the planet, standing in the central plaza, which was entirely deserted. Jim wasn't altogether surprised. The architecture was perhaps two hundred years old, from the early age of interstellar travel, which fit with what the computer files had said. The place seemed to have been abandoned for almost that long, too. Dust and dirt lay everywhere. 

"No sign of war," Spock said. 

"Pestilence?" Bones asked. 

Jim noted that, as if by agreement, both men were whispering. He was about to respond when he noticed an object leaning against a fountain--a child's tricycle. Though rusty, it still looked as though it was functioning. It had a bell on the top, one of the ones with a thumb-lever. Before he could say anything, one of the two security guards pressed the lever, making the bell ring. 

"Mine! _Mine!"_

A figure came hurtling out of the shadows of a nearby building. Jim barely had time to register a sense of dirt, rags, and considerable age before the creature hurled itself on Bones, knocking him to the ground. 

Instantly, Jim rushed in to help, Spock a half-step behind him. But the creature was utterly, completely mad, and that madness gave it strength. It reared up, staring at Jim, who struck out more or less at random. The blow barely connected, or so it seemed, but the creature crumpled to the ground anyway. Jim helped Bones to his feet, staring. 

The creature was indeed an old man, probably a descendant of one of the original colonists. He was filthy, clothed in tatters, and covered in strange bluish-red blotches like scabs. He was sobbing hysterically, like a small child. There was something off about him, but Jim wasn't sure what. 

Still sobbing, the man got to his knees and crawled over to the tricycle, touching it. "Fix," he said between sobs. "Somebody fix." 

"Sure, we'll fix it," Jim said, watching intently, simultaneously fascinated and revolted. 

Astonishingly, the old man's lower lip jutted out in an unmistakeable pout. "Fibber," he said, suddenly giggling. The voice rose to a scream of rage. "You busted it. Fibber, fibber!" 

"Jim!" Bones shouted, pulling Jim back as the old man's clawed hand seized the tricycle and started to raise it like a weapon. The old man caught sight of his arm and dropped the tricycle with a whimper, as if he'd just noticed the scabs on his arms. 

"Fix it--please fix it--" he whispered pitifully, falling to his knees. He gave a gasp, then keeled over. Jim didn't need any medical training to know the man was dead. 

Bones knelt down and ran his tricorder over the corpse. "Impossible," he muttered. 

"That he's dead?" Jim asked, although that didn't seem too likely. 

"No--that he could have lived at all. His body temperature is over one-fifty. He must've been burning up inside. Nobody can live with that kind of temperature." 

Spock suddenly tensed. "Captain," he whispered, pointing to an alley. "Another one--over there." 

Jim reached for his phaser. "Follow me. Let's see if we can find out what's going on here." 

The alley backed up to what seemed to be an apartment building, with only one door. If anyone had been here, he, she, or it had gone into the building proper. Jim cautiously opened the door, and they went in, phasers at the ready. 

After a momentary search, Jim opened a closet door and found a girl, not more than thirteen years old, with dark blonde hair and wide grey eyes. She was obviously terrified. 

"Please," she begged. "No, don't hurt me. Why did you come back?" 

"We won't hurt you," Jim said gently. "We want to help." He held out his hand, but the girl shrank back. He was put in mind of Slim, the day the boy had first turned up on their doorstep. Helplessly, he turned to Bones, who was standing next to Rand. 

It was Rand who came forward and knelt at the open door. "It's okay," she said gently. "Nobody's going to hurt you. We promise." 

"I remember the things you did," the girl said. "Yelling, burning, hurting people." 

"It wasn't us," Rand insisted. "Come on out and tell us about it." 

The girl let Rand lead her to a chair, then plopped down, clouds of dust billowing up. "You've got a foolie," she said sulkily. "But I can't play. I don't know the rules." 

"We don't, either," Jim said honestly, wondering what a "foolie" was. "What happened to all the people? Was there a famine? A war? A plague? Did they just go away and leave you here?" 

"You should know. You did it--you and all the grups." 

"Grups? What's a grup?" 

The girl gave him a look. "You're grups. All the old ones." 

"Grown-ups," Rand said. "She means adults, Captain." 

Jim rubbed the bridge of his nose. Spock, who had been roaming the room with his tricorder, came over. "Captain, she cannot have been living here. This room has been undisturbed for two hundred years. No radioactivity, no chemical contamination--just very old dust." 

Jim turned back to the girl. "Young lady--by the way, what's your name?" 

"Miri." 

"Miri, then. You said the grown-ups did bad things--burning, hurting people. Why?" 

The girl eyed him suspiciously. Before she could say anything else, however, one of the security guards gave a startled yelp. Jim turned to him coldly. "Mr. Grant, is there a problem?" 

Grant looked torn between concern and chagrin. "Uh, sir--there's someone in the alley--" 

"Bring whoever it is in, then. We can use all the information about this planet we can get." 

"But sir, it's--" 

"Get him, Grant!" 

"Yes, sir." Grant slipped out the door. 

Miri shook her head. "You won't like it if it's another grup. They got sick. When they started to get sick, we had to hide." She looked up then. "I'm doing it right? Is it the right foolie?" 

"You're doing wonderfully," Jim reassured her. "What about--" 

The door opened then and Grant came back in. But the person with him was neither a dirty child like Miri, nor a scabbed, crazed old person like the one who had attacked them. It was-- 

"Slim?" Jim and Bones cried in unison. 

Slim was pale as a sheet, but he met Jim's eyes bravely. "Sir, Mr. Scott sent me to tell you--" 

"He could have commed me," Jim interrupted angrily. 

"He's been trying, sir, but you weren't answering. He thought the devices might be malfunctioning, so he took a chance." 

Startled, Jim pulled his communicator out. No, it was fully functioning. He'd just been ignoring it. "He shouldn't have sent _you_ , though," he snapped. "I gave you orders to go back to quarters!" 

Slim hung his head. Jim bit back a sigh. "I'll deal with you in a minute," he said tightly, knowing that if he kept watching his son he would relent his anger. 

He turned back to Miri, but she was ignoring him now, staring past him with wide eyes at Slim. " _You're_ not a grup," she said. 

Slim raised his head, a look of surprise on his face, and took a step back. "Uh...no?" he said uncertainly. 

"You're an only," Miri said. "But I don't know you." She looked at Jim suspiciously. "Where did you get him?" 

"He's my son," Jim said, slightly annoyed, "and he's not supposed to be here." 

"Why not?" Miri demanded. She looked at Slim again. "Why aren't you supposed to be here?" 

"I'm supposed to stay on the ship," Slim answered, his eyes darting nervously between Miri and Jim. "That's one of the rules." 

"Rules are for grups," Miri said dismissively. "Onlies don't have rules." She got up, walked over to him, and held out her hand. "I'm Miri." 

"Uh...I'm Slim." Slim's voice suddenly jumped up an octave as he took her hand and shook it. 

Despite his anger, Jim had to fight down a wicked urge to laugh. It seemed his son was not immune to the charms of a pretty girl. And suddenly it occurred to him that Slim and Miri were almost the same age--developmentally, at least. 

Miri was obviously happy with Slim's attention. "That's a funny name." 

"It's a nickname." Slim smiled. "My real name is Thomas." 

"I like Slim better. And you have a nice smile." Miri gripped his hand. "Come meet the other onlies." 

"I--I can't," Slim stammered, his voice cracking again. "I have to tell--" He broke off and looked up at Jim, swallowing hard. "It's--what I was trying to show you earlier, Dad. I thought the planet name sounded familiar, so I did some checking around." 

"We know about the Cold Peace," Jim snapped. 

"Not that. There was a man here--Dr. Lehrmann Peterson--" 

Miri suddenly shivered. "He was one of the grups!" she cried. "Him and his needles." 

"The Life Prolongation Project," Slim said urgently. "That's what they were working on when they came here. They never broadcast any of the results, but if it went wrong, it could have proved fatal." 

Jim turned to the girl. "Miri, you said the grown-ups got sick. Did they die?" 

"Grups always die," Miri said, a little dismissively. 

"How about the children? Did they die?" 

"The onlies? Of course not. We're still here, aren't we?" Miri suddenly frowned. "I don't wanna talk to you anymore." 

"Miri," Jim began. 

"No!" 

Slim squeezed her hand. "How 'bout me, Miri? Will you talk to me?" 

Miri looked up at Slim. For the first time, she smiled shyly. "Yes. I like you." 

"Spock, Grant, Ellison," Jim said quickly. "Go and see if you can find any more survivors. We need to talk to them." 

Spock and the two security guards complied. Jim kept his eyes on Slim and Miri. Slim gestured to Jim and Bones, who was now standing next to him. "Are all the grups dead 'cept them?" 

"Well, until it happens--you know. When _it_ happens to an only." Miri looked at Slim, her eyes wide. "Then you get to be like them. You want to hurt people, like them." 

"Miri," Bones said gently, using the same voice he used to talk to Addie. "You saw what happened to us outside. The man who attacked us--was that a grup?" 

"That was Floyd. It happened to him. He turned into one." Miri looked back to Slim anxiously. "It's happening to me, too. And you. That's how it started with Floyd, his voice went all funny. That's why I can't hang around with my friends anymore. The minute one of us starts changing, the others get scared..." 

Puberty, Jim realized. She was talking about puberty. Slim took her other hand in his. "It's okay, Miri. You don't need to be scared anymore. What is there to be afraid of?" 

"Did you see Floyd?" Miri asked him. "Grups try to hurt everything. First you get those awful marks on your skin, and then you try to hurt people, kill people." 

"These grups aren't like that," Slim reassured her. "They've come a long way. Look." He led Miri over to the window, put an arm around her shoulder, and pointed upwards. "See that star, right there?" 

Miri craned her head. "No. Is this a foolie?" 

"Sort of. You can't see it from here, not really, but there's a bright twinkly star up there, and we came from there. These grups know lots of things. Maybe they can help you." 

"Grups don't help," Miri said positively. "They're the ones that did this." 

"They didn't," Slim said gently. "Miri, do you trust me?" 

"Oh, yes." Miri's eyes were suddenly shining. Jim had to resist the urge to force the two apart. 

Slim smiled. "And I trust _them._ They're my family. They take real good care of me." His accent was starting to thicken, even as his voice kept cracking at odd times. "They didn't do this to you, and they want to help you." 

Rand smiled as well. "Please?" 

Miri studied the three adults. Jim was about to try adding his own plea when they heard a childish voice taunting, "Nyah nyah nyah nyah NYAH nyah!" 

"Guards!" Spock's voice shouted. 

"Nyah nyah nyah nyah NYAH nyah! Nyah nyah nyah nyah NYAH nyah!" multiple voices rang out, and then there was silence. 

Jim sighed. "It would seem your friends don't want to be found." 

Bones put a hand on Jim's arm. "Maybe that's not the first step anyway, Jim. If the Life Prolongation Project is what's causing all this, somehow, then maybe there's a public health building. Somewhere we can go to get the notes and isolate the issue. Miri--" 

Miri turned away and buried her face in Slim's shoulder. Jim tensed, surprised at the sudden anger he felt--not at Slim, at Miri. Slim patted her comfortingly. "It's okay. They're not gonna yell at you. Is there a place where there were doctors? Research? You mentioned needles--where were those?" 

"There's a big building," Miri said distastefully, "but we don't go there." 

"But we need to," Slim urged her, "if we're gonna get better. Do you wanna hurt people? Do you wanna die? 'Cause I don't." 

"I don't, either," Miri said. 

"Then won't you take us there?" Slim said. "Please?" 

"Them, too?" Miri looked at Jim and Bones, then gasped. "Oh!" she said in a choked voice, staring at Jim as she pressed against Slim. "Already!" 

Jim glanced down at his hands, suspecting what he would see--and he was right. On the back of his hand was a blotch, robin's egg blue. 

"Dad!" Slim gasped. He turned to Miri, genuine fear on his face. "Miri, please, you've gotta help us. You've gotta help me save my dad. _Please._ Is there anything you wouldn't do for your family?" 

Jim drew in his breath sharply, and Bones tensed beside him, both of them remembering a dark-haired man who had asked that same question. But neither Miri nor Slim seemed to notice. Their eyes were fixed on one another. 

"No," she said positively. "I'll help."

She led them to a tall, square building. The laboratory inside was relatively intact, fairly clean and hermetically sealed, for which Jim was grateful. By the time they got there, Bones, Rand, and the two security guards had broken out in the large blue blotches. Only Spock seemed unaffected. 

"I guess that's your Vulcan heritage," Bones said as he got out the equipment to start taking samples. 

"I cannot say, Doctor," Spock said in measured tones, "but I am not as immune as you suspect." He held out his hands. 

Jim groaned as he saw the blue spots. "You've got it, too?" 

"Indeed, Captain. In appearance it reminds me of the chicken pox." 

"Don't remind me about that. Bones, figure out what this thing is and how to cure it before Slim and Miri succumb, will you?" 

Bones nodded and got to work. Jim assisted him. The others prowled about, getting things as necessary and keeping watch. 

As they worked, Jim watched Slim and Miri out of the corner of his eye. They sat on one of the tables in the back, holding hands and talking quietly. It infuriated Jim, for reasons he couldn't explain. The girl hadn't been cruel to his son--far from it. One of them had a crush on the other, at the very least, and Jim wasn't sure which one. Every once in a while, Miri's giggle would break in on his concentration, and he would grit his teeth and try to ignore it. 

At last, Bones had made a few determinations about the nature of the disease. Jim called up to the _Enterprise_ , ordering a few things to be beamed down and decontamination measures to be put in place for when they beamed back up. Spock found some folders with information about the project Slim had mentioned, and with the children's help, he and Jim began sorting out the information. 

"It's a bold project, you must admit," Bones said, much later, when they had figured out most of what the project had entailed. "A viruslike substance to attack aging cells--and incidentally, if this had worked, it would have been the perfect cancer preventative. Cancer is essentially a localized explosion of the aging process." 

"But it didn't work," Spock pointed out. "The substance is altogether _too_ much like a virus--and it got away from them. Yes, it prolongs life, but only in children. When puberty finally sets in, it kills them." 

"How much?" Rand asked. 

"You mean, how much does it prolong life?" Spock shook his head. "We don't know. The experiment has not gone on long enough. All we know is the rate: one month, physiological time, for every one hundred years, real time. For the children, it obviously does work that way." 

"One month every hundred years! And she was injected two hundred years ago..." Rand looked over her shoulder at Slim and Miri, who had hopped off the table and were coming towards them. "Eternal childhood. It's like a dream." 

"A very bad dream, Yeoman," Jim said, scowling slightly at the girl. "We learn through experience and example. Miri and her friends have been deprived of both. It's a dead-end street." 

"With a particularly gruesome death at the end," Bones agreed. "It's amazing so many of the children survived." He turned to Miri and Slim. "Miri, how did you get along after the grups died?" 

"We had foolies," Miri answered. "We had fun. There was nobody to tell us not to. And when we got hungry, we just took stuff. There were lots of things in cans, and lots of mommies." 

"Mommies?" Rand asked, confused. 

"Can openers," Slim answered. "The hand-crank variety, I think." 

"You're so smart." Miri looked up at him with adoring eyes. Jim wanted to hit her. Suddenly she got serious and looked at Jim. "Now that you've found what you were looking for...are you going away?" 

"No," Jim answered reluctantly. "We still have a lot to learn. Your grups seem to have done things in a definite sequence, a specific timetable. Any sign of that, Mr. Spock?" 

"None, Captain, but that is only to be expected. If this were my project, I'd keep it in a vault under lock and key; it is the most valuable part of the whole experiment." 

"I'm afraid I have to agree with you. And until we find it, Miri, we won't be able to identify the virus, synthesize it, and make a vaccine." 

Miri looked confused by the words, but she smiled up at Slim. "That's good. Your not going, I mean. We can still have fun--before _it_ happens." 

Slim blushed and smiled. Jim's jaw tensed. "We may still be able to cure it," he said determinedly. "Spock, I'm guessing you weren't able to get close to any of the children?" 

"No chance," Spock said with some regret. "They know the area too well and can hide too easily." 

"Then we'll have to try a different approach." Jim turned to Miri, who, thanks to Slim, had started to trust them after all. "Miri, can you help us find some of them?" 

"You won't find them," Miri said positively. "They won't like you. They're afraid. And they're afraid of me, too, ever since..." She stopped and looked at her shoes. 

"We'll try to make them understand." 

Miri looked up. "The onlies? You can't. That's the best thing about being an only. Nobody expects you to understand." 

"You understand," Jim pointed out. 

Tears suddenly flooded the girl's eyes. "I'm not an only anymore." Abruptly, she turned and ran out of the room. 

Slim hesitated, looking at Jim. "Dad--" 

"No," Jim said firmly. "You're staying right here." 

Slim's shoulders sagged. Quietly, he said, "Yes, sir." 

Jim sagged, too. He put an arm around his son. "Slim, don't let her appearance fool you. She's two hundred years older than you are, at least. Don't leap to conclusions. It's got to make _some_ kind of difference in her." 

But when Miri came back in a minute later, she bore no sign of the cloudburst. She was perfectly sunny and wanted something to do. Spock set her to sharpening pencils, of which there were a good number. Slim was nearby, cleaning off Bones' slides. She kept smiling at him, and Jim tried not to show his irritation at it. 

They communicated with the _Enterprise,_ feeding them data. Bones was outlining a desperate plan when Carol Marcus, acting as science officer, gave them the omninous news: Spock's tables gave them only seven days before they succumbed--all of them, possibly including Slim. Miri might last longer because she'd had the virus in her for two hundred years. 

"We might be able to knock the spirochetes out with antibiotics," Bones mused. "That could keep the mania off, at least for a few--" 

There was a crash. Jim whirled around and saw that Rand had accidentally bumped into the beaker of chromic acid Slim was using to clean the slides. The corrosive yellow liquid was now all over the floor. Some of it splashed onto Slim's legs, which made him cry out in pain. Jim grabbed a wad of cotton and reached for his son's leg. 

"No!" the boy suddenly cried out, pushing against his father. "You can't help me!" With that, he turned and ran out of the lab. 

Bones turned white. Jim met his eyes and said quickly, "Stay here. Keep working. Don't lose a minute." He then turned and followed his son. 

Slim was in a corner of the hallway, leaning against the wall, sobbing heartbrokenly. Silently, Jim knelt down and started wiping away the acid. Slowly, the sobs died down, until the boy took a deep, shuddering breath. "I think I ruined my pants," he said in a small voice. 

"Pants can be replaced." Jim tossed aside the cotton wad. "There, but soap and water will have to be next." 

He stood up. Slim looked up at him, though not very far. "I didn't want to do that, Dad," he said. 

"I know. Forget it." 

Tears welled up in Slim's eyes, startling Jim. "Dad, I...I know I'm fourteen an' all, but...I'm scared." 

Jim felt his heart wrench, but he tried to speak lightly. "I'm somewhat older than that. But I'm scared, too." 

"You?" 

"Me." Jim put a hand on Slim's shoulder. "I don't want to become one of those things any more than you do. I'm more than scared. I brought the others here--and dammit, Slim, you're my son. I'm scared for all of you." 

"You never show it," Slim said. "You always seem braver than all of us." 

"Baloney," Jim said roughly. "I have to seem that way--it keeps everyone else from getting scared, too. But only an idiot isn't afraid when there's something to be afraid of. A man who feels no fear isn't brave, he's just stupid. Courage comes from working through it and coping with danger, not being paralyzed by fright. And especially, not letting yourself get scared by the other guy." 

"I get the message." Slim tried to stand up straighter, but as he did, the tears started coming again. "I'm sorry." 

"You don't need to be." Jim wrapped his arms around his son and pulled him close. Slim tried to smile up at him, and they both turned towards the entrance to the lab. 

Miri stood in the doorway, both fists crammed into her mouth, her eyes wide with a mixture of emotions Jim couldn't quite read. He started to say something, but Miri whirled about and was gone. Her footsteps echoed away into silence. 

"Troubles never come alone," Jim murmured. 

Slim looked up at him again. "Dad? Girls are weird." 

Despite himself, Jim laughed. "We'd better get back." 

"Where was Miri going?" Bones asked the minute the two of them came back in the lab. "She seemed to be in a hurry." 

"I don't know," Jim answered. _And I don't much care._ "Maybe to try and look for more onlies. Or maybe she just got bored with us. We don't have time to worry about her now. What's our next step?" 

"Accident prevention," Bones answered. "I should have thought of it before." He outlined a detailed plan of how to keep their clothing and equipment from needing to be destroyed. 

"Good, so ordered," Jim said when he'd finished. "Next?" 

"Medical analysis has got as far as I can take it," Bones admitted. "From here on out, it's going to be pure statistics, and although the idea was mine, I'm afraid Mr. Spock is going to have to direct it. Statistics make me gibber." 

Jim suppressed a grin, knowing how much Bones and Spock despised--or pretended to despise--relying on one another. "Very well, Mr. Spock, take over." 

"Yes, Captain," Spock replied. "First we've got to find those purchase orders. Which means another search of the file cabinets."

It was a long and arduous process, lasting nearly three days as the blotches and spots spread slowly up their arms and legs. Although Slim had not at first shown any ill effects, Jim was alarmed to note that, once the scabs appeared, they spread rapidly. Miri reappeared on the second day, but Slim avoided her. Jim was inordinately pleased about that and refused to examine his reasons why. 

At last, they had a stack of cards that seemed to have the data that both Spock and Bones found the most significant. Jim was proud of his husband, who, despite his claims about not enjoying statistics, had been the one to figure out the significance of most of the data. Spock turned to Miri. "Miri, if you will stack these cards and place them in the hopper, we will rank them for the _Enterprise,_ and then we can read-and-feed to Dr. Marcus. I must confess, however, I still do not see the faintest trace of pattern in them." 

"I do," Bones said, to everyone's obvious surprise. "Clearly it can't be a true virus because it would be wiped out between injection and puberty if it didn't reproduce; and it can't reproduce without invading a body cell, which this thing is forbidden to do for between ten and twelve years, depending on sex. This has to be something more like some of the rickettsiae..." 

"Bones," Jim interrupted. "Please don't get technical." 

"Long story short, it's steroid-soluble. And only the sexual steroids can be involved. Little by little, step by step, we're closing in on this." 

"Can you put a name to this?" Jim asked. 

"By no means," Bones said. "I don't even know if I'm on the right track; this whole scholium is intuitive on my part. But it makes sense. I think something very like that will emerge when the ship's computer processes all these codes. Anyone wanna bet?" 

"We're already betting our lives, like it or not," Jim said grimly. "But we ought to have the answer in an hour now. Spock, call Dr. Marcus." 

Spock nodded and went into the sealed room where they kept their clothing and equipment. He returned a moment later, and although he scarcely ever showed emotion, something in his expression brought Jim to his feet. "What's the matter?" 

"The communicators are gone, Captain. There is nothing in those uniforms but empty pockets." 

Rand gasped. Slim and Jim both turned to Miri in unison. The girl shrank away from Jim, but looked appealingly at Slim. 

Jim ignored the look. "What do you know about this, Miri?" 

"The onlies took them, I guess," Miri replied. "They like to steal things. It's a foolie." 

"Where'd they take them?" Jim asked. 

Miri shrugged. "I don't know. That's a foolie, too. When you take something, you go someplace else." 

Jim crossed the room and grabbed the girl by the shoulders. "This is _not_ a foolie," he said angrily. "It's a disaster. We have to have those communicators--otherwise we'll never lick this disease." 

Suddenly, Miri giggled. "Then you won't have to go." 

"No, we'll die," Jim snapped. "Now cut it out. Tell us where they are." 

Miri drew herself up haughtily. Jim was reminded uncomfortably of the way Uhura looked when she was angry. "Please, Captain, you're hurting me," she said. "What's the matter with you? How could _I_ possibly know?" 

Her adult manner broke with a giggle. Jim was beyond anger. "What is this, blackmail?" he demanded. "It's your life that's at stake, too, Miri." 

"Oh, no," Miri said sweetly. "Mr. Spock said that I'd last five or six weeks longer than you will. Maybe some of you will die ahead of some others. _I'll_ still be here." She pulled away from Jim and skipped towards the door. 

"Miri," Slim said pleadingly. 

Miri stopped and looked at him, trailing a hand through the air. "Of course, I don't know what makes you think I know anything about this. But if you're very nice to me, maybe I could ask my friends some questions. In the meantime, Slim, farewell." 

She left in a breezy manner, and they could hear her footsteps echo down the hall. 

"Well," Bones said dryly, "one can see that they had television on this planet during part of Miri's lifetime, at least." 

The joke at least broke part of the tension. Jim looked at his First Officer. "What can we do without the ship, Mr. Spock?" 

"Very little, Captain. The bio-comp is totally inadequate for this sort of job. It takes hours, where the ship's computer takes seconds, and it hasn't the intellectual capacity." 

Jim turned to Bones. "The human brain was around long before there were computers. What about your hunch?" 

"I'll ride it, of course," Bones said, sounding thoroughly exhausted, "but time is the one commodity the computer could have saved us, and the one thing we haven't got. When I think of that big lumbering ship up there, with everything we need on it, orbiting around and around like so much inert metal--" 

"And complaining just wastes time," Jim snarled. Bones started, and Jim, realizing what he had just done, softened. "I'm sorry, Bones. I guess it's starting to get to me, too." 

Bones reached over and took Jim's hand, twining their fingers together. "I _was_ complaining," he said softly. "The apology is mine. Well, the human brain it'll have to be. It worked for Pasteur...but he was a lot smarter than I am." 

"I doubt that," Slim said with a slight smile. 

Bones smiled back, letting go of Jim's hand. "Mr. Spock, take those cards away from that damn cat and let's restack them."

Jim understood almost nothing of what Bones and Spock were doing. He contented himself with doing the legwork that was required. Slim assisted him silently, but he seemed to be moving in slow motion. Every once in a while, he stopped to wipe his forehead. 

After a number of hours, Miri turned back up. Jim deliberately ignored her--largely because he knew that if he looked at her, he'd probably kill her--but the others did, too. Slim had been avoiding her before, but now he went out of his way to ignore her completely. This seemed to annoy Miri, because after a while, she started tapping her foot. 

"Knock it off," Slim said abruptly, "or I'll break your neck." 

Jim looked at his son in surprise, but the tapping stopped. Bones looked at Spock. "Once more into the cat. We're now pulling all T's that are functions of D-2. If we get more than three results, we're sunk." 

There was, thankfully, exactly one. Jim felt a lifting of his spirits for the first time in three days. "Is that it?" 

"Probably," Bones said. "Just probably. No more." 

"If this were a new product survey, I would throw the results out completely," Spock added. "They are barely statistically significant. As matters stand--" 

"As matters stand, we next have to synthesize the virus," Bones interrupted, "and then make a killed-virus vaccine from it. No, wait, what's the matter with me? Not a vaccine. An antiserum. Much harder. Jim, wake those security guards--a lot of good they did in a pinch! We're gonna have to wash a lot of bottles in the next forty-eight hours." 

Jim wiped his forehead, where a thin veneer of sweat was beading. He looked over at Slim as the boy dragged himself listlessly towards the sleeping guards. "Bones, I'm feeling incredibly lousy right now, and I'm betting you are, too. Officially we've got forty-eight hours left--but who knows how we'll be feeling in twenty-four?" 

"We either fish or cut bait," Bones said calmly. "All hands on their feet. The cookery class is hereby called to order." 

Spock quirked an eyebrow. "It's a shame that viruses aren't as easy to mix as metaphors." 

Jim was fairly certain he was starting to deteriorate to the edge of hysteria, because he almost thought Spock had just made a _joke._ "Somebody hand me a bottle to wash," he said, "before I fall asleep on my feet."

They set to work, painfully, excruciatingly, every minute seeming like an hour. Yeoman Rand succumbed to the madness within twenty hours and had to be strapped down and heavily sedated. Both guards followed quickly. Jim found himself grateful, after all, that Slim had come. Although he was seriously tired, and the blotches were spreading rapidly, he never stopped, not for a minute. 

Finally, Jim's tired brain processed that Bones was holding a hypospray and loading it with a clear liquid from an ampule. 

"That's either the antiserum," Bones said, as if from a great distance, "or it isn't. For all I know, it may be pure poison. Only the ship's computer could tell us for sure." 

"Rand first," Jim said, his voice a hoarse rasp, "and then the guards. They're the closest to terminal." 

"I beg to differ," Bones replied. "I'm the only experimental animal here." 

"Pa...wait." Slim's voice was a mere thread. 

Jim turned slowly, painfully, to look at his son, who, though he was almost entirely covered by blue splotches, managed to drag himself across the room to look at Miri. She had been in and out in the last two days, managing to be there whenever someone collapsed, but they had all ignored her. Slim stretched out an arm, and Jim saw that it was trembling. 

"Miri," he gasped. "Listen to me. You've got to listen to me." 

She turned away, but Slim managed to grab her chin and turn it towards him, forcing her to look at him. Jim, seeing the way they stood, thought of the times they'd held hands and looked at one another, and how angry it had made him. It didn't seem to matter now. "We don't...have much time left," he said hoarsely. "None of us. Us or you...or your friends. We've got...one chance left. We need one of those communicators--the equipment the onlies took. Otherwise we're done. No more onlies. No more anyone. Is that what you want, Miri? Do you want a whole world on your hands?" He let her go and sank back. " _Please,_ Miri. For--for me." 

Miri looked at him. Her lip trembled, and her eyes filled with tears. "I'll--I'll see what I can do," she promised, and then she was gone. 

Slim slumped against the wall, obviously at the end of his strength. Jim surged through the pain, crossed the room, and caught his son, holding him tightly. "Slim," he said urgently. "Hang on, Slim." 

Slim leaned his head against Jim's shoulder. He was burning up with fever, his breath coming in short, faint gasps. "Dad," he murmured. "I'm...sorry. I should have...listened to you...gone back to quarters..." 

"Shh," Jim said, tightening his grip, even though it hurt and he was sure it hurt Slim, too. "No, Slim, I'm sorry for being angry. It's gonna be okay. Just hold on." 

"We can't wait any longer," Bones said, his voice perfectly calm. "Even if we had the computer verdict, we couldn't do anything with it. We have to go ahead." 

"I will bet you a year's pay that the antiserum proves fatal," Spock muttered. 

Bones grinned mirthlessly. "You're on. The disease certainly is. But if I lose, Mr. Spock, how will you collect?" He picked up the hypo. 

"Wait!" Jim said desperately, but it was too late, even if this had been a realm when he really could give commands. In medicine, Dr. McCoy reigned supreme, and despite Jim's fears for his husband's life, he couldn't have stopped him from dispensing the hypo. 

"Done," Bones said, still in that calm, emotionless voice. It was as though he and Spock had changed places, making Bones the calm, rational, logical one, and Spock the cynic, the voice of sarcasm and hopelessness. "Didn't feel a thing." He swayed, sat down. "You see, gentlemen...it's all...very..." 

His eyes rolled up in his head, and he collapsed.

Anguished, Jim gently slid his arm from behind Slim's shoulders, propping the boy against the wall, and got to his feet, crossing to Bones' side. The man's face was waxen below the blue blotches, peaceful and relaxed for the first time in days. 

"Help me carry him," he said heavily. 

It took a great deal of their strength, but he and Spock together managed to lay the doctor down on the nearest cot. Jim managed to check Bones' pulse. It was still there, but wildly erratic. 

"I don't see...how the antiserum could have...hit so fast," Spock said, his voice sounding hollow and pain-wracked. 

"He could only have passed out. I'm about ready myself. Damn the man's stubbornness." 

"Knowledge has its privileges," Spock said obliquely. 

Jim staggered back to where he had left Slim and managed to get him to his feet. The boy's eyelashes fluttered, and he leaned heavily on Jim. "Dad..." he croaked. 

"I'm here, Slim," Jim said reassuringly. "Come on, let's lie down...you need your rest..." 

"Dad...I love you..." 

A lump formed in Jim's throat. He suddenly realized that, in the eight months they'd been a family, neither he nor Slim had said those words to one another. "I love you, too," he whispered. 

Slim's head lolled, and Jim realized that he had lost consciousness. 

He sat down heavily in a chair next to Bones' cot, Slim cradled in his arms like an infant. Suddenly, he was scared--even more than he had been before. Bones was unconscious. Slim was unconscious. Rand and the two guards were unconscious and insane. Only he and Spock were still awake. And they were too late. They were going to die. 

Slowly, painfully, he raised his head and met Spock's eyes. They'd shared a lot of history over the years, the three of them--him, Spock, and Bones. Shame it had to end like this. His mind drifted to the _Enterprise,_ to the crew they'd left behind: Scotty, Sulu, Chekov, Uhura... _Uhura._

As if reading Jim's thoughts, Spock said softly, "If I had but one wish now, it would be for a communicator--so that once I have confirmed with Dr. Marcus what I am thinking, I could say goodbye." 

"Spock...I'm sorry for getting you into this," Jim said hoarsely. 

Spock started to respond, then frowned. "I seem to be hallucinating." 

Jim turned wearily in the direction Spock was looking--and gaped. If his First Officer was hallucinating, then he was, too. Coming towards them was a procession of children, led by Miri. The youngest was scarcely bigger than Addie, the oldest between twelve and thirteen, in Jim's estimation. They wore the most astonishing collection of outfits imaginable, as though they'd been living in a department store and playing dress-up--suits, sports clothes, starmen's outfits, party dresses and jewelry. The boy immediately behind Miri wore an odd red wig, the price tag still attached. 

But the most wonderful and bizarre thing about the processional, to Jim's half-crazed eyes, was that they were carrying the equipment taken from the uniform pockets. There were three communicators--only the senior officers had carried them--and two tricorders. The red-wigged boy even had a phaser on his hip. Jim was astonished that none of them had noticed it was missing and wondered, in a detached manner, if the boy had used it, thinking it was a game, and if anyone had been hurt. 

The boy noticed his gaze and unslung the phaser. "I used it on Louise," he said. "I had to. She went grup all of a sudden while we were playing school. She was--only a little older than me." 

He placed it on the long table. The other children followed suit. Miri came over to Jim, her eyes wide and frightened. 

"I'm sorry," she said in a small voice. "It was wrong and I shouldn't have. I had a hard time making Jahn and the others understand it wasn't a foolie anymore." She looked at McCoy's waxy figure, then at Slim, and her fright compounded. "It's not too late, is it?" 

"It might be," Jim said, too weary to lie. He rallied himself to speak. "Mr. Spock, can you get the data to the _Enterprise?_ " 

"I'll try, sir." Spock picked up the nearest communicator. "Landing party to _Enterprise._ " 

"Mr. Spock!" Scotty's voice was the best thing Jim had heard in a week. "Where ha' ye been, sir? We've been tryin' tae raise ye fer--" 

"Mr. Scott, we are short of time," Spock said quickly. "Get me Dr. Marcus, at once." 

As Spock read off the figures, Jim blessed his Vulcan heritage; it had given him just enough resistance to the disease that its progress was slower, and he was still relatively strong and functioning, whereas Jim had just about enough strength left to hold his son and watch his husband. Miri joined him, looking frightened, and for the first time, Jim let go of his anger towards her. Even though she'd encouraged her friends to steal the equipment, her decision to return it showed that she had taken a step towards growing up, a big one. And she seemed genuinely concerned about both Bones and Slim. He waited until she looked his way, then gave her a grateful smile. She returned it. 

Suddenly, Jim noticed that the splotches on Bones' face seemed to be receding--or was that his imagination? No, they were definitely smaller, and some were losing color. "Mr. Spock," he said in a hoarse whisper, all he could manage now, "come here and check me on something." 

Spock was at his side in an instant, and as he so often did, he seemed to know exactly what Jim meant. "Retreating," he said, nodding. "Now, if there are no serious side effects--" His communicator chirped, and he quickly answered it. "Spock here." 

"Marcus to landing party. The identification is correct, repeat, correct. Do you mean to tell me you boiled down all that mass of bits and parts with nothing more than a bio-comp?" 

Relief surged through Jim's body, giving him a renewed burst of strength, and he exchanged tired grins with Spock. "No," the First Officer said. "We did it all in Dr. McCoy's head. Over and out." 

Miri looked hopefully at Jim. "It's not too late?" 

"No," Jim told her. "It isn't." 

Miri smiled. Bones stirred. He tried to sit up, obviously dazed, but much less in pain than he'd looked before passing out. His eyes met Jim's. 

Jim gave him the most loving smile he could muster up. "Doctor," he said feebly, "if you're sufficiently rested, I believe the administration of injections _is_ your department." 

Bones blinked. "It worked?" 

"It worked fine, the ship's computer says it's the right stuff, and you're the hero of the hour, you pig-headed idiot." 

Bones smiled, but his smile faded when he saw Slim in Jim's arms. "Is he...?" 

"Hurry, Bones," Jim said simply.

Bones hauled himself off the cot and reached for the hypospray on the table. Spock, still the strongest of them, took Slim from Jim's arms and laid him on the now-empty cot. Despite any personal anxieties he might have felt, Jim told Bones to start with Rand and the guards. 

"How long did it take?" Bones asked over his shoulder as he administered a dose to Ellison. 

"Fifteen minutes, I should say," Spock answered. "But you were not as far gone as they are." 

"Still, thirty minutes and they ought to be coming around." Bones came over to the other three and hesitated, then gave the first injection to Slim. 

"The captain next, I should say," Spock said. 

"Nothing of the sort," Jim protested weakly. 

"Shut up, Jim. Spock's right." Bones jammed the hypo against Jim's neck and dosed him. "You're a lot worse off than he is." 

"Thanks," Jim grumbled. 

Bones gave an injection to Spock as well, then turned to Miri, still standing nearby. "There's one more dose left, Miri." 

Miri hesitated, looking at Slim. Then she set her jaw determinedly and held out her arm. Bones gave her the last of the antiserum. "There," he said. "You'll be all right now." 

"Thank you," Miri said. The words were obviously unfamiliar on her lips, but she just as obviously meant them. 

True to Bones' prediction, both Rand and the two guards were conscious in half an hour. Slim gave them a few anxious moments, but he came around just as the last of Bones' splotches faded away. He groaned softly as he tried to sit up. 

Jim helped him, tears unexpectedly pricking at his eyes. "Slim, thank God," he murmured. 

Slim rubbed his neck and smiled at Jim. "Hey, Dad." 

"How are you feeling?" 

"Better, thanks." Slim looked around. "Pa's cure worked, then?" 

"Sure did." Jim put an arm around Slim's shoulders. 

Slim swung his legs over the side of the cot and looked up at Jim seriously. "Dad...I'm really sorry." 

"For what?" Jim asked, confused. 

"For not listening to you. You told me to go back to quarters. And I know I'm supposed to stay on the ship. I know I shouldn't have come down here--when Uncle Scotty said someone would have to go down, I volunteered. My excuse was that everyone on board would be needed, but...I dunno, Dad." Slim looked down. "And I almost got myself killed. I'm sorry." 

Jim helped Slim to his feet. "Your apology is accepted. And I'm sorry I didn't listen to what you were trying to tell me on the ship. I'm still new to this whole father thing, and I didn't have one to set a good example for me." He waited for Slim to look up at him, then smiled. "Let's make a deal, okay? I promise I'll try to give you all the time I can, if you promise not to volunteer for any more away missions. Deal?" 

Slim's smile was like the sun coming out. "Deal."

It took four days for them to actually leave the planet. The _Enterprise_ produced as much of the antiserum as it could, and a medical team had beamed down to both administer it to the onlies and to keep an eye on things. Uhura had been in touch with Earth, only fifteen light-years away, and they were probably going to send more adults to look after the children, to get them heading in the right direction. During that time, none of the original landing party beamed up--and, despite his misgivings, Jim had decided to let Slim stay and help, too. But now it was time to go.

Jim stood with Bones and Spock, listening as his CMO gave the medical team last-minute instructions. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Miri go over to Slim and touch his arm. He smiled and took her hands in his. The two talked in quiet voices that Jim couldn't hear, but he could see their body language. Miri obviously asked a question. Slim shook his head, gesturing to where the _Enterprise's_ crew stood as he replied. She said something, gesturing over her shoulder, and he answered by pointing upwards. She said something else, and he drew her hands up and answered. Tears filled her eyes, but she nodded.

"Slim," Jim called, leading his group to an open area. "It's time."

Slim nodded, then turned back to Miri, bent down--she was about half a head shorter than he was--and kissed her cheek, then gently disengaged her hands. She watched, the tears beginning to fall, as Slim came over and joined the group. "I'm ready, Dad," he said with a smile.

Jim gave him a half-smile of understanding, put an arm around his shoulders, and flipped open his communicator. "Landing party to _Enterprise._ Beam us up."

The seven progressed to the bridge once they'd arrived. Scotty looked incredibly relieved as he ceded the conn to Jim, and Uhura beamed at Spock, who almost smiled in reply. Sulu and Chekov turned around to grin at Slim.

"All right, Mr. Sulu," Jim said, taking his seat. "Get us out of here."

"Yes, sir." Still smiling, Sulu turned back to the helm.

Jim looked at his son. "So, what were you and Miri talking about?"

Slim blushed. "She wanted me to stay with her," he admitted. "Said I wasn't quite an only and wasn't quite a grup, an' she thought I might be helpful. 'Sides, she sorta liked havin' me around. I told her I couldn't stay. I got a family up here." His blush deepened. "She asked if I'd come back for her someday, an' I said I couldn't promise that. But I won't forget her."

"No," Jim murmured. His mind flashed to a pair of big green eyes and an impish grin--his first crush. "I bet you won't."

Rand shook her head, looking out at the planet as it receded. "I just can't help but think--they're only children. Is it really a good idea to leave them with just a medical team? Even if it is only for now?"

"You saw what Miri did," Jim pointed out. "I think they'll be just fine."

"But they're _children,"_ Rand repeated. 

Slim shook his head, to Jim's surprise. "I reckon you don't remember what it's like to be twelve. The reason the 'onlies' wanted to stay onlies was because 'grups' were violent. Adults are different. Have you ever met a kid who wasn't in a rush to grow up?" 

Jim had to smile. "You're right, Slim," he agreed. "All the same--I think I'd prefer you stayed a kid, for a little longer, anyway." 

The door to the bridge slid open just then, and Yeoman Mears came on, holding Addie, who was looking a little tired. Jim turned, his smile widening, and stood up. "Hi, baby," he cooed. 

Addie smiled. Bones came up beside him, and she held out her chubby arms to him. "Papa," she said, clearly and distinctly. 

Bones grinned and took her out of Mears' arms. Jim chuckled. "First 'Slim,' now 'Papa.' I feel loved." 

"Dada," Addie said, leaning her head on Bones' chest, which made Jim and Bones both laugh. 

"She's been saying that over and over the last few days," Mears said, smiling benignly. "I think she's missed the three of you." 

Slim came over. "Want me to take her back to quarters?" he asked, a little uncertainly. 

Jim hesitated. The answer ought to be "yes"--a baby had no place on the bridge, not really--but he couldn't bring himself to say it. He was beginning to realize how much of Addie's life he was missing. He'd been fortunate to catch her first word, but the yeoman had just told him that she'd been calling for him and Bones for more than a week, and he'd missed the first time she'd said his name. She was ten months old now-- _ten months._ Where was the time going? What if he missed her first steps? What if he was around her so little, even though they lived together, that she didn't recognize him one day? And he'd missed _thirteen years_ of Slim's life. The boy was growing up fast. They both were. 

"No," he said at last. "The two of you can stay up here for a while." He turned to Spock, who was standing near Uhura's station with his hands clasped behind his back. "Unless you disagree, Mr. Spock?" 

Spock shook his head. "Not at all, Captain. After all, babies don't keep." 

Jim started. He'd heard that phrase once before, in a place so far removed from this one that he almost wasn't sure where he was. "I'm sorry?" 

Spock looked at Addie, who was starting to fall asleep in Bones' arms. "It is a poem my mother used to recite on occasion," he said softly, "when a neighbor would attempt to convince her of illogic in her method of raising me. She once told me the whole poem, but most often she quoted the final stanza. 'The cleaning and scrubbing--'" 

"'Will wait 'til tomorrow,'" Bones chimed in, his face white. 

Spock glanced up and met Bones' eyes. The whole bridge turned to look at them, obviously surprised, as they continued reciting the lines. "'For children grow up, as I've learned to my sorrow. / So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust, go to sleep. / I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep.'" 

Jim felt a chill run down his spine. The two spoke in almost identical tones, the cadences matching perfectly, and both in soft, thoughtful voices, like they were remembering times long past. They were so incredibly different, both in temperament and in terms of their histories, but in that moment, they could have been twins. Jim saw more understanding pass between them in that instant than he'd ever seen in his life. 

Slim moved against Jim, who put an arm around his shoulder and held him close, then drew him back towards the conn. As he took his seat, he glanced up at the planet, now rapidly fading from view. 

"You know," he said quietly, "I almost don't blame them for starting the project in the first place." 

Slim put a hand on his father's shoulder, also looking at the planet. Jim wondered if he was seeing a pair of impish eyes and a full-lipped smile. "But was it worth the cost, in the end?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poem that Spock and Bones recite is called "Song For a Fifth Child" by Ruth Hulbert Hamilton and will be discussed in more detail in the next chapter.


	20. Anything Like the Man

Spock waited patiently until he was certain nobody else was around to notice before he slipped into Med Bay and directly into McCoy's office. It was well known that Vulcans never got sick, so the necessity of him visiting the doctor would be called into question. And as the matter was somewhat delicate, he had no desire to have the nurses noticing and speculating about his motives. 

McCoy was reading over a report when Spock closed the door behind him and cleared his throat discreetly. The doctor looked up, obviously startled. "Hmm? Oh, Mr. Spock. What can I do for you?" 

"I am sorry to trouble you, Doctor," Spock said formally, "but...as much as I hate to admit this with every fiber of my being, I need your help." _Damn,_ he thought, uncharacteristically. _Hate_ was one of those words he normally never used; it implied emotion, and a strong one at that. But the words had sprung almost unbidden to his lips, which meant he was perhaps further gone than he had thought. A double blow, coming as it did so soon after the incident on the planet they had taken to calling "Miri's homeworld." 

McCoy's eyebrows lifted fractionally at the words, but then his face relaxed into a look of sudden understanding. "Oh. It's that time again, is it?" 

"I beg your pardon?" Spock said stiffly. His emotions, damn them, were starting to bubble and churn, almost uncontrollably-- _almost_ being the operative word, fortunately for the _Enterprise's_ crew--and in his state, it sounded as though the doctor had just issued a challenge of some sort. 

"Every seven years, I seem to recall you saying. It's been about that." McCoy rose from behind his desk. "Let me just get you the kit." 

Spock's jaw dropped. "The kit, Doctor?" 

"The kit," McCoy repeated. "From the fact that you're here, I'm assuming you and Nyota have decided you aren't ready for children yet. I figured that was going to be the case. So before we set out, I made sure I had a few things on hand. I knew you'd need them at _some_ point during this mission." 

Spock's emotions went to war with one another again as he watched McCoy move towards his cupboards. He had expected to have to explain what was going on once again. He had expected to encounter resistance, or at the very least ridicule. McCoy usually lost no opportunity to needle him, and they argued frequently, often needing Kirk to step in and break them up. It was only during times like this that Spock could appreciate precisely how difficult it must be for the captain to remain unbiased in those situations. Yet the doctor was acting calm, understanding, patient...and more than that, he did not even have the little smirk he wore when he was thinking something sarcastic but refraining from mentioning it. 

Sudden worry gripped the half-Vulcan. If McCoy was not behaving in his typical fashion, something must be wrong--with him, or with his family. His mind immediately went to the children. Due to his duties, and his own growing knowledge of his condition, he had avoided everyone unless it was strictly necessary, and neither Thomas nor Athena had been on the bridge in three days. 

"How is Athena?" Spock asked. 

McCoy glanced over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised in confusion. "Just fine. Cutting three teeth at once, babbling her three-word vocabulary, and she'll be walking any day now." 

"Is Thomas suffering any lasting effects from the--the 'grup' virus?" Spock didn't think the virus had been given an official name, but that worked just as well. 

"If he's suffering anything, it's from missing Miri," McCoy answered. He opened one of the cupboards and rummaged about in it for a moment. "Once the cure took hold he bounced right back. You'd think he'd never been sick a day in his life." 

"Then the problem is with the captain." Spock's worry was edging towards full-blown panic. 

"Jim? Nothing wrong with him as far as I can tell." McCoy turned around, frowning. "Why? Have you noticed something off about him?" 

"Not about him, Doctor," Spock said quickly. "About you. You are...not yourself." 

"I'm not?" McCoy's frown deepened. "What makes you say that?" 

Spock hesitated. "Ordinarily, you are quick to...tease me. You often have an argument for any statement I make, even one so simple and factual as 'good morning.' I confess that I came in, perhaps, expecting a fight. Yet you are behaving--" he hesitated again--"oddly." 

"Oh, that." McCoy smiled. "No sense in it without an audience, is there?" 

"I suppose not," Spock replied, puzzled. 

McCoy sighed, the smile disappearing. He leaned against the counter. "Spock, I know you and I don't always get along. And when I'm emotional, you're a convenient target. Guess there's a part of me that thinks, if I can make _you_ feel as lousy as I do, it'll make me feel better. My grandmother used to say that nothing helps a bad mood like spreading it around." 

Unexpectedly, a smile tugged at Spock's mouth. "Incidentally, Doctor, my mother said the same thing on occasion." 

McCoy smiled back. "Where was your mother from, Spock? I've been wondering." 

Spock tried to remember. "New Chicago, I believe." 

"Mmm, no relation, then. My grandmother's family is from Georgia all the way." McCoy tapped on the counter lightly. "But that kind of explains my behavior, I guess. Last few weeks, I've been thinking of you standing on the bridge, staring at Addie and reciting that poem." 

"'Babies Don't Keep,'" Spock said, nodding. 

"It's properly called 'Song for a Fifth Child.' Ruth Hulburt Hamilton was a mid-twentieth-century mother who wrote the poem when her youngest daughter was born in 1958. There were five years between the fourth and fifth child, which explains the 'Children grow up, as I've learned to my sorrow' bit. Gran had--has--the last stanza framed on her mantlepiece." McCoy shook his head. "Until you brought it up, I hadn't thought about that poem in years." 

"That was why you and the captain brought Thomas and Athena aboard the _Enterprise,_ was it not?" Spock pointed out. "So you would not miss any of those crucial years." 

"Exactly. And that's why you and Nyota are holding off on having children, unless I miss my guess. You're not as fluid with the rules as Jim is. He's got Addie on the bridge with him at least part of every shift--or at least he has since Miri. But you--you're not the kind of person who can do that. And the two of you go on so many away missions, spend so much time working, that if you had a child on board, you'd never see him or her. You don't want to miss any of those crucial years." 

Spock looked down. Ordinarily he would never admit the truth of what the doctor was saying. To admit to sentiment was a dangerous thing for a Vulcan. His own father never had, when Spock was young. "You are correct, Doctor," he said quietly. "Looked at logically, I would like to have a child, so that my family does not end with me. But emotions do get involved in such things, even for an ordinary Vulcan, and I am half-human, after all." 

"And I tend to forget that," McCoy admitted. "I apologize." He checked his chronometer. "'Bout time for shift change. Do you still consider yourself fit for duty, or do you need to be excused until this is over?" 

A bit startled--he had lost track of time--Spock replied, "I believe I am fit for one more shift." 

"All right. Get on up to the bridge. I'll ferret out where I hid the stuff and bring it up to you. Don't worry, the bag looks like a plain old PADD case. Nothing medical." 

"You...hid the stuff?" Spock repeated, confusion returning. 

McCoy shrugged. "Some of it isn't stuff we normally carry around. Other things I didn't want someone to use by mistake. And since I wasn't sure exactly when your cycle fell, I wasn't sure if Addie would be mobile before you needed it, and I didn't want her to get into it." 

"Understandable," Spock said. 

McCoy made a shooing motion. "Go. I'll be up in a bit."

Spock nodded crisply and headed up to the bridge, feeling his spirits lift. _Pon farr_ always left him feeling vulnerable, and the last time he had gone through it, he had balked at sharing the news with anyone--not only because the rituals were among the Vulcan race's most closely guarded secrets, but because it was embarrassing to admit how illogical the race could become during this time. He recalled now that McCoy had responded then with unusual restraint and tactfulness, never prying into his affairs nor spreading news about him around the crew. He had not even told the captain what he suspected to be the truth, and the two normally shared everything. 

Stepping onto the bridge, he realized that he was the last to report for the new shift and felt a slight amount of sheepishness. Uhura looked up at him, a flash of concern in her dark brown eyes. "There you are," she murmured. "Is everything all right?" 

"It will be," Spock assured her. By rights he ought to have told her already, but he had gone to McCoy first, thinking the process would be more drawn-out than it was, and he would not say the words on the bridge in front of others. 

Kirk, too, looked around and gave his First Officer a half-smile. "Mr. Spock, glad you could join us," he said dryly. He gestured to the station. "Status report?" 

Spock went over to his station and quickly read the data available there. "All quiet, Captain." 

The shift went on fairly quietly. Sulu and Chekov kept the ship on a steady course. Uhura reported no incoming transmissions. There was nothing much for Spock to do. 

Perhaps an hour later, the door to the bridge slid open and Dr. McCoy came on. Almost absently, he drifted by Spock's station and dropped a blue zippered pouch next to the computer terminal before heading over to talk to the captain, who looked up and grinned. "Hey, Bones. All quiet in Med Bay?" 

"As it can be. Kelowitz is down with the 'flu for another three days, I'd estimate, but Patterson's arm should be healed enough that he can return to duty tomorrow." 

Uhura suddenly turned from her station. "Sir, we're getting a transmission from Starfleet. Code 19." 

Spock suppressed a smile at Kirk's theatrical groan of despair. Code 19 meant diplomacy or negotiation of some kind. It was the third Code 19 call they had had in the past eight months. Kirk hated them. Spock knew it was useless to point out that he had a gift for them, as well as unnecessary. Captain James T. Kirk may have occasionally played fast and loose with regulations, but he did his job, and he did it well. Eventually. 

"All right, Lieutenant, put it through," Kirk muttered. 

A gravelly voice came through, startling Spock. "Captain Kirk, this is Admiral Merrill Nylund. Do you copy?" 

Since Spock had never heard of Admiral Nylund before, he assumed this was a new officer, and he was therefore surprised and slightly concerned when Kirk visibly tensed, sitting up ramrod straight. When he spoke, every word was crisp, clipped, and cold. "Yes, Admiral, I copy. What use do you have for me?" 

Spock's eyebrows shot upwards. That was _not_ standard protocol. He was uncertain if Kirk had some personal dislike for the admiral, or if he was simply trying to convince Starfleet to choose someone else for a diplomatic mission. 

If it was the latter, it did not work, and if the former, the voice gave no sign that it had noticed. "Geological surveys have detected a significant deposit of topaline on the planet Capella IV. Its population consists of the remnants of--but I do not need to tell you this, as I am certain there is someone aboard your ship who can do the necessary research into the planet's history." 

Spock stiffened. Whoever this admiral was, it seemed he was deliberately baiting the captain, and in the state he was in, _he_ was incredibly annoyed. Kirk had to be feeling worse. But he merely replied in the same voice, "You are correct, Admiral." 

"The Federation is incredibly anxious to get mining rights on Capella IV," Admiral Nylund said. "You will proceed to Starbase Nine for the contract. You will then proceed to Capella IV. Once there, you will secure those mining rights, no matter who you have to deal with. Is that clear?" 

"Crystal clear, Admiral," Kirk said. 

"Repeat your instructions." 

Spock had had enough. He rose from his seat and crossed the bridge in two steps, scowling at the transmitter into which Kirk had been speaking. "Admiral Nylund, I was not aware that it was standard procedure to treat the captain of a starship like a backwards five-year-old," he snapped. 

Uhura gasped. McCoy winced. Sulu turned from the helm and stared at Spock, his eyes wide. Chekov seemed to be trying to sink under the console. Admiral Nylund's voice never changed, however. "I should have expected that you would encourage such behavior in your officers, Captain Kirk, considering how you treated the High Commissioner. Be sure that I will note this in your file. Repeat your instructions." 

"I am to proceed to Starbase Nine for the contract, then proceed to Capella IV and secure topaline mining rights for the Federation, no matter with whom I have to deal," Kirk said tightly. 

"Very good, Captain." Admiral Nylund's voice held the faintest hint of contempt. "Begin carrying out your orders. We will have the contract ready for you when you arrive. End transmission." 

The silence of the transmission ending was an almost physical heaviness. Kirk slumped in his chair, rubbing his forehead. "Bastard," he muttered. 

"I am frankly impressed that you managed to refrain from calling him that personally," Spock said. 

"Why? I had you to do that for me." Kirk looked up, and his eyes were puzzled and concerned. "Are you all right, Mr. Spock?" 

Spock felt the blood rushing to his cheeks. "I thought I was, Captain. I may have made an error of judgement." 

"You couldn't have known that was going to happen," McCoy assured him. "And speaking of being impressed by someone's restraint--from the expression on your face, I'm surprised that was all you said to him. Furthermore, you were right." 

Kirk looked back and forth from Spock to McCoy, then evidently decided to drop the conversation. He turned to the navigator. "Mr. Chekov, set course for Starbase Nine." 

"Yes, sir." Chekov turned back to the console. 

"Mr. Sulu, time estimate?" 

Sulu did some quick calculations. "Two weeks, sir." 

"Two weeks," Kirk muttered. "There has to be a starship closer than the _Enterprise_. Why us?" 

McCoy put a hand on the captain's shoulder. "Judging by how you reacted to Nylund's name, I'm guessing you know the answer to that better than the rest of us," he said gently. 

Kirk reached up and covered McCoy's hand with his own, giving him a look that made Spock turn away to hide his own emotions. Though he and Uhura had been in a relationship for nearly fifteen years, he had never asked her to marry him--although they had mated during his previous _pon farr._ He loved her, as deeply as his own father (he now knew) had loved his mother, but still he had never asked her. He told himself that it was not logical to ask, that she knew of his feelings and that marriage was unimportant to their relationship. But deep down, he had no idea why he had never asked, and whenever he saw Kirk and McCoy, he wondered. 

For the two men had loved each other for nearly as long as Spock and Uhura had. They had met on the shuttle to the Academy, they had suffered in silence for three years thinking that each felt a love the other could never return, and they had finally confessed their love for one another the night before Kirk cheated on the _Kobayashi Maru_ test. McCoy was the only one who could reach Kirk when he was hurting and broken, and Kirk could bring a smile to McCoy's face no matter the circumstances. The light touches, the twining of fingers, the looks of love and longing, the subtle shifts in posture and stance when the other was in danger--Spock noted all these things, even when he was in full control of himself, and wondered in the privacy of his quarters whether Uhura was jealous of them. In the condition he was in now, _he_ was jealous of them. 

Spock could occasionally unbend enough to show Uhura how much she meant to him, but ordinarily she initiated any displays of affection between the two of them. He found it incredibly difficult, almost painfully so, unless he was under severe duress, and because of that, he envied Kirk and McCoy the ease they had in one another. Neither, to his eyes, need worry about whether or not the other loved him; they so obviously adored one another that any fool could see it.

The soft hiss of the door drew his attention, and he turned to see Thomas, carrying Athena on his hip. The boy was smiling, although it faltered when he observed the crew. "Is everything all right?" he asked hesitantly. 

A fair question, Spock thought, and he looked inquiringly at the captain, who managed a smile. "It's fine," he reassured his son. "Just another diplomatic mission is all. How's everything going with you?" 

"Just fine." Thomas's eyes softened as he looked at his sister. "Little Mischief here has been askin' for everyone, so I thought I'd bring her up, if that's all right." 

"That's fine," Kirk reassured him. 

Spock agreed. A lot of the tension that had sprung up with Admiral Nylund's call dissipated with Athena's appearance. The little girl's sunny smile was contagious. Spock wanted to smile, but he was still too shaken by the powerful emotions the admiral's words had stirred. 

Athena squirmed and babbled, reaching for the floor, and Thomas bent over and set her down. "All right, I get the picture, you don't want to be held," he said. Straightening up, he added, "She's been real fussy." 

"Probably cutting more teeth," McCoy suggested. 

Kirk looked up at the doctor. "Anything you can do for her?" 

"Short of the teething rings we're keeping in the freezer already--" 

"Sir!" Uhura suddenly cried. 

Spock's eyes widened as he saw what Uhura had called their attention to. Athena had rolled to a crouch, then planted her palms on the ground and rocked back so that she had her feet under her. As the crew watched, she managed to push herself to a stand and wobbled for a moment. For a wonder, she remained upright. Stretching out her arms, she took one hesitant step forward, then another. 

Kirk gasped. A broad grin split his face, and he dropped down to a crouch beside his chair, holding out his arms. "Come on, Addie," he cooed. "Come on, you can do it. 'Attagirl." 

McCoy knelt down behind him, also smiling. Sulu and Chekov turned their attentions from the console; Spock chose not to reprimand them, also fascinated by Athena's slow but steady progress. She had her legs under control now and was moving along at a faster clip. 

"Come on," Kirk urged. "Come to Daddy..." 

To Spock's surprise, however, the little girl toddled right _past_ her father...and straight to where Spock stood. She looked up at him, dimples in her cheeks as she smiled, and held up her chubby arms. 

As he had the first time she had smiled at him, he melted, but it was even more intense now with the emotions roiling inside him. He bent down, scooped her up, and swung her up over his head, making her giggle, before drawing her into his arms and cuddling her tightly. She threw her arms around his neck and lay her head on his shoulder. 

Of all the crew of the _Enterprise_ who came in regular contact with the captain's daughter, only Spock had never held her before. He felt the warmth of her, smelled her soft baby scent, heard her heart beating in her chest, and wondered why it had taken him so long. 

"Fine, I can take a hint," Kirk joked, rising from his crouch and brushing his knees off. 

McCoy smiled. "She knows where she's most needed, I'd say." 

Kirk looked at McCoy in confusion, but said nothing. Thomas came fully onto the bridge and gave Spock a crooked grin. "Her first steps. Wish I'd taken a picture." 

"Don't worry, Slim, I managed to get one," Uhura said from her station, also smiling. Spock met her eyes, saw the soft expression on her face as she regarded him holding the little girl, and wished with all his heart that he thought he could adequately parent a child during a five-year mission. 

As if he had detected Spock's thoughts--which he may well have--McCoy said, "Mr. Spock, the more I get to know you, the more I am convinced--you are going to make an _excellent_ father someday." 

Spock raised his head in surprise. A lump formed unexpectedly in his throat, especially as he could tell that McCoy meant what he said. 

"Dr. McCoy," he said quietly, "if I am half the father you are, I shall be satisfied."


	21. He Don't Wanna Go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as a warning, this chapter is one of the longer ones. It's also a little angsty.

Jim rubbed his forehead as he reached the door of the Recreation Room. He seriously hoped it wasn't too crowded. Acting professional and straightforward and, quite frankly, _normal_ was beginning to take its toll on him. He wondered who he was really fooling. 

He was in luck. This time of shift, only two men were in the room--Spock and Bones, who were engaged in a game of chess. Jim wasn't sure if he was completely relieved or not. On the one hand, here were two of the only men he could be himself around, at least right now. On the other hand, neither was who he was looking for. 

Bones looked up as Jim drew near and smiled. "Want to play winner, Jim?" 

"Can't right now, thanks." Jim didn't sit down, although he desperately wanted to. "Have either of you seen Sulu or Chekov? I thought Slim had a fencing lesson today, but I checked the tertiary gym, and none of them were there." 

"Our quarters," Bones answered, the smile fading. "They were here eating when we came in, and Slim said something about them watching a couple holovids, but that was hours ago." 

"Is something the matter, Captain?" Spock asked, studying Jim closely. The First Officer had returned to normal after satisfying his _pon farr,_ but there was a flicker of concern in his dark eyes. 

"We'll be at Starbase Nine in an hour, that's all," Jim said, striving to keep his voice even. He was aware that his voice had been softer than usual for the last two weeks, but he was afraid to speak in a normal tone in case he cracked. 

Spock frowned. "Do you doubt Riley and Alden's abilities to handle the console during the docking?" 

"No," Jim said. "Far from it. But I'm taking Sulu and Chekov to the--" he hesitated--"briefing." 

"That makes sense," Spock replied. "Between the five of us, we should--" 

"Mr. Spock," Jim interrupted quietly, "I am taking Sulu and Chekov. You two will be remaining here." 

Bones' jaw dropped. "What?" 

"Captain, I should like to know your reasoning," Spock protested. 

Jim swallowed, struggling to remain calm. He couldn't break. Not now. Not so close to confronting the man awaiting him at Starbase Nine. "You know as well as I do that regulations state a captain and First Officer are not to be on the same away mission. We ignore that regulation frequently--and with good reason. But the admiral I have to meet with is..." He hesitated. 

"A stickler for the rules?" Bones suggested, his eyes narrowed. 

"Maybe," Jim said cautiously. "But...in truth, I think it more likely he's hoping to catch _me_ out on something. He'll take any excuse, any technicality, to get me in trouble. So I can't take you. And, Bones, I can't take you because he'd use _you_ against me. I don't want him to start messing with you. Not to mention that the only reason the brass tolerates our relationship is that it technically started before I was your superior officer, and that there are four hundred and thirty people who can and will swear under oath that I've never given you preferential treatment because of it. This particular admiral...he can make trouble, and he _will,_ given half the chance. I won't put you through that." 

Spock rose from his seat and looked Jim steadily in the eyes. "Captain, if I may ask--who _is_ this man? I had never heard of Admiral Nylund before he contacted the ship. And a check of his service record shows that he is possessed of an entirely undistinguished career in Starfleet." 

Bones, too, stood up. "Seriously, Jim, you've been so damned close-lipped over the whole thing. It's ridiculous, and not a little frightening. Spock showed me his record and he's been in Starfleet since long before you ever even thought of joining. He's never served in the same sector as you. About the only irregularity is it lists an 'unspecified planetside posting' from more 'n twenty years ago." 

Jim wanted to tell them. Badly. But he knew that if he started talking now, he would both be late for his appointment and probably lose his composure when he did so. And right now, he couldn't afford that. He took a deep breath. "Gentlemen, I promise, I will explain everything when I get back. But for now...I have an appointment to keep. Enjoy your game. Excuse me." Turning before either could say anything, he quickly left the Recreation Room. 

He keyed in the code and stepped into his quarters. Sure enough, Sulu and Chekov were there, together with Slim. On the portable holo-screen set up in the living room was a production that had obviously been made long before holos were a thing; it had a grainy, flat quality to it. It was also in black-and-white. A confused mass of men fought with a variety of weapons. 

"I don't think ze Padre is even trying," Chekov said. 

Slim laughed. "Even in an era of bad stage-fighting, that was spectacularly bad." 

"Not everyone's bad. The duel between Esteban and Diego--" Sulu began. 

"Yeah, but Basil Rathbone was a fencing instructor, and the film made it clear that Diego had been taught actual techniques," Slim pointed out. "I think Basil Rathbone actually taught Tyrone Powers proper swordplay before they started filming." 

"What are you watching?" Jim asked. 

All three jumped. There was a confused moment as they tried to figure out which limbs belonged to which man--Jim noted, with detached amusement, that Sulu and Chekov had been sort of tangled up in one another on the sofa--and then they stood before the captain, blushing. It was Slim who answered. _"The Mark of Zorro._ It won the Best Picture Oscar in 1940." 

"Sorry, sir," Sulu mumbled. 

"You're not in trouble," Jim assured him. "Any of you. But we'll be at Starbase Nine in an hour. Mr. Sulu, Mr. Chekov, I'd like you to accompany me." 

The two men exchanged surprised glances. Chekov ventured, "Sir--who else will be in ze landing party?" 

"No one else, Mr. Chekov. I'll explain later." Jim glanced at the holoscreen, which Slim had managed to pause right after Jim spoke to them. "How much longer is left in this movie, anyway?" 

"Uh--" Slim looked over his shoulder. "Maybe fifteen minutes?" 

"Go ahead and finish watching it. I'll meet you two in the Transporter Room when it's done. Slim--" 

"Addie's taking a nap," Slim said, glancing at the door to her room, which was closed. "I'll stay here with her." 

Jim breathed a silent sigh of relief. "Thank you."

He left the quarters and went back up to the bridge. As he reached the lift, Uhura joined him. He looked at her in surprise. "What are you doing here?" 

Uhura looked at him steadily. "Regulations state, sir, that any of the command staff not participating in an away mission must be on duty during one. Mr. Spock commed me and informed me that you were concerned regulations be followed, and as we are approaching Starbase Nine, and any crew members being off the ship except on leave qualifies as an 'away mission,' I will need to be on duty." 

Jim had forgotten that, and he blessed Spock for remembering. "Thank you, Lieutenant Uhura." 

Bones and Spock were both on the bridge, standing silently on either side of the conn. Scotty, equally silent, stood at the Engineering Station, seldom used, but as good an excuse as any for him to be on the bridge. Uhura touched Granger on the shoulder and murmured in his ear; he quickly vacated the seat, and she took it. Jim seated himself in the conn. "Status report, Mr. Alden." 

"Starbase Nine approaching, sir," Alden replied, twisting around. "We should be there within five minutes." 

Almost before he'd finished speaking, Uhura said, "Sir, incoming transmission from Starbase Nine." 

"Patch it through, Lieutenant." 

There was a moment of silence, and then a crisp, military-sounding voice spoke. "Starship, identify yourself." 

Jim took a deep breath. "This is the USS _Enterprise,_ NCC-1701. Captain Kirk speaking. Request permission to beam party of three down to pick up the mining contract for Capella IV." 

"Stand by, _Enterprise._ " 

The wait was longer than Jim had expected, but he didn't let himself fidget, as badly as he wanted to. A part of him suspected it was a deliberate ploy to make him antsy. After five minutes, Scotty murmured from his station, "Within beaming range of Starbase Nine, Captain." 

"Hold your position, Mr. Alden," Jim said, also keeping his voice low. 

As if that was the signal, the voice at the other end of the transmission came back on. "Orders confirmed, _Enterprise._ Transmitting beaming coordinates now." 

"Thank you. _Enterprise_ out." Jim signaled for Uhura to cut the transmission, then stood up. "Mr. Spock, you have the conn." 

He started to leave, but Spock put a hand lightly on his arm, stopping him. In a voice that no one but Jim and Bones could possibly have heard, he said, "Be careful down there, Jim." 

Jim nodded, grateful for the concern, then turned and headed to the Transporter Room. 

Sulu and Chekov were both there waiting. He nodded to both of them, then beckoned both of them to a spot near the transporter pad, but where the technician could not hear them. He spoke in a low voice. "Listen to me, because this is incredibly important, okay? The admiral we are going to speak with and I have a--" he hesitated--"history. It's a long story, and I _promise_ I will explain as soon as we get back. But meanwhile, I need you two to help me. He's going to try everything he can to get under my skin, and I'm going to resist as well as I can. Whatever he says, whatever he does, _do not rise to his bait._ Do you hear me? I'm not going to order you not to speak unless spoken to, but if that's what it takes not to respond..." He looked seriously from one man to the other. "There's more riding on this than anyone knows. _Please,_ gentlemen, I'm counting on you two." 

Chekov swallowed hard. "Yes, Keptin." 

"You can rely on us, sir," Sulu said quietly. 

Jim let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "Thank you," he said quietly. He led the two men onto the platform, squared his shoulders, and nodded to the technician. "Beam us down."

The three men materialized on the corresponding beaming platform on the starbase, where they were confronted by a man in a military-looking uniform. He saluted crisply. "Lieutenant JG Blume. State your name and purpose, sir." 

Jim returned the salute. "Captain James Tiberius Kirk, USS _Enterprise,_ here to collect paperwork to secure topaline mining rights on Capella IV." 

"Yes, sir. Follow me." 

Jim led his two officers down the hall. The starbase was dimly lit, darkly colored, and narrowly built, although he suspected it was not the narrowness of the corridor that made Sulu and Chekov walk so close to one another. He didn't blame them, and in fact he wished he could have someone to draw against. Unfortunately, he had to set a good example, had to be confident, aloof, and dignified. 

At last, Blume stopped outside a door and knocked. The intercom next to the door beeped. "State your business." 

"The representatives from the _Enterprise_ are here for the contract, sir." 

The door beeped and slid open. Blume saluted. "I will wait out here for you, sir." 

"Thank you." Jim nodded, took a deep breath, and entered the room. 

As large as the room was, it gave the impression of darkness, as everything was painted dark grey, flat and unchanging. There was a chart on one wall depicting the nearest star systems. A man sat behind a desk, shuffling some paperwork around. Jim walked up to the desk. "Good evening, Admiral," he said, trying to give his voice as little inflection as Spock's usually had. 

The admiral looked up, and Jim found himself staring into a pair of eyes that had haunted his dreams for nearly thirty years--flat, dead, absolutely emotionless eyes of a peculiar color, yellow like a cat's. The face around them had aged, but it was still recognizably the same. 

"Good evening, Captain," Admiral Nylund said, a faint note of contempt in his voice. He rose and stared at Sulu and Chekov. Jim fought the urge to block them from sight. "You did not bring Mr. Spock, I note." 

"A captain and First Officer are not permitted to serve on the same away mission, Admiral," Jim said in a level tone of voice. "Regulation 12.4." 

"I am surprised you permit him to remain as your First Officer, given his outburst," the admiral said silkily. 

"Mr. Spock was ill at the time, Admiral, and made an error of judgement. He has since recovered." 

"Why did you allow him on the bridge, if he was ill?" 

Jim's jaw clenched. He forced himself to relax. "I was unaware at the time that he was ill. He had not previously displayed any symptoms, nor had he asked Dr. McCoy for a diagnosis." 

"Ah, yes, Dr. McCoy. I am surprised to note you did not bring him, either." 

"I brought the officers I felt best for the job," Jim said. 

"Are you going to introduce them?" 

"Certainly, Admiral. Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu, my senior helmsman, and Lieutenant Pavel Chekov, my senior navigator." 

_"Your_ officers," Admiral Nylund repeated. "Not the ship's. _Yours."_

It was suddenly difficult for Jim to draw air into his lungs. Fortunately, Sulu spoke in a blank, emotionless voice before it became obvious. "Naturally, Admiral. Captain Kirk represents the _Enterprise._ Therefore, to all intents and purposes, he _is_ the _Enterprise._ Therefore, we are _his_ officers, as representative of the ship itself." 

"Your crew is well-trained," Admiral Nylund said, eyeing Jim again. 

"Naturally, Admiral, they attended Starfleet Academy, the same as we did." Jim put subtle emphasis on the _we._

"Naturally," Admiral Nylund said easily. He came around the desk and studied Jim, who used every means at his disposal to remain still. "I find your appearance greatly changed from when last we met. Indeed, had you not been introduced to me, I think I should hardly have recognized you. Doubtless you find _me_ greatly changed as well." 

Jim tried to work out, quickly, in what way he meant this. "On the contrary, in appearance you have hardly changed at all." 

"Oh?" Admiral Nylund's eyes never lost their flatness, but Jim realized he had made his first misstep. He prayed fervently that it would be his last. "Then your tastes must have changed in...twenty years? No, nearer to thirty. You found my appearance distasteful then, but you seem unfazed by it now." 

There were several answers to this. None of them were exactly career-advancing moves. Jim reminded himself, firmly, that whatever he may have been when they'd last met, Merrill Nylund was now Jim's superior officer and as such afforded at _least_ as much respect as the late Admiral Marcus. "I was a child back then, Admiral." 

"So you were." The admiral spoke almost carelessly. "A particularly reckless one, as I recall." 

"As you say, Admiral." 

"A leader among your peers, even then." 

Jim stiffened slightly. _No. Dear God, no. Don't let him have that over me, too._ He struggled to keep his voice even. "If you mean I had an aversion to authority then, Admiral, I freely admit that. I've learned my lesson over the years." 

"I should hope so." Admiral Nylund stood squarely in front of him, all traces of teasing gone from his face. Jim was an even six feet tall, but Nylund stood seven inches taller in his stocking feet, and his shoes had a slight heel, so he loomed over the captain. "I should certainly hope so. Because as I recall, your--uh--'aversion to authority' had a rather...steep cost. I should hate for such a price to be extracted again." 

Jim forced the words out, managing with difficulty to hold the admiral's gaze even though he was simultaneously more furious than he'd ever been in his life...and more terrified. "It is my duty as captain to ensure that such a price need never be paid, Admiral." 

"Admirable," the admiral said in a voice that implied the opposite. "And if such a price _were_ asked?" 

"It nearly was, once," Jim replied, remembering the battle with Khan. "And I willingly laid down my life in exchange. I would do so again." 

"As I recall," Admiral Nylund said, for the third time in the last five minutes, "that is precisely what two other individuals did, once upon a time." 

"Your recall is admirable," Jim said, feeling his throat start to constrict. _You do not get to mention them. You do not deserve to speak their names. They were worth a hundred of you._

"Perhaps you _have_ changed since then," Admiral Nylund continued. "Or, if presented with the situation now, would you make the same choice you made then, and remain silent?" 

Jim couldn't breathe. _No. You couldn't have known. There's no way you knew..._

Sulu spoke from behind him, in the same blank voice he had used before. "I have never known Captain Kirk to make a decision which was not for the good of the crew, Admiral. Whatever situation he may be presented with, I am certain that he would remain silent only if it was for the good of all."

"I see." Evidently tired of baiting Jim, Admiral Nylund turned, glanced down at his desk, and picked up a folder containing several flimsi sheets. "To business. The mining contract for Capella IV. It covers rights, compensation, and the time when the contract will need to be negotiated. All couched in diplomatic language, of course, so I hardly expect you to be able to understand it, but perhaps someone aboard your ship can translate it for you." 

"Indubitably, Admiral," Jim replied. At least that was bait easier not to rise to. He took the folder, opened it briefly to ensure it did, in fact, contain the contract and not something that would cause major diplomatic issues, and closed it, tucking it under one arm. 

Was it just his imagination, or did the man look faintly disappointed? "You are three weeks from Capella IV. They will be expecting you. Just as with the Melkot, the Federation is depending on the success of this contract. You will secure those mining rights by _any means necessary._ Is that clear?" 

"Any _diplomatic_ means, I presume," Jim replied. 

" _Any_ means, Captain Kirk. There is nothing the Federation would not do for those mining rights--and it is counting on you to secure them." 

Jim's mouth went dry. He realized that the admiral was leading him into a trap, and he only prayed that the Capellans would be sensible and would agree to the contract, which he had learned thanks to Slim's research was already a verbal agreement, and needed only the High Chief's signature to be fully legal. Because if they did not agree, and no diplomatic persuasion would convince them, he would be caught in an awkward position. Any methods beyond diplomacy could result in all-out war, or in the destruction of a race. Admiral Nylund could claim, reasonably enough, that he had never _specifically_ ordered military measures used. And Jim Kirk, Starfleet's darling or not, would be facing a court martial for his actions at the very least. Yet if he did not secure those mining rights, he would have disobeyed a direct order, failed a mission, and doomed a number of colonies to death. 

"Understood, Admiral," he said, thankful that at least his voice wasn't shaking. 

Admiral Nylund sat down, obviously dismissing them. Jim nodded crisply, turned on his heel, and headed for the door. His officers followed him. They had almost reached it when the admiral's voice stopped them. "Lieutenant Chekov." 

Jim froze as he felt rather than saw Chekov turn around hesitantly. "Yes, Admiral?" he said. 

"You are a loyal man, are you not?" 

"Yes, Admiral." 

"To Starfleet or Captain Kirk?" 

Jim, staring straight ahead at the door to the office, felt his eyes widen. Suddenly the admiral's game had taken on a more sinister aspect. 

"I don't understand, Admiral," Chekov said. 

"Come, come, Mr. Chekov, it's a simple question," Admiral Nylund said, almost cajolingly. "To whom do you profess your loyalty--Starfleet, or Captain Kirk?" 

"B-but zat is what I do not understand, Admiral," Chekov said in a small but serious voice. "What is ze difference?" 

Jim wanted to turn around and rip the admiral's head off. It took everything in his power to keep him from trembling with rage and fear. _Do what you want to me, you bastard, but leave my crew out of this,_ he wanted to shout. 

After a moment, he heard a sound he'd heard once before--Admiral Nylund's soft snort of derisive, dismissive laughter. "What, indeed," he said dryly. "Dismissed."

Blume saluted as they stepped out of the office. "If you'll follow me, gentlemen, I'll take you back to our Transporter Room." 

"That won't be necessary, thank you, Lieutenant." Jim flipped open his communicator. "Kirk to _Enterprise."_

" _Enterprise_ here." Spock's voice was calm and rational as always, for which Jim was grateful. 

"Mr. Spock, have us beamed back aboard." Jim hesitated, fully aware that the door of Admiral Nylund's office was still cracked open. "And assemble the senior command staff in the Briefing Room. I'd like to go over our orders before we leave." 

"Very good, sir. Stand by to beam." 

"Thank you, Mr. Spock. Kirk out." Jim closed his communicator and nodded crisply to Blume. "I thank you again for your assistance, Mr. Blume." 

Blume started to salute, then stopped himself and _bowed._ "The pleasure was mine, sir. Have a safe journey." 

"Blume, come here." Admiral Nylund's voice came sharply over the intercom. 

Blume turned white and started for the door just as the beams of light surrounded the three men and transported them back to their ship. 

Jim didn't say anything, merely beckoned Sulu and Chekov to follow him and strode off with the same expression he'd worn for the last two weeks. The Briefing Room was one level below the bridge, and Jim walked the entire way in silence, the folder tucked under his arm. When they at last entered, he dropped it on the table and turned to Chekov as the door closed behind them, before he'd even registered if there was anyone else in the room. "I'm sorry, kid. I never meant to put you in that kind of position--I didn't expect him to pull a stunt like that." 

Chekov shook his head. "It's all right, Keptin. I meant what I said...but what did _he_ mean by zat?" 

"What did who mean by what? What happened?" Scotty's voice was a mixture of impatience and worry. 

Jim turned to see the rest of his senior command staff--Spock and Uhura, Scotty, and Bones--standing around watching the three of them. Spock glanced at the folder, picked it up, opened it. "The mining contract?" he asked. "It must be rather complex, if it took him so long to explain it." 

"He didn't explain it at all," Jim muttered. "He told us, briefly, what it covered, but said that the language might be too complex for me to understand, although he's sure _someone_ on the ship could interpret it. Or something like that." 

_"What?"_ Scotty and Uhura said in unison. 

Sulu cleared his throat. "Sir, I--I have a confession to make." 

Jim turned to Sulu, puzzled. "A confession?" he repeated. 

"Yes, sir. I--" Sulu hesitated, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a small black device, which he laid on the table in front of him. "I recorded the whole conversation. Just in case." 

Spock's eyebrows disappeared into his bangs. "Why would you do that, Mr. Sulu?" 

Sulu blushed. "I thought...well, when the captain said he wanted us along as witnesses, I thought...maybe at some point, we might need proof to verify one part of the conversation or another. So I brought along a pocket recorder. I turned it on when we went in, and...I meant to ask if it was all right, honestly I did, but I got the impression the admiral wouldn't like to be interrupted." 

Jim hesitated, then said quietly, "Well, that'll save us having to remember details of the conversation. Play it, Mr. Sulu." 

He crossed the room and leaned against the wall, resting his head on his arm and staring at nothing, as Sulu activated the playback on his recorder. For the next twenty minutes, no one moved or spoke as Admiral Nylund's poisonous words spewed forth. The recorder shut off with a click, and there was a full minute of silence. 

Bones' voice dispelled it. "Bastard," he choked. "That absolute bastard." There was the scrape of his chair as he pushed back from the table, and then his arms were around Jim. Jim turned around and leaned against his husband, wanting, _needing_ some of his strength. 

"I understand what you meant now when you said you did not wish to bring Dr. McCoy with you," Spock said softly. 

"I didn't want to bring _anyone_ with me," Jim admitted. "I didn't want to put anyone through that. But I didn't think he'd go _that_ far--or say the things he did to you two. I apologize." 

"No, Keptin," Chekov said firmly. _"You_ are not ze one who needs to apologize." 

"We'd brave a lot worse for you, Captain. The whole crew would," Sulu put in. 

"Damn straight," Scotty growled.

Uhura reached over and grabbed Spock's hand. He twined his fingers through hers as she asked, "Captain...what was he _talking_ about?" 

Jim took a deep breath and gently extracted himself from Bones' arms. He'd promised everyone an explanation when he returned. "Have...have any of you ever heard of Tarsus IV?" 

Chekov, Sulu, and Uhura shook their heads. Spock frowned slightly. "I have heard the name mentioned, but I know nothing about what occurred there." 

"I do," Scotty said quietly. Everyone turned to look at him. "I'm not suprised none of ye know about it, though. Those records are sealed. _Completely_. An' those who were there...it's not somethin' we like discussing." 

_"We?"_ Jim stared at Scotty in astonishment. 

"Aye, we. I was just startin' my third year at the Academy an' servin' a semester aboard the _Lexington._ It was my shift off when they started extractin' the survivors, an' I wound up helpin' with that." Scotty shook his head slowly. "Come t' think of it, I may remember Nylund now. Incredibly tall, broad shoulders, cat's eyes?" 

"That's him." Sulu shuddered. "His eyes gave me the creeps." 

"He was a Starfleet officer, even back then," Scotty said. "Lieutenant, I think. I remember he spent a lot o' time with Captain Hackett, preparin' the report." 

"So he served on the _Lexington?"_ Spock asked, looking slightly confused. 

"Oh, no, Mr. Spock," Jim said bitterly. "Hardly. He was the Starfleet officer assigned to the Tarsus colony, with the idea that he could communicate with Starfleet if the need arose." 

"How did you--" Scotty broke off sharply and narrowed his eyes, then gasped. "Jim...you...you were _there?"_

"I was," Jim said quietly. "I was nine years old at the time, about to turn ten." 

"Captain," Uhura said hesitantly, "I know the records are sealed, but..." 

"But I promised you explanations," Jim completed, "and you'll get them. If anyone deserves to know, you all do." He took a deep breath and seated himself at the head of the table. "Tarsus IV was an agricultural colony comprised entirely of people from Earth. The leader was a man named Kodos. The colony was thriving pretty well. Then in 2242, a fungal plague hit the crops, just before the harvest. There was just enough food left to sustain the entire colony for two weeks. Kodos instructed Merrill Nylund to send out an SOS. Starfleet received it and sent word not to despair--that a ship was on its way, and would arrive in four weeks." 

Chekov's eyes widened. "So ze colony starved for two weeks?" 

"No," Jim replied. He closed his eyes briefly. "The population of the colony was eight thousand--" he hesitated--"and two. Kodos was a student of eugenics, and saw an opportunity, which he took. He selected four thousand colonists he considered to be the best genetic specimens, ninety-five percent of whom were children under the age of sixteen. He then called the other four thousand to a meeting and informed them that, for the good of the rest of the colonists, they would have to sacrifice themselves. And he massacred them." 

Uhura gasped and tightened her grip on Spock's hand. Spock looked down at the recorder, which still lay on the table. "That, then, is what the admiral meant when he made his comment about you remaining silent? That you said nothing during the massacre?" 

Scotty suddenly sat bolt upright. "The Children's Rebellion. Dear God, Jim, ye were involved in the Children's Rebellion, weren't ye?" 

"The what?" Sulu asked. 

"The Children's Rebellion," Scotty repeated. "Somewhere around forty children banded together in an attempt to stop the massacre, but they were just too late, they arrived just as the massacre started. Saw the whole thing, poor wee bairns. They tried to fight anyway--plenty o' them had lost family in that--but there were near twice as many soldiers as children, better armed too. They stood no chance. Only eight survived." 

"Ten, technically," Jim said softly. "Kodos promised he would let us all go if the leaders surrendered themselves, and he swore to be merciful." 

"Then ye _were_ in the Rebellion," Scotty murmured. 

"I was one of the leaders," Jim admitted. 

"Then I fail to see--" Spock stopped, and he gave Jim one of _those_ looks. "You did not surrender." 

"Two of the leaders did. They swore they were the only two leaders at all. I don't know how Nylund figured out there had been _three_ of us, or that I was the other one. I've only ever told one person, and that wasn't until a couple months ago." Jim felt tired. 

"Why didn't you?" Uhura asked. "That doesn't seem like you--hiding, I mean. Or not taking credit for your achievements." 

"It's all right, Bones," Jim said quickly, feeling his husband tense. "She doesn't know." He let go of Bones' hand and met Uhura's eyes. "I didn't admit I was one of the leaders because one of the other two leaders made me promise I wouldn't. He made me swear that no matter what Kodos said, no matter what he promised, I would _never_ admit to him I'd been a leader. He didn't trust Kodos at all." 

"And you _listened_ to him?" Uhura said incredulously. 

Jim felt tears sting at his eyes. "Of course I did, Lieutenant. He was my big brother."

Another one of those silences fell. Uhura covered her mouth with both hands, staring at him with huge eyes. Even Spock seemed shaken. At last, Chekov spoke in a small voice. "What--what happened to ze leaders, Keptin?"

"Kodos kept his word," Jim said. "He was merciful. They died instantly." He took a deep breath. "The _Lexington_ arrived five days later."

"We weren't the initial ship," Scotty said softly. "The one Starfleet intended t' send. It was a four-week journey from Earth to Tarsus IV, an' they were preparin' to send the _Hook_. The _Lexington_ was supposed to be on a fact-gatherin' mission an' we had orders not t' divert for anythin'. Hackett told 'em to stuff it and took us to Tarsus anyway."

"What happened to Kodos?" Sulu asked. 

"Nobody knows for sure," Jim answered. "Shortly before the _Lexington_ arrived, Kodos' headquarters caught fire. There was one corpse found, burned beyond all recognition, but it was lying in what had been his bed, so it was presumed to be him. But nobody knows how the fire started. It certainly wasn't us. At least, if it was, I didn't know about it. I was still kind of in shock." 

Spock looked at Jim. "Captain--what role did Admiral Nylund play in all this?" 

"He was one of Kodos' soldiers, if that's what you mean," Jim said. "As a matter of fact...he was the one who took charge of my brother, when the survivors of the Rebellion were brought before Kodos for judgement." He broke off, remembering the contrast in the two men's eyes--Kodos', black but burning with the fire of inner vision; Nylund's, so brightly-colored but absolutely flat and dead. Of the two, Nylund had always scared him more, even then. Kodos was just a madman, like Nero had been, like Khan had been, like Marcus had been--a madman who believed he genuinely was in the right, but a madman nonetheless. Nylund was perfectly sane, which made his actions all the more terrifying. 

"You don't think Nylund was the one who set Kodos' headquarters on fire, do you?" Bones asked, speaking for the first time since the recording had ended. 

Scotty shook his head. "We'd know if he had. He's that kind. If he knew anything about what had happened, and could claim any part in it, he'd have told Hackett." 

_"If_ it was nothing to be ashamed of, that is," Spock said calmly. 

Jim looked at his First Officer sharply. "What do you mean by that?" 

"Just that, Captain. If Admiral Nylund had set fire to Kodos' headquarters, intending to punish him for his crimes, he would certainly have informed Starfleet of the fact. I imagine he would have done the same if he had any kind of certain knowledge that another had done so--taken the credit for another's work. And if he had had any proof that another party had set the fire for less than altrusitic purposes, he would have taken that individual into custody and set them up for punishment--incidentally thereby setting himself up as a hero. That he disclaimed all knowledge means that either he knew nothing, as Mr. Scott said...or that he had assisted in something he felt Starfleet would take a dim view of." 

Jim digested that for a moment. Spock was absolutely correct. Sulu spoke up. "Certainly he omitted certain information when he made his report. He never mentioned he was one of Kodos' soldiers." 

Scotty looked at Sulu in surprise. "You wouldn't have been but _five_ at the time, at best! And you weren't there! How could you know that?" 

"Common sense," Sulu replied without batting an eyelash. "Nylund was a lieutenant thirty years ago. He's an admiral now. There has to be a string of commendations. As a communications officer, he wouldn't have been held responsible for what happened during an incident that, in the first place, he wasn't actually in charge of and, in the second place, never officially happened. So what happened on Tarsus wouldn't have affected his Starfleet career-- _as long as he was a bystander._ But if it was known that he had _actively_ participated in the massacre of four thousand people--not to mention the slaughter of thirty-two children, two of whom were killed _after_ surrendering and _without_ due trial, both of which are violations of Starfleet and Federation regulations besides being horrifying and unethical--he might not even still be _in_ Starfleet. Even if he was, he sure wouldn't be an admiral." 

Spock nodded approvingly. "A very masterful summary, Mr. Sulu, and soundly concluded." 

Sulu flushed. "Thank you, sir." 

Spock looked at the recorder thoughtfully for a moment, then up at Jim. "Orders, Captain?" 

"Orders?" Jim was startled. 

"Yes, sir. As Mr. Sulu pointed out, should Admiral Nylund's participation in the atrocities perpetrated by Kodos be revealed to Starfleet, he would likely lose his commission at the very least. And he would likely be asked to answer for his crimes." 

Jim stared at Spock, then slowly scanned the rest of the room. Chekov looked younger and more vulnerable than he had since his bout with the chicken pox ten years earlier, and Bones and Uhura both had tears in their eyes, but all six of the officers were regarding Jim with utmost seriousness. 

"The trouble is," he said slowly, "that I don't have any proof. It would be my word against his. And I was a kid, just three months shy of my tenth birthday, and moreover I'd just witnessed my uncle and his family massacred, my brother cut down in front of my eyes. Easy to dismiss anything I remember as the ravings of a child." He looked around the room again. "In point of fact, _you_ only have my word that I'm telling the truth." 

"Of course you're telling ze truth, Keptin," Chekov said simply. 

Spock pointed to the recorder. "This seems to me a very clear case of an attempt to intimidate or threaten you. That, too, would be sufficient for a reprimand. And he overstepped his boundaries by ordering you to use any means necessary to obtain mining rights on Capella IV. There are certain things forbidden by Starfleet regulations--and the constraints of common decency." 

"He never said to use any of those means," Bones pointed out, obviously playing devil's advocate--possibly for no other reason than that Spock was the one who had raised the point. 

"Not directly, Doctor, but he also laid the blame squarely at the captain's feet should the mission fail." 

"And by not putting it into words, he comes out clean," Jim said. The last of his equilibrium reasserted itself. "I appreciate what you're trying to say, Spock." He looked around. "I appreciate _all_ of you. But I think right now, all we can do is try to complete our current charge--obtaining topaline mining rights on Capella IV. I'm pretty sure the signature is just a formality at this point, but I'll have to double-check on that. In the meantime, let's get this mission taken care of before we start worrying about...about anything else." 

"Understood, Captain," Spock replied. The other crew members nodded. 

Jim reached for the folder, then hesitated. "And I don't think I need to tell you that what we've just discussed doesn't leave this room," he said quietly. "Even if Starfleet hadn't ordered those records sealed...like Scotty said, we don't talk about it." 

"Like you said, Captain, you don't need to tell us," Sulu said. 

"Thank you." Jim swallowed against the lump in his throat. 

Suddenly the intercom crackled to life. "Supply to Briefing Room." 

Jim jumped, then headed to the intercom. "Go ahead, Supply." 

"Restocking is complete, sir. We're ready to go whenever you are." 

"Good. Kirk out." Jim turned back to the officers and smiled--a real smile, for the first time in two weeks. "I'm off to the bridge. Anyone coming with me?" 

Spock stood. "Captain," he said, and he was actually smiling, "I believe I can speak for all of us when I say that we will follow you anywhere."


	22. With All His Things

Leo headed down the corridors, moving at about half his normal speed. The reason for this was Addie, who was clinging to his hand and enjoying the use of her legs. It wasn't that she was slow--far from it, she moved very quickly--but her legs were still short, so she took about three steps for every one of Leo's. Hence, slow progress. 

His goal was the tertiary gym. Slim and Sulu would be in there having their fencing lesson. Leo was pleased that his stepson and the two younger officers had formed such a close friendship. Slim's only other friends were a couple of the younger kids in Engineering, and they could occasionally be found talking about the mechanics of the ship's engine, but not very often. 

Leo picked up Addie as they reached the door. She protested a little, but he didn't want her getting hurt. Cautiously, he opened the door. 

Chekov was sitting on a pile of mats, grinning. He waved when he saw Leo, who skirted the wall and joined him. Sulu and Slim were dancing back and forth, the blades clattering back and forth. Sulu laughed. "So! You are using Bonetti's defence against me, eh?" 

"I thought it fitting, considering the rocky terrain," Slim replied. 

Leo frowned. The gym floor was completely flat--what was Slim talking about? Sulu didn't seem to be fazed by it, however. "Naturally, you must expect me to respond with Capa Ferro, eh?" 

"Naturally," Slim said. "But I find that Tybalt cancels out Capa Ferro." He danced out of the way and parried a thrust. "Don't you?" 

"Unless the enemy has studied his Agrippa," Sulu said. His blade moved in a sudden blur of liquid steel, which Slim only just managed to defend himself against. "Which I have." 

"What are they talking about?" Leo said to Chekov, bewildered. 

Chekov laughed. "Zey are quoting a movie. _Ze Princess Bride."_

"While fencing?" Leo demanded. 

Slim evidently heard him, although it was hard to see with the face masks on. "Naturally. Fencing is fifty percent bladework...forty percent footwork...six percent skill...one percent luck...and three percent witty banter." 

"It still fascinates me zat zey can do zis without breaking stride," Chekov said to Leo. 

Addie giggled, clapping her hands as she watched. Leo kept a firm grip on her. As he watched, he suddenly frowned. "Wait..." he muttered. "You sure one of those is Slim?" 

"Of course." Chekov looked startled. "Why?" 

"Because they're both holding their swords in their right hands. Slim's a southpaw." 

"My goodness." The note of false surprise in Slim's voice was obvious. "You're right. How _could_ I have forgotten? Silly me." He continued with his series of parries and transferred the sword smoothly from his right hand to his left without missing a stroke. 

Leo's jaw dropped. "What the blazes!" 

Sulu's own blade faltered. With a loud "HA!" Slim got past his guard and stabbed him in the shoulder with a lunge. 

"Match point," Chekov called. 

The two fencers took a step back and saluted with the blades, then removed their masks. Sulu's face shone with awe. "How'd you _do_ that, Slim?" 

Slim blushed. "I watched that scene in _The Princess Bride_ about a zillion times, then came up here and practiced for, like, a week straight." 

"That's damned impressive. I could maybe pull a Westley and toss the sword to my other hand, except I can't fence left-handed, but no way could I switch hands while still fencing my opponent." 

"I didn't know if I could do it, either. I might only be able to do it that once. I can do it when I'm fencing against nobody, but it's a million times harder when someone is actively trying to stab you."

"I don't know that there's much more I can teach you about foil," Sulu said, replacing his sword on the rack. Slim followed suit, stretching a little to reach the clips. "And epée is about the same. Want to start sabre tomorrow? It's a lot different--the parries are different, for one." 

"Sure." Slim smiled. "I'd like that." 

Chekov pushed himself to a stand. Leo struggled to his feet, still holding Addie, but she squirmed to get away. Giving in, he let Addie down on the floor. She made a beeline for Sulu and held up her arms, exercising the newest word in her vocabulary: "Up!" She'd figured that one out shortly after they'd set out for Capella IV. She had also figured out that it was a magic password. None of the crew could resist picking her up when she requested it--not even Spock. Most things had gone back to normal with him once his _pon farr_ had passed, but sometimes, when Leo saw him with Addie, he privately wondered if the Vulcan didn't regret his decision to wait on having children. 

Sulu scooped Addie up and acted interested as she babbled at him. Leo shook his head affectionately and turned to Slim. "When you get the chance, your dad wanted to talk to you in Briefing." 

Slim nodded. "Let me grab a quick shower and I'll be right there." 

Leo could see that Slim's face was shiny with sweat, as was Sulu's, and he nodded in understanding. Sulu blinked as a rivulet of sweat ran into his eye. "I ought to take one, too." 

Chekov nodded in obvious understanding. "I'll be in ze Recreation Room, I think." 

Leo took Addie from Sulu. "Want some company for a bit?" he asked, not sure what had prompted him to ask but not wanting to return alone to quarters with his daughter, either. 

"Really?" Chekov looked surprised, then smiled. "Of course, Doctor." 

Addie struggled to get down again. Leo let her to the floor but kept a grip on her hand. She looked up at Chekov, dimpled, and held up her free hand to him. Chekov willingly took it. 

"I swear, she's got every single person on this ship wrapped around her little finger," Leo grumbled, but with affection. 

Chekov grinned. "Especially you." 

Leo smiled reluctantly. "I admit that. She looks at me and I'll do anything she wants." 

"It is her eyes, perhaps?" Chekov suggested. 

Leo looked down. Addie looked up at him and grinned, the same smile out of all Leo's old baby pictures, but the eyes above them, shining with childlike innocence, were Jim's. They'd known that since the day the doctors at the clinic had first put her in their arms, that she had Jim's baby-blue eyes, but Leo had never thought about it before. 

"I think you're right," he admitted. "It's just--Slim has them, too. All Jim or Addie have to do is bat their eyes at me and I'm putty in their hands, but Slim...I don't know why I don't do that with him." 

"How often does Slim give you zat look?" Chekov asked. 

Leo stopped. Addie made protesting noises, tugging at his hand, but he stared straight ahead, his eyes wide. Dammit, how had he never thought of that before? "He never has," he said at last.

"I've noticed zat he doesn't look you or ze keptin in ze eye wery often," Chekov said, stooping down and picking up Addie. He swung her onto his shoulders, which she liked. "He didn't even look _me_ in ze eye for a few weeks when he first came on board. It's different now zat we're friends." 

Leo looked at the young navigator. "Do you have any ideas as to why?" 

Chekov started walking again, bouncing a little bit as he did; Addie giggled and clapped her hands. Leo fell into step with him. "Maybe it has to do with some of ze foster homes he's been in. Ze Lawsons were ze worst, but...I don't think many of zem actually cared about him." 

"He hasn't had much experience with love, you're right about that," Leo agreed. "We've tried to give him that, but..." 

"It's not just lowe," Chekov said in a low voice, ducking so that Addie wouldn't bang her head as they stepped into the lift. "He knows you lowe him, and he lowes you. He's just afraid to ask for what he wants. He's so used to being told no." 

"Doesn't he know there are things it's okay to ask for, dammit?" Leo growled. Now that he thought about it, Slim hadn't asked Jim or Leo for anything, or much of anything, since they'd met him nine months earlier. 

"Doctor, he won't even ask Sulu if he can take a break to get a drink of water while zey're fencing. He waits for Sulu to suggest it first, zen agrees. When zey aren't fencing, when we're all just being friends, he's different, but..." Chekov bit his lip. "I think he's afraid of authority, just a little bit." 

Leo didn't say anything as they headed down to the Recreation Room. He was beating himself up for not having noticed. Slim asked a lot of questions, sure, but that was all he ever seemed to want, information. And the poor kid always apologized whenever someone asked him what he was doing. He was very respectful, very polite, very obedient--but he didn't ever ask for anything when someone was on duty. Chekov was right about that. And he'd always seemed so nervous when he asked for permission to come on the bridge... 

"Coffee, Doctor?" 

"Huh?" Leo jumped, startled out of his reverie. They were in the Recreation Room--he hadn't noticed them arriving--and Chekov was standing by a table with his eyebrows raised. "Oh. Uh...sure." 

Chekov nodded and lifted Addie off his shoulders. Leo immediately picked her up and set her on his lap. Chekov moved over to the counter and returned with two cups of coffee and a smaller cup with a spout on it. Leo raised his eyebrows. "What's that?" 

"Apple juice. For Addie. Zey keep a few lids on hand for her." Chekov set the cup and one of the coffee mugs in front of Leo, then sat opposite him at the table. 

Addie eagerly grabbed the juice cup and leaned back against Leo as she drank. He wrapped both hands around his coffee cup and eyed Chekov. "You didn't ask how I take it," he noted, "and you didn't bring anything over." 

Chekov looked surprised. "I fixed mine at ze counter," he said. "And you drink yours black." 

"How'd you know that?" It was Leo's turn to be surprised. 

"I pay attention. I see people in here having coffee all ze time. You take it black. Mr. Scott adds a shot of Scotch, at least when he thinks no one is looking. Lieutenant Uhura likes two spoonfuls of sugar and a little milk, and she always puts ze sugar in first and ze milk in last. Mr. Spock drinks Wulcan coffee, and he drinks it black. Keptin Kirk has a splash of milk and so much sugar that you told once him he might bring diabetes back." 

Leo laughed at the memory, although he was astonished by Chekov's recall. "And you?" 

"Half-coffee, half-milk, no sugar," Chekov answered. "And Sulu doesn't drink coffee, he drinks tea, green tea, with three spoonfuls of sugar and sometimes lemon if he's in ze mood for it. Slim prefers apple cider." 

Another thing about his stepson Leo hadn't known, he thought guiltily. "I guess I don't need to ask how you know that. I imagine the three of you have a hot drink together frequently." 

"It's useful to have a drink when we're playing Fizzbin," Chekov said sheepishly. 

"Fizzbin--what's that?" Leo frowned, then suddenly laughed. "Is it that ridiculous card game the three of you suckered Scotty into playing at Slim's birthday party?" 

"Uh--yes." Chekov looked embarrassed. 

Leo took a sip of his coffee, then leaned forward. "Tell me the truth. Did you make it up?" 

" _I_ didn't," Chekov said quickly, blushing furiously. "Well...not by myself. We all made it up in parts." 

"How do you--" Leo began, then stopped. "Never mind. If you can remember eight wildly different beverage preferences, I'm sure you can remember a few weird rules to a card game." 

Chekov laughed. "We wrote zem down, too." 

"You know how you said it's useful to have a drink when playing this game? You sure you didn't mean an alcoholic one?"

"I don't drink alcohol." 

Leo stopped. "You don't?" 

Chekov shook his head. "I don't like ze taste. Or--anyway, it's no fun drinking alone." 

Leo caught the slight hesitation in Chekov's speech, but wisely chose not to call attention to it. He also didn't comment on the drinking-alone part. Leo agreed; if he had a drink at all, it was with either Scotty or Jim, or both. But Chekov really didn't have many people to drink with. He was shy, not associating with many crew members outside the senior command, partly because of the age gap. He and Sulu had been close since day one, and they'd welcomed Slim wholeheartedly into their group. Slim, of course, was too young to drink. And Sulu had a severe alcohol allergy. 

"It's okay," Leo said. "You three seem to have plenty of fun sober." 

Chekov smiled again. "We do." 

"Got room for one more here?" 

"Hey!" Chekov's smile brightened several degrees. Leo didn't need to look up to know that Sulu had just walked over to them. 

"Sure. Pull up a chair. Grab a cuppa." Leo indicated the counter. 

Sulu took Leo's advice. A few minutes later he was sitting at the table with them. He sipped at his tea and sighed contentedly. "Oh, that tastes good." 

"Never developed a taste for tea," Leo mused. "Except for the iced variety, of course." 

"Can't drink coffee," Sulu said. "I have a caffeine sensitivity. Chitose used to torment me by switching our cups so I'd end up in a hyper fit." 

"Who's Chitose?" 

"My twin sister. She always used to say she was my _older_ sister, but it was only by fifteen minutes." Sulu stared into his teacup. "She was on the _Hook."_

"I'm sorry, Sulu," Leo said softly. A twinge of guilt hit him. The senior command staff was pretty close on the _Enterprise_ , but he realized all of a sudden that they'd unconsciously formed a divide. Sulu wasn't much younger than Uhura, maybe a year, but she'd always seemed old beyond her years, and the "younger two" tended to get ignored, or pushed to the side at the very least. Leo and Uhura had been friends, of sorts, even at the Academy; he and Scotty had bonded fairly quickly; even he and Spock had come to an accord over the years, aided and abetted by Jim. He knew a good deal about all three of them, and of course he probably knew Jim better than he knew himself. But had he ever sat down and tried to get to know Sulu or Chekov? Hell, the only reason he knew about Sulu's alcohol allergy was because he'd been the one to treat him after Chekov's twenty-first birthday party. He hadn't known about the caffeine. 

Sulu roused himself with a smile. "It's all right. I'm just glad she wasn't on the _Enterprise_ \--I'd never have heard the end of it if she'd known I forgot to disengage the external inertial dampener." 

Leo smiled, a little reluctantly. "What track was she on?" 

"Oh--she was in Security. She didn't go to the Academy." The smile on Sulu's face definitely became a self-satisfied smirk. "I passed the test, she didn't. She got in a huff and said she didn't need to be a 'jumped-up stripe-wearer' to do well in Starfleet, so she did a year's training as a security officer and signed on as enlisted. We used to tease each other whenever she was in 'Frisco on shore leave. She'd brag about having more experience than I did, and then I'd point out that when I graduated, I'd outrank her, no matter _how_ high she rose, and she'd get mad at me all over again." 

Leo and Chekov both laughed. "My sister isn't in Starfleet, but she married into it. Her husband's some paper-pusher. Last I heard, they might get posted to a starbase." 

"Older or younger?" Sulu asked. 

"Fifteen years younger. Her name's Suzanna." Leo turned to Chekov. "Don't suppose you've got a sister in the service, too." 

Chekov blushed and shook his head. "I don't even have a sister, just brothers. But zey're not in Starfleet. Zey're all back in Russia. I'm ze white sheep of ze family." 

"The black sheep," Leo corrected him. 

"No, ze white sheep." Chekov's blush deepened. "Ze rest of ze family is organized crime." 

Leo didn't know whether to laugh or display incredulity. He decided to take the middle ground and ignore it, partly because he wasn't sure how to react and partly because he was conscious of Sulu tensing subtly, as if daring him to pick a fight. "I kinda feel bad that we've known each other twelve years and I've never known about your families. Guess Slim knew everything within a week." 

"He's easy to talk to," Chekov agreed. There was a faint look of relief in his eyes. "And he takes an interest in ewerything you tell him. He's like ze keptin in zat." 

"And like you," Leo pointed out. "Jim remembers what people tell him. You remember what you see. Slim's somewhere in between." 

Chekov blushed again. Sulu grinned at him, then said to Leo, "It's why they get along so well, I think." 

"You're probably right."

Addie yawned around the spout of her cup. Leo smiled at her affectionately, stroking her dark curls, which just reached the tops of her ears. "Wonder how she's going to turn out." 

"With you and ze keptin as her parents? She'll be something special, zat's for sure," Chekov said, recovering from his embarrassment. 

"I'll drink to that." Sulu held up his teacup. Chekov grinned and tapped his coffee mug against it. 

Leo smiled. "She won't just have us, you know. You've heard that old saying, 'it takes a village to raise a child?'" 

"Of course, Doctor," Chekov said promptly and with a straight face. "Zat saying was inwented in Russia." 

Sulu laughed and pushed Chekov's shoulder good-naturedly. "You're saying we're all going to take a hand in how Addie grows up." 

"That's exactly what I'm saying," Leo agreed. "Whatever Addie becomes, it'll have elements of everyone who knows and loves her in it, and as a father, I couldn't ask for her to have better role models." 

This time he had the satisfaction of seeing both Sulu and Chekov blush furiously. He let them squirm for a minute, then added, "Better than I had, anyway. Did I ever tell you 'bout the time I let my cousins talk me into jumping out of a window to see if we had superpowers?" 

He knew he hadn't, but the comment had its effect. The two men relaxed as Leo related the story, then eased into a couple other lighthearted stories about his childhood. Sulu contributed a tale or two, and before long all three of them were at ease in one another's company, leaning over the table as Addie drifted into the misty world between sleeping and waking. 

When Kirk father and son came in thirty minutes later, the two younger officers were laughing helplessly as Leo said, "...like the hounds of hell were on his heels. Served her right for playin' the kind of games she used to play, if you ask me, but he didn't deserve that." 

"What are you three laughing about?" Jim asked, pulling out a chair and plunking down next to Leo. 

"I was just telling them about that first Christmas you came out to my family's place, when Suzanna practically filled the house with mistletoe in an attempt to get you to kiss her," Leo told him. 

Jim blushed. "You--uh--knew what she was doing?" 

Leo laughed. "Not at first. But she told me after you had that little chat with her and set her straight." 

"Dad, you want a cup of coffee?" Slim asked, hand on the back of his chair. 

"No, thanks. I've drunk so much coffee in the last couple of days that I'm surprised you're not peeling me off the ceiling." 

"Pa, Sulu, Chekov, refills?" 

"I'm good, thanks," Leo said. Chekov and Sulu covered their own cups with their hands. Slim nodded and headed up to the counter. 

"He's a good kid," Sulu said quietly, watching his progress and harkening back to their earlier conversation. 

Jim nodded, also watching. "Sharp as a tack, too. Only took him ten minutes to realize why nobody could make sense of the contract. Three of the pages were out of order. And, of course, none of them were numbered." 

"Mmm." Leo scowled. "One almost suspects that was done deliberately." 

"And, like everything else we suspect, we have no proof," Jim reminded him. "Anyway, Slim got it all sorted out. He even summarized it in good, plain English." 

Slim returned to the table with a mug in one hand and a glass of ice water in the other, which he put in front of Jim before sitting down. Jim stared at the glass in surprise. "What's this?" 

"Ice water. You said you'd been drinking a lot of coffee, so I thought..." Slim's forehead reddened. "Sorry." 

"No, no, don't apologize," Jim said quickly. "You did the right thing. It just surprised me." 

Sulu reached over and ruffled Slim's hair. "Anyone tell you you apologize too much, Slim?" 

"Sorry," Slim replied automatically. His blush deepened. "I-I mean--" 

Leo was surprised their laughter didn't wake Addie.


	23. Friday's Child

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This episode was originally written by D.C. Fontana. I've used her original script (as novelized by James Blish) rather than the version that was actually filmed. The differences are minor, but there are differences.

Slim handed his father the neat, organized folder with the Federation logo on the front. "I double-checked, sir, and everything's in order," he said, making an effort to make sure his voice didn't crack. 

"Thank you," Jim said. He opened the folder once, glanced at the first and last pages, and tucked it under his arm. 

Spock glanced at Slim. "Captain, if I may--" 

"No, Mr. Spock," Jim interrupted. "The away team stands as presently ordered, for the moment, anyway. We'll stay in contact with the _Enterprise,_ and if we need to beam down any additional civilians or personnel, we will." 

"I understand, Captain," Spock replied. 

Jim turned back to Slim. "I've already spoken to Dr. Marcus. She'll be keeping Addie with her for the duration of the away mission. It shouldn't take more than an hour or two, but however long it lasts, Addie will be fine--and I would like you to remain on the bridge. If that's all right with you, Mr. Scott," he added. 

"Aye, Captain, that's grand with me," Scotty replied, putting a hand on Slim's shoulder. "I'm like you. I like to have as many people I can trust on the bridge as possible." 

Jim's smile looked a little strained. "As I said, this shouldn't take more than a couple of hours, but if anything goes wrong down there, we'll be in touch. If anything goes wrong up here, usual orders stand." 

"Aye, Captain," Scotty said again. "Don't worry. We'll be just fine up here." 

Jim nodded. "Come on, gentlemen, let's go." He turned and left the bridge. 

Leo and Spock started to follow him. Before they left, Slim said softly, "You'll look after him, won't you?" 

Both men paused. Leo looked over his shoulder and said, his voice equally quiet, "You don't even have to ask, Slim. Don't worry." 

Slim waited for the door to the lift to slide shut behind him before sighing. "'Don't worry,' he says. Like it's that easy." 

"They'll look after one another," Scotty said reassuringly, squeezing his shoulder. "They always do." 

"I know, but..." Slim didn't finish. His dad had been weird ever since he'd received this mission. There was something going on that the senior command staff evidently knew about, unless Jim was acting under sealed orders, but since they hadn't told him he wasn't going to ask. It just worried him. 

Scotty clapped him on the shoulder and moved over to where Uhura sat at the communications console. "Are they away, Lieutenant?" 

Uhura touched her earpiece and nodded. "They've made it safely to the surface of Capella IV, Mr. Scott." 

"Glad to hear it." Scotty hesitated, biting his lips in evident indecision. Slim stayed silent, watching. After a moment, Scotty murmured something that sounded like "what they don't know won't hurt them" and looked up. "Slim, I'd like ye to keep an eye on the Engineering console. Can ye do that for me?" 

Slim straightened, feeling an overwhelming sense of responsibility and pride. "Yes, sir." 

He crossed the bridge and sat down at the correct console. There wasn't really a lot to do and he knew it; Scotty knew it too, but it was still a position on the ship, and Slim wasn't supposed to interfere with the running of the ship. Things were loosely done on the _Enterprise,_ but Slim hadn't even had the basic training of an enlisted man. Technically one had to be eighteen for that. 

But for all that, Slim knew what to do. Scotty had shown him often enough, and even though it had only been a few months, he probably knew the inner workings of the ship almost as well as the Chief Engineer did. He would only have an issue if something happened that required an authorization code; he didn't have one of his own, and the computer would refuse it if the code and the voiceprint didn't match. But they would cross that bridge when they came to it. _If_ they came to it. 

Scotty crossed to stand by the console. "How's she holding, Mr. Sulu?" 

"Holding steady, Mr. Scott," Sulu replied. 

"Any obstacles ahead, Mr. Chekov?" 

"Free and clear, Mr. Scott," Chekov replied. 

Scotty turned towards Slim. "Power, Mr. Kirk?" 

Slim felt ten years older being addressed as "Mr. Kirk," but he tried to respond in as normal a tone of voice as possible. "Full capacity, Mr. Scott."

Scotty rubbed the back of his neck and looked around. Technically, this was Beta shift. The only shift where the bridge was fully staffed, except during an alert, was Alpha shift; the other shifts had a navigator and helmsman, a communications officer, a yeoman, and a ranking officer, someone who could make minor decisions in a pinch but who could contact the captain in a major crisis. Sometimes they added to the shift during an away mission or a crisis, but at the moment, the only extra person on the bridge was Slim. 

Suddenly, Uhura touched her earpiece and whirled around, eyes wide. "Sir, we're receiving a distress call!" 

"What?" Scotty whirled around sharply. 

"A distress call, sir," Uhura repeated. "From the S.S. _Deirdre_. Records show she's a Federation freighter." 

"Put it through," Scotty said, gripping the back of the captain's chair. 

Uhura turned back to her console and flicked a couple of switches. Slim, Sulu, and Chekov all turned to look at Scotty as the message came through. "Attention, _Enterprise!_ Attention, U.S.S. _Enterprise!_ This is Captain Vega of the S.S. _Deirdre._ We are under attack, repeat, under attack! Klingon vessels have fired on our convoy. Two ships are already destroyed. Please, hurry, we have no weaponry and only rudimentary shielding--hurry--!" 

The voice broke off abruptly. Uhura tapped her earpiece, tweaked her console, and turned back to look at Scotty. "I've lost them, sir!" 

Scotty's face twisted with indecision. Slim bit his lip hard. Technically, the _Enterprise_ had orders to come to the aid of any ship that sent out a distress call, especially an SOS involving the Klingons. But three of their senior officers were on the surface of the planet...including the captain. He knew how hard the choice would be for Scotty. 

At last, however, the man nodded sharply. "Lieutenant, get me Captain Kirk." 

"Right away, Mr. Scott." Uhura turned back to her console. 

"Where was the _Deirdre's_ location?" Scotty demanded. 

"They didn't say, sir--" 

Scotty swore. Slim turned to his own console and bit his lip, scanning the instruments rapidly, as Scotty said, "Get the captain. Quick." 

"I'm trying, sir, but I'm not getting an answer." 

Slim laid his hands on the console and concentrated for a moment, then gave a small "ah" of satisfaction as he hit the proper sequence of keys and a set of numbers appeared on his screen. "Mr. Scott, I have the coordinates of the last transmission from the _Deirdre_." 

Scotty gaped at him. "How'd ye do that?" he demanded, then held up a hand as Slim opened his mouth to answer. "Never mind, tell me later. Transmit to the console. Mr. Chekov, set course--" 

"Sir, I can't reach the captain," Uhura said desperately. "Or Mr. Spock, or Dr. McCoy. None of them are answering their communicators." 

Scotty's face had a terrible look of pain. He took a deep breath. "We have our charge as well as our orders. It may be that they're in conference an' cannae answer. Whatever it may be, time is of the essence. Mr. Chekov, set course for those coordinates." 

"Course set, sir," Chekov said, looking worried. 

"Full throttle, Mr. Sulu," Scotty ordered. "Space normal speed." 

"Space normal, sir." 

Scotty turned to look at Slim. "Have ye got Dr. Marcus's comm channel?" 

"Aye, sir," Slim answered, surprised. 

"Tell her if she's nae in her own quarters, to take Addie there right away. If we're to be in battle, I'll nae have the wee lass in danger." 

"Aye, sir," Slim said again. He fumbled for the communicator. After a brief communication, he turned back to Scotty. "They're already in her quarters, Mr. Scott, and Dr. Marcus assures me they'll stay there until you give the all-clear." 

Scotty took a deep breath. "That's one worry off my mind, anyway." 

Sulu muttered, just barely loudly enough to be audible, "As if the ones we have left are such piddling little things." 

Slim looked at Scotty quickly, half expecting a reprimand, but Scotty didn't seem to have heard. He paced slightly, looking agitated, his eyes on the viewscreen. Breathing a quick sigh of relief, Slim turned back to his--to _the Engineering console,_ he corrected himself quickly. It wasn't _his_ console. He was just monitoring it for the moment. And he expected any minute to have Scotty order him off of it. 

To his surprise, however, Scotty said, "Power levels, Mr. Kirk?" 

"Full capacity, Mr. Scott," Slim replied. 

"Keep an eye on it. If there are Klingons in the vicinity--" Scotty broke off. 

"Should I sound a red alert, sir?" Uhura asked. 

Scotty swore. At least, Slim assumed it was swearing, because it was said in a very angry tone of voice, but it was a word he'd never heard before, so for all he knew Scotty had just shouted "armchair" in Tagalog or something. "Of course ye should. I should ha' thought o' that before. Aye, Lieutenant, sound red alert." 

Uhura hit the appropriate button, and a klaxon started blaring. A red light flashed directly over the door. Slim tried to ignore it. At first, it filled his vision and hearing, so he couldn't focus on his panel. After a few minutes, however, he thought it was lessening. Fifteen minutes later he looked up, wondering why they'd shut off the red alert signal, and to his surprise found it still going. 

"You get used to it after a while," Chekov said, glancing over his shoulder and catching Slim's expression.

Scotty moved over and patted Slim gently on the shoulder. "Ye're doin' just fine, laddie," he said. "Keep your eye on things." He moved back to the conn, staring out at the viewscreen. "Maybe I should've ordered warp," he muttered. 

"I don't think it's far enough to justify warp," Sulu ventured. "We're in the same sector, after all--that's why they contacted us." 

"True," Scotty allowed. He sighed. "If only it didn't _take_ so long..." 

A tense silence fell, broken only by the red alert klaxon. It seemed forever before Chekov finally said, "Approaching zose coordinates now, Mr. Scott." 

"Brace yourselves," Scotty said, gripping the back of the captain's chair. "'Tis going to be a wee bit of a bumpy ride." 

Slim tried to focus on the panel in front of him, especially the power indicators to the shields. If the Klingon ship, or ships, were still in the vicinity-- 

"Are you sure those coordinates were right?" Sulu asked, frowning at the screen. 

Slim turned, startled. "Almost completely positive. Why?" 

"The transmission from the _Deirdre_ said that two ships in their convoy had been destroyed. There ought to be a lot of debris about. But I don't see anything at all." 

"Check again," Scotty said. "Using whatever methods you used last time. Lieutenant, you double-check him." 

Slim turned back to the console and hit the same combination of keys he had last time while Uhura went through her procedure. Within a minute, he turned around. "I'm getting the same coordinates as before, sir, right here." 

Scotty turned to Uhura, eyebrows raised. "Lieutenant?" 

"Give me a moment, sir, the way we were taught at the Academy takes a couple minutes." Uhura bent over her work. Slim held his breath, wondering if he'd done it wrong. Then Uhura rattled off a set of coordinates, which tallied exactly with the ones Slim had come up with. 

"Zat's our present position, sir," Chekov said. 

Scotty shook his head in bewilderment. "Scanners, Mr. Sulu. Locate the _Deirdre_." 

"Scanning, sir." There was a full minute of silence, then Sulu said, "Sir--there's no ship _at all_ within range of the scanners. There's nothing here." 

"What the devil!" Scotty barked. "She _must_ be here. Continue search! Damn it all, there must be _something!_ Lieutenant, cancel that red alert for now."

The noise and lights stopped. Sulu's hands flew across the console. Chekov, too, was working hard. Slim studied the panel in front of him, wishing he knew what to do. There were plenty of people who hadn't had Academy training, he knew--the crewmen and NCOs--but they'd at least had _basic_ training before setting foot on the _Enterprise._ And only the yeomen worked on the bridge, and that in a secretarial capacity. Slim only knew what little he'd picked up from standing in the background, and what he'd learned probably didn't amount to a hill of beans--especially since the way things were done on the _Enterprise_ wasn't necessarily how they were done on any other ship in the galaxy. 

Still, something was nagging at him. He wasn't sure what, but something about the distress call had struck a false note. Since none of the other crew members were saying anything, he decided to do the same. 

But as he waited, a voice spoke from the back of his mind, an elderly and wise one. _Trust your own instincts. Obey the senior command--but trust your own instincts._ He bit his lip, frowning, as the others continued the scan. Suddenly it occurred to him what was bothering him about the distress call. 

"She called us by _name!"_ he practically shouted. 

Scotty jumped and scowled at Slim. "What are ye on about, laddie?" 

Slim turned around quickly. "Mr. Scott, is it usual for a freighter to know exactly what ships are in the vicinity? Especially what _starships_ are in the vicinity?" 

"Of course not." Scotty sounded confused. 

"Then how could the _Deirdre_ have known to call for the _Enterprise?"_

Scotty froze. The color drained from his face as he stared at Slim. Finally, he snapped, "Mr. Sulu, Mr. Chekov, keep scanning for ships in the vicinity. Lieutenant, give me the microtape of that transmission!" 

"I'm on it," Uhura said. 

Slim bit his lip helplessly, fighting the urge to apologize. He hadn't actually done anything _wrong,_ at least beyond the fact that he wasn't technically supposed to be doing any work. But he'd been ordered to do that... 

The captain of the _Deirdre's_ voice filled the bridge again. "Attention, _Enterprise!_ Attention, U.S.S. _Enterprise!_ This is Captain Vega of the S.S. _Deirdre_ \--" 

"That's sufficient," Scotty said. Uhura cut off the microtape. "Well done, Mr. Kirk, ye're absolutely right. The _Deirdre_ never sent that message. Any signs, Mr. Sulu?" 

"None, sir, the sector is still clear." 

"Then turn about! Mr. Chekov, set course for Capella IV, immediately!" 

"Aye, Mr. Scott!" Chekov said, punching in the correct codes on his console. 

"Full speed ahead, Mr. Sulu!" 

"Aye, Mr. Scott!"

Slim turned back to his panel, keeping an eye on the power levels, which were all holding steady, thankfully. As they headed back the way they came, however, Uhura suddenly said, "Mr. Scott, we're receiving a distress call from the U.S.S. _Carolina._ " 

Slim turned to Scotty, worried. The Chief Engineer hesitated, then gritted his teeth. "Ignore it. Proceed as directed, Mr. Sulu." 

"Aye, Mr. Scott," Sulu said, although he looked as anxious as Slim. 

Uhura, too, looked apprehensive. "If the _Carolina_ really _is_ in distress--" 

"It's a risk I'm willing to take, Lieutenant," Scotty said. "We have an old, old saying on Earth--'fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.'" 

"I know this saying. It was inwented in Russia," Chekov said. 

Whether he meant it seriously or not, Chekov's flippant comment at least had the effect of breaking the tension. Sulu and Slim both laughed, and even Scotty smiled through his worry. 

Suddenly, Sulu froze. "Mr. Scott, there's a ship appearing on the scanners..." 

An instant later all of them saw what the scanners had picked up. A Klingon warship appeared, suddenly and silently, on the viewscreen in front of them. 

"Shields, Sulu," Scotty said quietly. 

Sulu complied in silence. Slim saw the power level indicator shift on the panel in front of him and turned his attention to it, tensing again, expecting every second for the Klingons to suddenly speak. But the bridge remained silent. Long minutes passed as they all waited for something to happen. 

"Right, this has gone far enough," Scotty said abruptly. "Slim, divert power from the warp drive to the shields. Sulu, power them to full strength." 

Slim bit his lip as he complied. He watched the power levels shift until the warp drive was at no more than rudimentary levels. "Power diverted." 

Scotty took a deep breath. "Hold on tight, lads and lassies. I'm not sure this will work, but it's our only shot. Mr. Chekov, point our course straight at that Klingon vessel." 

Chekov looked worriedly over his shoulder at Slim, but did as he was told. "Course set..." 

"All right." Scotty came around and--for the first time since Slim had been aboard--seated himself in the captain's chair, gripping the armrests tightly. "Mr. Sulu--full speed ahead." 

_"What?"_ gasped Uhura and Yeoman Mears, who had been silent up to that point, in unison. 

Sulu swallowed hard, but gripped the throttle. "Full speed ahead, sir." He pushed it forward as far as it would go.

The _Enterprise_ leapt forward, proceeding towards the Klingon vessel at a faster speed than anyone had ever approached such a vessel before. Privately, Slim doubted anyone had ever approached a Klingon warship at _all_ , let alone at full speed. Uhura suddenly flinched, putting a hand to one side of her head--and then the Klingon vessel vanished. Well, not exactly _vanished_ , Slim had to admit--it just moved very, _very_ quickly, almost to the point of making the _Enterprise_ look like a plodding shuttle. 

"You all right, lassie?" Scotty asked, getting up from the chair anxiously. 

"I'm fine," Uhura assured him. "Apparently that ship had opened a channel with us without my knowing it. If you've never had a Klingon suddenly scream an obscenity in your ear--" 

Scotty laughed. "I apologize. That was well done, all of ye. Now then, to Capella IV, at all speed." 

"Aye, aye!" Sulu said with a smile. 

Uhura turned in her seat to look at Scotty. "I don't think you've ever actually _sat_ in the chair before." 

"I'm not comfortable with it," Scotty admitted. "But what I was doin' there--it was reckless, it was _insane_ , it was--" 

"Exactly what Jim would have done," Uhura pointed out. 

"Exactly. I figured if I was going to act like an idiot, I might as well sit in his chair." 

The bridge exploded in laughter. Even Mears joined in. After a minute, however, Scotty grew serious. "That's enough of that, crew. We need to prepare to beam down another party when we get to Capella IV. Yeoman, get the usual Beta shift up here, on the double." 

"On the double, sir," Mears said, turning and heading for the lift. 

Slim bit his lip, suddenly worried. "You think something's gone wrong on the surface?" 

"I don't think it's a coincidence that we got that 'distress call' not twenty minutes after the away team made landing," Scotty said, his face growing grim. "Nor that the Klingon warship was perched so close to where we were. No, something is going on down there, and by God, I'll get to the bottom of it." 

Mears returned ten minutes later with the rest of Beta shift behind her. Slim wondered what Scotty had in mind. Maybe he was going to take Beta down to the planet with him. Maybe he just wanted them up here as backup. It was impossible to tell. 

As for Slim, although he maintained outward calm, his inward worry was rising into outright panic. His father and stepfather were down there, his family. He'd been orphaned once, or so he thought. He couldn't bear the thought of being orphaned again. And then there was Addie to consider. She wasn't even a year old yet. That was _far_ too young to lose someone you loved. Their father had never known _his_ father--George Kirk had died within minutes of Jim's birth--and Slim had grown up thinking he'd never know his. He would do anything to spare his sister that fate.

After what seemed an agonizingly long time, the curve of Capella IV appeared below them. "Lower shields," Scotty said. "Slim, redivert power." 

Slim undid the tweaks he had done before and watched the power levels even out back to normal as the shields went down. Scotty turned to Uhura. "Lieutenant, try to raise the captain again. If they're safe, there's no need to go down there." 

Uhura turned to her station, working silently. After five minutes, she turned, worry filling her eyes again. "Still nothing, sir. Two of the communicators are inoperative. I've got a fix on the third and it seems to be functioning correctly, but for whatever reason, they're just not answering." 

"Likely they can't. I feared as much." Scotty turned back to the viewscreen, watching the planet approach. "Let me know when we're in beaming range." 

Slim kept his eyes on the panel in front of him. A minute later, an amber light on the panel began flashing. "Within range to beam down to Capella IV, Mr. Scott." 

"Good." Scotty turned away from the viewscreen. "Mr. Sulu, Mr. Chekov, let's go." 

Uhura looked up, startled. "You're going to have the entire senior command staff down there?" 

Scotty paused and looked at her. "No. You're staying here." He started for the door, then hesitated. "Slim." 

Slim came stiffly to attention. "Yes, sir?" 

"Grab your communicator. You're coming with us." 

_"What?"_ Uhura gasped, leaping out of her seat. "What are you _doing?"_

"I need someone who can stay in communication with the _Enterprise!"_ Scotty snapped. "Slim's got a deft hand with electronics, he can follow orders, and he's quick on his feet. He'll be staying well out of range of any potential attack. Besides, Mr. Spock himself suggested bringing him down for the initial meeting. Who am I to second-guess our First Officer?" 

Uhura looked incredulously from Scotty to Slim and back, then hissed, "Jim is going to _kill_ you." 

"Well, that'll save the problem of me having to make this kind of decision again, won't it?" Scotty scanned Uhura's face, and his voice softened. "You have the conn, Lieutenant. Beta shift, take your stations. Come on, gentlemen."

Slim thought over the conversation as they progressed through the hallways. Just before they reached the Transporter Room, he said, "Why _are_ you bringing me down there?" 

Scotty sighed. "I've seen your diplomacy, Slim. And I don't want to shoot our way out o' this one if we can help it. If Jim an' the others have been captured, we may need tae do some fast talkin' tae get 'em free." His brogue was thickening. "I need someone who can do that. That's ye." 

Slim was still uneasy, remembering the deal he and his dad had made. "Uncle Scotty--I promised Dad I wouldn't volunteer for any more away missions." 

"Ye didn't volunteer, laddie, I conscripted ye, an' I'll take full blame," Scotty said. "Your father told ye tae obey my orders. Well, my orders are for ye tae accompany us. Spock wanted ye tae go down there in the firs' place. Maybe that would ha' made a difference tae them. I dinnae ken. All I ken is that I need ye now." He paused outside the door and added in a soft voice, "Besides...I'm scared t' death, an' I need the three o' ye with me." 

Before anyone could respond to that, he opened the door to the Transporter Room, strode in as though he had all the confidence in the world, and mounted the pads. Slim scrambled to follow. Once he was satisfied they were all in position, Scotty turned to the tech and nodded crisply. "All right, laddie. Beam us down." 

They shimmered back into existence on a high, rocky plateau. Scotty shielded his eyes against the glare of the sun, looking around. "Right. Where do we go from here? Suggestions?" 

"I hear something from over zere," Chekov said, tilting his head and pointing to the right. 

Slim strained to hear. Sure enough, faint sounds could be heard--vague shouting, pounding footsteps. "Sounds like a chase." 

"Come on." Scotty led the other three towards the sounds. 

Before long, they had reached a defile. Scotty waved the other three down, and they crawled forward in time to see Jim, Leo, Spock, and a woman holding a bundle of blankets stop at what seemed to be a dead end. 

"What did you think you were going to do?" Leo's voice was faint from the distance, but he was glaring at the woman. 

Scotty inched forward to hear the woman's reply, but Slim happened to glance down the defile in the direction the small party had come. He gasped and nudged Scotty, then pointed. Creeping stealthily forward was a much larger group, obviously either an army or an angry mob, but armed with sharp objects and heading straight for the arguing group. 

"They'll be killed!" Sulu whispered hoarsely. 

"Not if I can help it," Scotty whispered back. "Sulu, Chekov, you two nip around to the other side, carefully now. Wait for my signal, then show yourselves. Phasers on stun." 

"Sir, ze Prime Directive--" Chekov began. 

"At this point, I'm not sure it matters," Sulu said softly. "Somehow I don't think the Klingons care as much, and they've obviously been in contact." 

"Besides, this is life or death," Scotty hissed. "Get goin'!" 

Sulu tugged at Chekov's sleeve, and they crept off without another word. Scotty turned to Slim and handed him a phaser. "Can ye use this?" 

Slim hesitated. He'd never been trained in its use, but..."Can't be that different from a Colt .45." 

"It's not as heavy," Scotty said, staring at Slim in surprise. He shrugged and drew his own phaser. "All right, laddie, come with me. Quietly, now."

They crawled as near to the edge as they dared, then waited. Slim knew Scotty was trying to give the others time to get in position. Just as they did, they heard a scream. Looking over, Slim drew in a sharp breath. The woman he had seen now lay dead, a blade in her back. 

One of the men looked back at the men from the _Enterprise_. "You do not protest as before." 

"Your justice has been served," Jim said. Slim and Scotty exchanged confused glances as the captain continued, "Perhaps it was merited. But the child is a different matter. He hasn't done anything wrong." 

_Child?_ Slim thought, bewildered. Then he saw that one of the aliens held the bundle that had previously been in the woman's arms. _Oh, my God, it's a baby._

"He lives," the man said simply. "The High Chieftanship must be mine." 

"Why?" Jim demanded. Slim wondered if he had lost his senses. "Clearly you're only setting the stage for more division, more deaths. What do you gain in the end, Maab? And who gains with you?" 

The man, whom Slim guessed was called Maab, didn't seem put out by this speech. "You are a clever man, Captain. You see beyond the surfaces. Well, you are not the only ones who wish this rock in our hills. The Klingon Empire offered my brother much wealth and power in exchange for the right to dig it. The fool chose to honor a promise made to your Federation." 

"Damn right he did," Scotty muttered under his breath. 

"But you--you chose to trust the Klingons," Jim said. Perhaps unconsciously, he took a half-step closer to Leo. Slim saw his stance shift and realized that he was going to protect them at all costs--even if there was nothing he could do. 

"I had to be Chief to give them what they wanted," Maab said. "A Klingon ship drew yours away so your men could not stop Akaar's death." 

Scotty ground his teeth, and Slim put a hand on his shoulder briefly as the seeming Chief continued. "You could have returned without harm if you had not broken taboo to help Eleen. She was not worth your deaths." 

Leo took a half-step forward, so that he stood at Jim's shoulder. "She was," he said, "then." 

"Because of the child within her?" Maab asked. "But both die in the end." Slim and Scotty exchanged looks of horror. "All this that followed is fruitless." 

Jim tensed, but Leo didn't react. "One thing, then," he said. "Let me have the boy I brought into this world. If you're going to take us out of it, I'd rather have him with us." 

Maab gestured. The soldier holding the baby hesitated, then shrugged and passed it over to Leo. He cradled the baby as gently and naturally as he'd held Addie when she was that size. Jim put a protective arm around them both, and Spock came to stand at Jim's other side. As they drew together, the soldiers raised their weapons and pointed them at the small, pitiful-looking group. 

"Now," Scotty hissed to Slim, then stood in a fluid motion and pointed his phaser directly at Maab. Loudly, he cried, _"Drop those weapons!"_

Slim managed to get to his own feet, pointing the phaser at another armed alien. Across the defile, Sulu and Chekov also appeared, selecting their own targets. Leo looked up, his eyes widening. "What the devil?" 

"I would say, Doctor," Spock said in his calm, even voice, "that the cavalry has just come over the hill." 

The aliens had dropped their weapons at the sight of unfamiliar ones. Slim followed Scotty carefully down into the defile and helped the three crew members to herd the aliens together. Leo's eyes bugged out even further at the sight of Slim, but before he could speak, Maab demanded, " _How?_ How did you escape the Klingon ship? They were not to let you go before I signaled..." 

Sulu grinned. "They backed off and ran when we came straight at them. At first they tried to draw us away with a fake distress call, but when Mr. Scott saw through it...well, their ships have speed, I'll give them that." 

Scotty shot Sulu a grateful look before adding, "I didn't think the Klingons were ready for a war, even to please this gentleman. Not even for topaline mining rights." 

"Mr. Scott," Jim said, "I know you for a resourceful man, but how did you find us out here?" 

"Easily, sir. We listened for sounds of trouble and followed them." 

"I'll remember you said that," Jim said, but he was smiling. 

Slim noticed movement behind the man called Maab. He turned to say something, but before he could, there was the flash of a knife and Maab gasped, then fell. Slim was stunned at the swift death. Despicable as Maab had been, he'd had the same right to life as anyone else did, and this other had taken it from him. 

The killer wiped his knife on his tunic sleeve, then held it out, hilt first, to Jim, who looked as stunned as Slim felt. "For treason to Akaar and for treason with the Klingons," he said simply. "I now stand ready for justice." 

Jim recovered himself, but didn't touch the knife. "And who in the blazes might you be?" 

The man didn't flinch. "I am the father of the High Chief born of Eleen."

Several of the defeated men gasped, and Chekov and Sulu exchanged confused glances. Slim glanced over his shoulder at the body of the woman who had tried to flee, then at the baby in Leo's arms. Suddenly a lot more things made sense. 

Spock tilted his head, studying the man. "If you are the child's father, then surely he is not High Chief." 

"That is not our law," said one of the men. "The child's blood may be that of Rhiis, but because he was born of the wife of the High Chief, he is the High Chief's heir." 

Slim saw Spock gearing up to point out the illogic of the statement and decided it was time to justify Scotty having brought him along. He quickly handed the phaser back to Scotty and took a step forward. "Captain, if I may?" 

Jim started--obviously he hadn't noticed Slim before--and stared for a moment, but then nodded once, sharply. Slim turned to the man who had said the child was High Chief. "Sir, may I ask you a question? According to your law, what is the penalty for treason?" 

"The penalty for treason is death," the man replied. 

"And all know this?" 

"Certainly." 

Slim turned to Jim. "Then, Captain, I would argue that justice _has_ been done. This man acted in accordance with the law in slaying Maab, and there need be no further action taken." He hesitated, remembering what had been said and putting some pieces together swiftly, then added, "Moreover, sir, the High Chief born of Eleen will need someone to act as regent until he is of an age to command adequately. As his mother and uncle are both dead, it would seem that this man is the one next qualified." 

Jim raised his eyebrows at the man Slim had quizzed on the law. "Does this align with your laws?" 

"It does," the man affirmed, although he didn't look happy about admitting that. 

Jim turned back to the child's father. "Then you are regent for the High Chief, until such time as he attains his majority. Do you accept?" 

"I do," the man replied. 

Leo stepped forward and carefully handed the child over. The man looked down at his son, and Slim felt a lump in his throat at the expression. It was the same one Jim and Leo always wore when they looked at Addie. "I believe, Captain, that the first thing the new Chief must attend to is the signing of the contract for the Federation mining rights." 

Jim looked relieved. "Thank you. I appreciate that."

The group returned to the campsite. Slim found himself walking with Sulu and Chekov, a few paces behind Scotty and Leo. The two older men seemed to be having some kind of argument. 

"Dr. McCoy is not happy zat you're here," Chekov guessed. 

"It would appear not," Slim agreed. He hadn't considered his stepfather's anger, and it shamed him slightly. But Leo had been against Slim coming down to the surface in the first place, and for once, Slim knew it wasn't just because Spock had made the initial suggestion. Slim's guilt increased, even though--strictly speaking--he'd only been following orders. 

Sulu put a hand on Slim's shoulder. "It'll be all right, Slim," he said quietly. 

Slim managed a smile as they reached the campsite. He wished he could share the helmsman's optimism. 

The man carrying the child paused outside of a tent and bowed to the men from the _Enterprise_ , as best as he could for the infant in his arms. "All of your men are bidden to come witness the signing." 

"We accept with pleasure," Jim said, returning the bow. He followed the Capellans into the tent. Slim would ordinarily have trailed behind, hanging at the back of the group, but Sulu linked arms with him on one side and Chekov on the other, and the three went in together. 

There was a low table. The man with the baby sat behind it, and behind him stood a number of men who were obviously officials of some kind. Jim laid the contract down on the table. Spock stood to his left, Leo to his right. Scotty caught Slim's eye and beckoned him to stand between Leo and Scotty; Sulu and Chekov stood beside Spock. 

"This contract," the man said, tapping the flimsi sheets, "calls for the High Chief's signature. Yet the High Chief cannot sign his own name--yet. Shall I sign my own name, or that of the High Chief?" 

"Your own name, sir," Jim replied respectfully. 

The man started to read the contract, then paused. "I presume that High Chief Akaar read this, and that it was understood," he began. "Therefore shall I sign in good faith." 

"If you wish to understand what it is you sign in good faith, Rhiis, there is a summary--here--" One of the men behind him reached over his shoulder and extracted a single sheet of flimsi--the one-page summary Slim had written. 

Rhiis read over it quickly, then smiled. "This is much easier to understand than the other, Captain. Why does the man who prepared this summary not write all your documents?" 

Jim smiled warmly at Slim. "The Federation likes for everything to be in diplomatic language, sir." 

"Well, now that I know what the High Chief is agreeing to..." Rhiis smiled as well and signed on the bottom of the page. He handed the contract back to Jim, who checked the signature, then placed it back in the folder and tucked it under his arm before bowing deeply. 

"The Federation thanks you. Honors to your tribe, Rhiis, regent of the High Chief." 

"Honors to your crew, Captain Kirk." Rhiis rose and bowed again. "May I ask a question of you?" 

"Of course." 

"Why did you trouble yourself so much over the life of this child? Is it because he would be High Chief?" 

"Not at all," Jim said, looking absolutely taken aback. "It was simply because he _is_ a child. He did nothing but come into the world, and we want him to have a chance to grow up in it." 

Rhiis lifted both eyebrows. "You never thought of what he might be?" 

Jim spread out both hands, palms up. "Of course I did. As much as I think of what my own children might be. But the specifics, I admit, never entered into my mind." 

"You have children of your own?" Rhiis asked. 

"I do," Jim replied. He gestured to Slim. "This is my son. And Dr. McCoy and I together have a daughter." 

"Your son is practically a man," Rhiis noted. Slim blushed. "How old is your daughter?" 

"She is exactly one year old today," Leo said quietly. 

Slim stared up at his stepfather, astonished. He hadn't realized that. Rhiis, too, seemed surprised. "And yet you risked your lives for Eleen, and the child." 

"It's what we do," Jim said simply. 

"Despite the chance of leaving your children orphans." 

Jim and Leo exchanged glances, then looked at Slim. They had identical expressions of pain and anguish on their faces. Slim kept his eyes fixed on them as he spoke to Rhiis. "We've had a year as a family, sir. And my sister and I have plenty of people who love us, people who'd look after us if anything happened. It would have been a shame to deny your son the same opportunity." 

Rhiis smiled down at his son. "Captain, I hope someday to have a family as wonderful as yours." 

Jim smiled as well. "I am the luckiest man in the galaxy."

They were invited to stay as guests for a ceremony to place the infant as High Chief. Before the ceremony began, Rhiis pulled Slim aside and asked him two questions. As a result, he was the only one not taken aback when it was announced what the child's name was to be: Leonard James Akaar. 

"They are going to be insufferably pleased with themselves for at least the next month," Spock said to Scotty as they prepared for beaming up. Scotty laughed. 

When the two landing parties arrived back on the ship, Jim stepped off the transporter pad and turned to Spock. "It's Beta shift, isn't it? Mr. Spock, Mr. Sulu, Mr. Chekov, go have something to eat--you deserve it. The rest of you, come with me for a minute, would you?" 

Slim knew what was coming as he trailed after the senior officers. He'd been expecting the reprimand since his father had realized he was there, but he guessed that Jim was trying to avoid yelling at anyone in front of the Capellans. Now he was going to get it. His mind was already queueing up a catalogue of all the things he'd done wrong since his father had left the bridge. 

The small group of four headed into the corridor. Jim stopped and turned, but as Slim had expected, he didn't look at Leo or Scotty--he looked directly at Slim. "We had a deal, Slim," he said quietly. 

The hurt and anger in his voice was obvious. Slim's eyes filled with tears, and it was with an effort that he didn't look down. "I'm sorry, Dad. I--" 

"Do you understand," Jim interrupted, his voice rising steadily, "why I wanted you to stay on the ship? Do you understand why I don't want you involved in away missions? Do you understand how _close_ we came to _dying_ down there?" 

"Y-yes, sir, I do," Slim stammered. 

"Then would you like to tell me _why_ you were on that planet?" Jim practically shouted. 

Slim swallowed hard. "Orders, sir. Mr. Scott ordered me to accompany the party." 

Jim turned his steely gaze onto Scotty, who came stiffly to attention. "My idea of diplomacy is a fully-armed phaser bank. When we couldn't reach ye, we feared ye'd been captured, or worse. I didn't want to shoot our way out o' this one if we could help it, so I needed someone who could do some fast talking. That's Slim." 

"So you undermined Jim's authority," Leo snapped. "As both captain and Slim's father." 

Slim's breath caught in his throat. Scotty jerked as though he'd been slapped, then looked at Jim with wide eyes. "I didn't even think of that. I apologize, from the bottom of my heart. But, Jim, the blame is _mine_ , not Slim's. He _did_ tell me he'd promised ye that he wouldn't volunteer for any away missions, and I told him he wasn't volunteering, he was being conscripted." 

Jim sighed, his shoulders sagging. "I'm not going to pretend I'm okay with this, because I'm not," he said quietly. "But I do understand why you did it. And I know you'd have done everything in your power to protect him if it had actually come to fighting." He looked at Slim. "Starting tomorrow, I'm going to have Spock start giving you shooting lessons with the phaser--I want you to know how to use it. And you and I are going to do some hand-to-hand combat. _Not_ that I am allowing you to go on away missions. But on the off-chance that something happens...I want you to know how to defend yourself." 

"Yes, sir," Slim replied, biting his lip and wondering what the catch was. 

Jim studied his face, then held out his arms. "C'mere." 

Slim moved forward. Jim wrapped his arms around him and pulled him close; Slim hugged him back, the tears spilling down his cheeks as he realized just how close it had actually been. "I'm sorry, Dad," he choked out. 

"Don't be. You were just following orders." Jim rested his cheek on the top of Slim's head, and he felt tears drop onto his scalp. " _I'm_ sorry for yelling. I was just damned scared when I saw you down there." 

"I won't--" Slim stopped and looked up at his father. "I'll _try_ not to scare you again." 

Jim grinned, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand and ruffling Slim's hair. "That's all I can ask." He released Slim from his tight embrace and put an arm around his shoulders, then looked up at Scotty. "Uh--Scotty, forgive me, but I've been kind of busy since you lot showed up. Did Sulu actually say that you charged a Klingon ship, or--?" 

"Aye, Jim, he did," Scotty said, sheepishly. "And it's true." 

"This I've gotta hear. Come on, let's head up to the canteen and join the others."

They started up the hallway when Scotty suddenly stopped, smacking himself in the forehead, and pulled out his communicator. "Scott to Marcus." 

"Marcus here." Carol's voice came over the small communicator. 

"All clear, Dr. Marcus. The away team is back aboard and we're all heading for the canteen." 

"Thanks, Mr. Scott. Meet you there. Over and out." 

Scotty clipped his communicator back on his belt with a muttered curse. "Can't believe I forgot." 

"Forgot what?" Leo asked. 

"When we got that distress call--the false distress call--I had Slim comm Dr. Marcus and tell her to take Addie to her quarters. Thought it'd be the safest place for her." 

"You're probably right," Leo agreed. 

Sulu, Spock, and Chekov were at a table in the canteen, which was mostly empty this time of shift, talking quietly. They stopped when they saw the small party come in and started to rise. 

"Nah, have a seat," Jim said, waving a hand. "We're off-duty and informal. Let us grab something to eat and we'll be right back." 

Once they were all seated, Jim turned to Scotty. "All right. So you charged a Klingon ship." 

"We charged a Klingon ship," Scotty agreed. 

"That sounds like the end of the story," Leo said. "Want to start at the beginning?" 

Before anyone could say further, the door slid open, and Carol and Uhura came in, Addie toddling along between them. Jim turned and grinned. "Hey, there's my big girl!" 

Addie toddled over and held up her arms. "Up!" 

Jim scooped her up and set her on his lap. She immediately reached for a French fry. Jim let her have it. "Care to join us? Scotty was just telling us--" he indicated himself, Spock, and Leo--"about what you guys were up to while we were on Capella IV." 

"How far did you get?" Uhura asked, sitting down. 

"We didn't," Slim told her.

Scotty took a deep breath. "All right. You'd not been down there fifteen minutes when we received an incoming distress call from the S.S. _Deirdre_. They'd been attacked by a Klingon vessel, they said, and they only had rudimentary shielding. Two ships in their convoy had already been destroyed. They begged us to hurry. We tried to contact you, but got nothing." 

"Things were...somewhat unsettled," Spock said solemnly. 

"And the award for Understatement of the Century goes to..." Sulu murmured in Slim's ear. Slim repressed a giggle. 

"Anyway," Scotty continued, "rememberin' my orders, as well as the _Enterprise's_ standing orders, I had us turn and head out there. When we arrived at the coordinates of the last transmission, however--nothin'. We started doin' a search of the system, and it was then that Slim saved all our lives." 

Slim blushed. "Uncle Scotty, you're exaggerating." 

"I am not," Scotty insisted. "We'd have wasted ages searching for a ship that wasn't there--" 

"Hardly a life-or-death situation," Slim protested. 

"And we wouldn't have seen the Klingon ship until it was too late, if we saw it at all," Sulu said. "They might've just fired on us. Certainly we wouldn't have gotten back quickly enough to save you three." 

The corners of Spock's mouth twitched. "What did Thomas do to save our lives, then?" 

Uhura laughed. "In a room full of fully-trained officers, he was the only one who noticed that the _Deirdre_ called for us _by name_. Her captain shouldn't have known which starships were in the vicinity--just sent out a generalized SOS. This was targeted and specifically requested the aid of the _Enterprise._ " 

Spock's eyebrows shot up. Jim shook his head. "I'd probably have missed that, too, to be honest." 

"Well," Scotty said, picking up the story, "we turned about and headed back at full speed. Had barely started when we got a distress call from the U.S.S. _Carolina,_ but we ignored it. The Klingons realized they couldn't fool us again, so they came out of nowhere and sat in front of us." 

"A line in the sand," Carol murmured, looking fascinated. Slim remembered that she'd been in her quarters the entire time and knew nothing of what had gone on. 

"So you charged it," Jim said. 

"It's what you would have done, Keptin," Chekov offered. 

Jim looked at the navigator in surprise. Chekov cringed in embarrassment; Slim could sympathize with him. But then the captain smiled. "You're right, I would have. And Spock would have stood behind me spouting off all kinds of statistics and logic about why it wouldn't work." 

"It is my job aboard this ship," Spock said primly. 

Jim laughed. Scotty smiled. "Aye, we charged the Klingon warship. I had Slim redirect power from the warp drive into the shields and--" 

"Wait." Jim narrowed his eyes. "You had _Slim--?_ " 

"Uh--aye." Scotty looked nervous again. "I asked him to keep an eye on the engineering panel. Actually, he was the one who figured out the coordinates of the transmission--you never did tell me how you did that, lad," he added, turning to Slim. 

Slim blushed. "The weapons system locks in on the coordinates of incoming transmissions. So I just...asked it to tell me the coordinates of where it had last locked in." 

"How'd you know that?" Scotty demanded. " _I_ didn't even know that!" 

Slim had a feeling that saying _The ship told me_ wouldn't get him very far. "I noticed the power surge to the phaser banks when the transmission came in. It happened again when we got that fake distress call from the _Carolina_. It wasn't a big one--just a little flicker--but it caught my attention." 

Jim let Addie steal another fry off his plate, despite Leo's disapproving glare. "You've got more diplomacy than most trained diplomats, and now it turns out you know the ship better than the Chief Engineer does. You are going to kick _serious_ ass at the Academy." 

Slim felt the blush rising again and decided to try to beat it off. "Why does everyone assume I'm going to the Academy? I could just as easily sign on as a regular crewman when I turn eighteen and bypass the Academy altogether. I don't _have_ to be an officer." 

"You don't want to go to the Academy?" Leo asked, surprised. 

"No, I do. I just wonder why everyone assumes it." 

Even Addie joined in the laughter, although she clearly didn't know what was so funny.


	24. Something That You Wanted

Two weeks later, and Jim still couldn't get Slim's joke out of his head. If it was a joke. 

Why _had_ they all assumed he was going to the Academy? Slim had seemed genuine when he'd said that he really did want to go, but...it was true, none of them had ever _asked_. Even when Jim had first broached the idea of the five-year mission, he'd spoken as though it was a given that Slim would decide to go to the Academy when he turned eighteen. And he hadn't even known then that Slim would want to join _Starfleet_ , let alone join it as an officer. 

Jim tried to put it out of his mind. And sometimes he managed it for whole hours at a time. But it was always there, nagging at him. 

He didn't really know his own son. 

And it wasn't like it was the only thing he had to worry about. There was Addie. She was a year old, picking up words rapidly, walking unaided, _running_ now, the teeth coming in thick and fast, getting into everything. He couldn't take her on the bridge anymore--she wanted to walk, and she got horribly underfoot--and she didn't like that. Having families onboard a starship wasn't something that was going to catch on any time soon--not until they ironed out the kinks. 

There were also the regular duties of a starship captain, of course. And those were amplified by the fact that they were on a five-year mission. While it was the third five-year mission the _Enterprise_ had undertaken, and she was mapping more and more of the Alpha Quadrant, that didn't necessarily mean anything. The senior crew members were well used to these long journeys, and even most of the crew members who'd been aboard on the previous mission were more or less acclimated to it, but the newer members were getting restless. Most of them had never done anything but short stints in space, a month at the most, with plenty of time planetside. Jim wasn't supposed to grant shore leave on any planet that wasn't a member of the Federation, and while he tried to grant it as often as possible, it wasn't enough for some of the crew. Some were getting cabin fever. Others were getting argumentative. Only yesterday Security had had to put three crew members in lockdown overnight, two for getting into a physical fight and seriously hurting one another and one for getting completely shit-faced drunk. 

_Come to think of it, I could use a drink myself,_ Jim thought. The bar in the Recreation Room didn't stock anything stronger than synthehol, which was supposed to be just like regular alcohol but without the detriments. It wasn't. Quite a few crew members had private stashes of the real stuff. Bones kept a bottle of brandy in one of the cupboards in his office; Scotty usually had a bottle of Scotch stashed in his quarters. Both had told Jim on previous occasions that he could help himself whenever he needed to. And for a minute, he was sorely tempted. He was actually halfway to Med Bay when he checked himself. 

Instead, he turned and headed for his quarters. Among other things, he was still in his uniform, and since he was off-duty, he liked to change into something more casual when he could. Maybe _then_ he would head to Med Bay and share a drink with Bones. Maybe. He didn't want to start "needing" a drink. "Liking" a drink was fine, but "needing" one? Nothing good would happen if he started down that path.

He entered the living room to find Slim, curled up in the armchair with a blanket wrapped around his legs, his nose buried in a PADD. Jim raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Hey. Didn't expect to see you here." 

Slim looked up, startled, and managed a smile. "Oh...hi, Dad. Yeah, Pa said I needed to stay put for a day or two." He sneezed, set down his PADD, and reached for a box of tissues on the end table. 

Jim took in the half-full glass of orange juice, the small mound of used tissues in the bottom of the trash can, and the redness of Slim's nose and eyes. He cursed inwardly. "You sure he didn't mean in Med Bay?" 

"I asked. He said to come back here." Slim blew his nose. 

Jim crossed over and laid the back of his hand against Slim's forehead, which was warm, dammit. The poor kid was running a fever. "How are you feeling?" 

"Like my head's full of cotton wool. And like it's going to explode." 

"You're _sure_ he said you could be in here and not in Med Bay?" 

Slim looked up at him again. "I'm positive, Dad. It's just a cold." 

"'Just a cold,'" Jim muttered, straightening up. "Whenever Bones has 'just a cold,' he cocoons himself in eight layers of blankets and moans about how he's dying." 

Slim chuckled and sneezed again. "I never really had that luxury." 

Jim checked the hasty words rising in his throat. "Hold that thought." 

He went into his and Bones' room and changed out of his uniform into something more comfortable, grabbed a PADD with a couple of books on it, and went back into the sitting room. He flopped down on the sofa near Slim's armchair. "Mind if I relax with you for a bit? It's been a long couple of months." 

"Sure, if you don't mind me sneezing," Slim answered. 

"Nah." Jim hesitated. "But if you think you'd be better off lying down in bed..." 

Slim shook his head. "I tried, but I can't breathe right lying down." 

"That doesn't sound good." Jim stared at Slim and wondered why Bones hadn't made him stay in Med Bay. 

"It's just 'cause I'm so congested. Honest, Dad, I'm okay. Pa said I'd be just fine if I took it easy for a day or two." 

"All right," Jim said guardedly. He still thought Slim ought to be in sick bay, but he'd learned the hard way not to second-guess Bones when it came to medical issues. Bones didn't tell Jim how to run the bridge, and Jim didn't tell Bones how to run Med Bay. "When did he tell you all this, by the way?" 

Slim took a sip of his orange juice before answering. "'Bout mid-shift. I hadn't started sneezing yet, but I had a headache, so I thought I'd just go up and get something for that. When I saw how busy it was, I tried to back out, but one of the nurses saw me and made me come in for a full check-up. That's when Pa said I just had a cold. Gave me a hypo of somethin' and told me to go back to quarters and stay until I felt better." 

Jim resisted the urge to get up and check Slim's forehead again. "Are you feeling better?" 

"A little." As if to punctuate his sentence, Slim sneezed again and sighed. "Dammit. I _hate_ sneezing." 

Despite himself, Jim chuckled. "You know, I think that's the first time I've ever heard you curse." 

"I don't, usually, unless I'm feeling lousy," Slim said with a smile. "And 'dammit' is about as bad as I ever get. 'Less I've got a stomach bug. Only thing I hate worse 'n sneezing is throwing up." 

"I don't like that, either," Jim confessed. "When I was younger, I used to hold my breath to try and stop myself, but that just made it worse." 

"I got food poisoning a couple years back," Slim said, snuggling down into his chair. "When I was stayin' with the Lawsons. Mrs. Lawson made me stay in the bathroom until I was over it. An' then I had to clean the whole place before she'd let me leave..."

Jim swallowed back the angry words that rose to his lips. "You know, we never had that talk about your foster families. How many were there, anyway?" 

"A lot," Slim confessed. "I moved around a lot." 

"Want to tell me about them?" Jim urged. "You know, there wasn't really much in the file they gave me." 

Slim blew his nose thoughtfully. "Well...I don't remember much about the early ones. I was only two when I ended up in the system. First one I remember is the Tergars. I was four. They had a house in town. After that was the Campbells...I think I was there six months. Yeah, must've been, 'cause I turned five when I'd been there a couple months. School let out for winter break an' I got moved to the Kittredges' for the rest of the school year. Spent the next summer with the Sheltons. After that was the Brennans, then the McKennas...it all blurs together after a while." 

"Go on," Jim encouraged. "After the McKennas..." 

"The Smiths, I think. Yeah, that was when I stayed with the Smiths. Turned seven there. The Andersons were only s'pposed to have me for the holidays because the Smiths visited their kids and grandkids between Thanksgiving and New Year's, but when the Smiths came back they couldn't take me for some reason, so I stayed with the Andersons until they found me a longer-term home with Mr. Pinkerton." Slim smiled. "He was the guy who owned the Roxie. That was probably one of my favorite fosters...but he was a widower, and elderly, so they didn't let me stay too long. Still kept in touch with him, though. Nice guy." 

Jim didn't know what the Roxie was, but he didn't want to ask. Slim was still talking. "After him was the Dobsons, five months when I was eight. Then the Mertons, then the Dubrowskis...that was one of the worst. They usually had about five or six foster kids--the state paid 'em a stipend, that's all they wanted us for." His smile suddenly disappeared. "That and farm chores. I tried to tell Mrs. O'Leary what it was like. She wouldn't listen, and--" He broke off, swallowing hard. "Anyway, I got moved after the harvest--the Fitzpatricks. Then the Talbots, then the Newtons when I turned ten. Then was the...Hathaways, that's it, then the Minifees, then the Endicotts. The Lawsons the summer I turned twelve. The Millers, the Gilmertons--they were the ones that had a baby, that's why I couldn't stay. The Kincaids were my last foster family." 

Jim had been silently counting. His jaw dropped. "That's _twenty-three_ families in nine years." 

Slim counted on his fingers briefly. "Yeah. And there were probably three or four from before I could remember." 

"My God," Jim murmured, staring at his son. "Slim, I...I'm so sorry. If I'd known..." 

"I know, Dad," Slim said softly. And sneezed again. "Dammit." 

"It's okay." Jim didn't want to press his son about the foster homes, but he really wanted to know, all the same. "The Dubrowskis, the Lawsons...did anyone else mistreat you?" 

Slim occupied himself with blowing his nose for a minute. Finally he said, "The Kittredges didn't...mistreat me, exactly, but they didn't really care much about me. I had food and a roof over my head, but that was about it. I even had to do my own laundry...I was still only five and couldn't reach the dials on the machine without help, so I had to wash my clothes by hand. And the Smiths never called me by name--I was just 'you, boy.' But the only two that _actively_ mistreated me were the Dubrowskis and the Lawsons."

Jim shook his head. "I wish there'd been _someone_ who could have taken you. I mean, even beyond me knowing...I wish you'd had an aunt or an uncle or something. Grandparents, even." 

Slim bit his lip. "I met my grandfather once." 

"You did?" Jim said incredulously. "Did you know--? Did _he_ know?" 

"Yeah," Slim said, running his finger along the rim of his juice glass. "He actually showed up to yell at the Hathaways. Turned out Mr. Hathaway found a note in my file that had my grandparents' names, and they lived just up the road a piece. Arcadia wasn't that big of a town--only about five hundred people, I think. So Mr. Hathaway thought he was doing somethin' nice by sending my school picture to 'em with a note sayin' that I was doin' all right, an' that I was still up for adoption. My grandfather showed up and screamed 'til he was purple. Said...said his wife wasn't in good health, that they'd given me up so they wouldn't have to be reminded of their dead daughter and the--" He stopped. 

"The what, Slim?" Jim asked gently, hating himself but needing to know. 

Reluctantly, Slim raised his eyes to his father's. "The--'lecherous bastard who led her into temptation,'" he whispered. "Then he pointed at me, and said he never wanted to hear of me again. That I was the devil's spawn and I'd be doing the universe a favor if I just died then and there. He told Mr. Hathaway that if his wife died, he'd sue him for every credit he possessed, and then he left." Tears welled up in his eyes. "Two days later, I got moved to the Minifees--they lived on a ranch just outside Oklahoma County." 

"Oh, God, Slim," Jim whispered, feeling the tears spring to his own eyes. 

Slim grabbed another tissue and wiped his eyes. "Yeah, well...now you know why I had such a hard time believin' you 'n' Pa actually wanted me. I ain't had the greatest history." 

"You and me both," Jim said, stealing one of Slim's tissues to wipe his own eyes. "Although I gotta say, you turned out a lot better than I did. The last fifteen years or so smoothed a lot of the rough edges off." 

Slim shrugged. "I reckon it's just that I got out earlier 'n you did." 

Jim was about to argue, but stopped himself. He'd been pretty bitter and cynical at thirteen--but then, he'd watched an aunt and uncle who cared about him, two little cousins who looked up to him, and his beloved and adored big brother _butchered_ in front of him when he was only nine. However rough things had been with Slim, they'd never been _that_ bad...and if Jim told him about that, he'd have to tell the whole story. And Tarsus was one thing he never wanted to touch either of his children. 

"You could be right," he said instead. "Still...I wish I could have spared you all that hell."

"Aunt Nyota said the same thing," Slim said, surprising Jim. "When she was talking to me a couple months back about my birthday. And I gotta ask the same question now that I asked her--would we be here if you had?" 

"Probably not," Jim said honestly. "You'd probably be living with my mom in Iowa." 

"And your stepfather?" 

"Hell, no. Mom divorced him after--my brother ran away," Jim said, correcting himself quickly. Technically, it was true. "She finally realized how Frank was treating us, and they got divorced when I was ten or eleven." 

"I didn't know you had a brother," Slim said, surprised. 

"I don't anymore. He died." Jim cursed silently. Slim wasn't stupid. Any minute now he'd ask how and... 

But Slim's expression suddenly shifted. "I'm sorry, Dad," he said softly. "I didn't know that, either. God, that must've..." He shook his head. "I can't imagine losin' Addie." 

"I hope you never have to." 

They fell silent for a few minutes, but Jim noticed that neither of them made a move towards their PADDs. Finally, he said, "There's a lot we've never talked about, I guess." 

"You've been busy," Slim said, without any censure in his voice. "Bein' captain of a starship ain't easy." 

"You can say that again," Jim agreed. "It's worth it, though." 

Slim chuckled. "Not for me. I'd rather be in the background than running the show." 

Jim smiled. "So I guess you're not planning on the Command track when you enroll at the Academy." 

"No way," Slim said fervently. "I want to go for Engineering. I'm learning a lot from Uncle Scotty already, and I'd....I'd like to see how far I can go." 

"As far as you want," Jim told him. "That's the beauty of Starfleet. Anyone can go all the way to the top." 

Slim smiled--and sneezed, four times in a row. He groaned quietly. "I sure as heck hope this ain't more 'n a twenty-four-hour thing." 

Jim chuckled sympathetically. "Like you said, at least you're not throwing up." 

"For these small mercies we are grateful."

Jim indicated Slim's PADD. "What are you reading?" 

"Oh." Slim looked embarrassed. "Uh...I just finished _The Wizard of Oz_ and I was about to read _Little Women_." 

"I've read _The Wizard of Oz_ , but I've never heard of _Little Women_. Is it any good?" 

"I think so." 

"I'll have to read it sometime." Jim hesitated, looking at Slim. "Matter of fact...tell you what. You need to be in bed--being all cramped up like that can't be helping you breathe. We'll prop you up on pillows so you're not lying flat, and...I'll read it to you. How's that?" 

Slim's eyes lit up, and he smiled. "I'd like that, Dad. I'd like that a lot. But...well, it's a long book..." 

"I don't expect we'll get through it all in one go," Jim said, rising from the sofa and coming to help his son up. "But we can get started." 

"Sounds good to me." Slim let Jim help him to his feet, then staggered. 

Jim caught him, instantly worried. "You okay, son?" 

"Yeah," Slim murmured, but Jim saw a blind look in his eyes. "Just a bit dizzy. Reckon I stood up too fast." 

"All right. We'll take it slow." Jim kept one arm around Slim's waist, holding him up, and slung one of the boy's arms around his shoulders. He picked up the orange juice in the other hand and helped Slim into his room. 

Slim sat on the edge of his bed while Jim stacked the pillows, fluffing them enough that the boy could lie back on them but still be elevated. He then helped Slim lean against them and tucked him in. "How's that?" 

Slim managed a smile. "That's perfect, Dad. Thanks." 

"Of course." Jim took the opportunity to check Slim's forehead with the back of his hand again. It was definitely warmer than before--his fever was spiking. "You up to reading?" 

"If you read to me," Slim said softly. "Don't think I can concentrate on the screen." 

"All right." Jim went back into the living room and picked up the box of tissues and Slim's PADD, then came back in. He set the tissues next to the orange juice on Slim's bedside table and sat next to him on the bed, then put an arm around his shoulders. "Comfy?" 

"Uh-huh." Slim leaned his head on Jim's shoulder. Jim could feel the heat through his shirt. 

Trying to quell his rising panic, Jim flicked on the PADD and found that, as Slim had said, it was already at the beginning of the book. His eyes widened when he saw the copyright date: 1890. It was an _old_ book. Probably one Slim had read a hundred times--that was what you went for when you were sick. 

"Lights: fifteen percent," Jim said. The lights instantly dimmed, low enough that they wouldn't hurt Slim's eyes but not so low that the PADD's screen glared into the room. Taking a deep breath, he began. " _Little Women_ , by Louisa May Alcott. Chapter One: Playing Pilgrims..."

The story was surprisingly well-written for being nearly four centuries old, the story a gripping one, and Jim found himself genuinely moved for the plight of the four little March girls and their mother. As he finished the second chapter, Slim's head suddenly weighed more heavily on his shoulder, and when Jim glanced down, he saw that his son had fallen asleep. 

Moving carefully, so as not to disturb him, Jim laid the PADD on the nightstand table, then began gently easing off the bed. He had just lain Slim back and readjusted the blankets when the door opened and Bones slipped in. He seemed startled to see Jim and opened his mouth to speak. 

Quickly, Jim pressed a finger to his lips and said softly, "He's just fallen asleep." 

Bones nodded and came closer. "How's he feeling?" he asked, his voice just as soft. 

Jim smoothed back Slim's hair gently. "He was sneezing a lot when I first came in, and he had a low-grade fever, but that was it...when he stood up to come back in here, though, he said he was dizzy, and he had a blind look in his eyes. And he's burning up." 

Bones laid a hand on the boy's forehead. Jim saw the faint flicker of concern in his eyes as Bones left the room, then came back in with his tricorder and pressed it to Slim's face. A moment later, he muttered a curse as he looked at the numbers. 

"It's not a cold, is it?" Jim said, his stomach twisting. 

"It _is_ a cold, or it oughta be--that's what all the numbers indicate--but you don't usually spike a fever with the common cold." Bones bit his lip. "Dammit, something isn't making sense here...maybe I wasn't as thorough as I should have been, but..." 

"He told me you were pretty busy when he went up there," Jim said, remembering. "Said you told him it was a cold, gave him a hypo of something--" 

Bones' eyes widened. "The _hypo!_ Dammit, _that's_ what I'm missing..." 

"Bones," Jim began, worried, but Bones left his side and vanished. 

A moment later he returned with a hypo and pressed it to Slim's neck, muttering, "Should've thought...stupid...no _wonder_..." 

"What are you giving him?" Jim asked anxiously. 

"Cortisone. I gave him metorapan for his headache--it's the standard catch-all. He's having an allergic reaction to it, that's all." 

Jim forced himself to relax. "Yeah...I remember when I was in the hospital after crashing that car, I had the same problem when they gave me metorapan. They switched me to, uh, bicaridine?" 

Bones nodded. "That's the usual substitution. There was nothing in Slim's medical records about any drug allergies, but it's possible that they just never knew. He may not have ever had occasion to need metorapan before." 

"I don't think he did. He was telling me that when he got sick, he usually just had to suck it up." Jim reached out and touched his son's forehead. Mercifully, it did seem as though the fever had lessened, just a little bit. 

"I should've guessed he might have been allergic to it--he's your son, after all. Allergies tend to be hereditary." Bones put an arm around Jim's waist. "I was stupid, Jim. I'm sorry." 

"Don't be." Jim turned and kissed Bones' cheek lightly. "You were busy." 

"That's no excuse. I'm a doctor. I'm supposed to take the time with every single one of my patients. _Especially_ my own kids. We're just lucky his allergy wasn't more severe." 

"I'd have brought him up to Med Bay myself if he'd been in any danger. Hell, I almost brought him up there _anyway_. Kept asking him if he was _sure_ you'd told him to come back here." Jim sighed. "Probably annoyed the hell out of him, but he was too polite to say anything." 

"C'mon, Jim, let's let him sleep," Bones said gently, drawing Jim towards the door. "And I doubt he was annoyed. He was probably grateful that you were so worried about him. Don't imagine he's had many people worry about him that much." 

Jim recalled the conversation he and his son had had. "You're right."

Bones let the door shut behind them and looked at Jim. "So what were you two up to all evening?" 

"Talking, mostly. I finally got the chance to ask about his foster families and he gave me the rundown." Jim looked up at Bones. "You know he's had almost _thirty_ different homes in his life?" 

"He's lived in almost thirty different places," Bones corrected him. "It's not the same thing." 

"True," Jim allowed. "But still... _thirty_ different places. That's more 'n two a _year_. No wonder the poor kid always looks so lost." 

Bones pulled Jim into a tight embrace. "He ain't lost anymore, Jim." 

"I know." Jim leaned against Bones for a moment, then looked up, suddenly feeling a resurgence of worry. "Uh...speaking of...where's Addie?" 

"Uhura's got her," Bones said. "She's still little--her immune system isn't up to scratch yet. I don't think she should be around Slim until he's better. Uhura and Carol Marcus said they'd take it in turns to keep her." 

Jim sighed with mingled relief and regret. "I didn't think about her at all this afternoon. Not the whole time I was sitting with Slim. I feel like a horrible father." 

"Nonsense," Bones said roughly. "Addie was safe an' healthy. Slim needed you. It's okay to parent one kid at a time, Jim." 

"You're sure?" Jim looked beseechingly up at his husband. 

"Positive." Bones kissed him on the tip of his nose. "Not to change the subject, but what was on that PADD you put next to Slim's bed?" 

"Oh...we were reading together. I'd never read _Little Women_ , and he said it was one of his favorite books, so I offered to read it to him. It's really good, Bones." 

Bones smiled. "I'll bet." He checked his watch. "Have you had dinner yet?" 

"Uh...no." Jim realized that he was hungry all at once. 

"Want to go grab something at the officer's mess with me? As you've pointed out twice now, I was busy. Half the damned crew seems to have come down with the 'flu or a cold or something. I haven't eaten since before I went on shift this morning, and I'm starved." 

Jim hesitated, glancing back over his shoulder at Slim's room. Bones seemed to know his thoughts. "It'll be all right, Jim. He's sound asleep, and we'll be back in an hour." 

"I just don't want anything to happen to him," Jim said in a low voice. 

Bones caught Jim's chin and tilted it upwards. "I will _never_ let anything happen to him," he whispered. "Or to Addie. Or to you. I promise. Everything is gonna be okay." He bent down and captured Jim's lips with his own. 

Jim let himself get lost in the kiss, feeling his worries--and his willpower--drain away. Everything would be all right. How could it not be?


	25. That Which Survives

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This episode was originally written by John Meredyth Lucas and D.C. Fontana.

"Give me a hand with this, will you, Slim?" 

"Sure, Pa." 

Slim willingly shouldered the weight of half the equipment. Leo picked up the remainder and led the way to the Transporter Room, talking as he did. "I think Spock's staying in charge this time, so at least you won't have to worry about being ordered to defy your father." 

Slim smiled, a little reluctantly. "I don't think Uncle Scotty's going to try that again any time soon." 

"You got that right." It had taken Leo and Jim almost a month to convince Scotty that they didn't hold a grudge against him, and he still wasn't sure the man believed them. 

D'Amato, one of the two geologists on the ship, was already in the Transporter Room when they arrived, checking the settings on his tricorder. He nodded politely to Slim, then said to Leo, "You know anything at all about this planet?" 

"Not a thing," Leo replied. "You, Slim?" 

Slim shook his head. "Don't reckon anybody does. It didn't show up when I was doing my studies." 

"Is _he_ coming with us?" D'Amato asked Leo. 

Leo felt a flicker of irritation. _"He_ has a name, you know. And he can speak for himself. But no, he's not coming with us." 

Slim blushed and busied himself with checking over the equipment he'd carried into the room. Leo wished they were taking Fisher, whom he'd known since their Academy days, and not D'Amato. But D'Amato had graduated a year before most of the _Enterprise's_ crew, and therefore had seniority, which meant he got to go on this mission instead. Leo didn't know D'Amato much--M'Benga was his primary--and what he did know, he disliked. 

Before he could say anything else, the door slid open and Jim came in, followed by Sulu. Jim gave Leo and Slim a smile before turning to D'Amato. "Well, Mr. D'Amato, this expedition should be a geologist's dream, and the youth of the planet isn't its sole recommendation. If Mr. Spock is correct, you'll have a report to startle the next Inter-Stellar Geophysical Conference." 

D'Amato looked a little self-satisfied. Leo frowned. "Why, Jim? What is it?" 

"Even Spock can't explain its anomalies." 

Slim stifled a laugh. Sulu grinned and threw him a wink. Jim put a hand on his shoulder. "Slim, I want you on the bridge while we're gone. Dr. Marcus has Addie. I've already told Spock you're coming up. I've also told him that you're not to set foot off the bridge until we get back aboard, no matter what happens." 

Slim nodded. "Understood, sir." 

"Good boy. See you later." 

Leo gave Slim a side-armed hug as the boy left the room, then bent to pick up the last piece of equipment. He grunted slightly under its weight. "Someone give me a hand with this thing." 

Sulu immediately came forward, shifting his tricorder so it hung behind him and out of his way, and lifted the other side of the instrument. D'Amato, already on the transporter platform, didn't so much as move a finger in his direction. Leo's dislike of the geologist compounded. 

Jim joined them on the transporter, taking his position. "Energize," he said, nodding to the technician. 

Ensign Wyatt, one of the newer crew members, pushed the appropriate button and the sparkle of dematerialization began. Just before they vanished, Leo was astonished to see a strange woman appear out of nowhere. She reached out and touched Wyatt, who gasped, fell into convulsions--and collapsed over the console. The last thing Leo saw before the transporter beams whisked him away was Wyatt's white face, staring at him with blank, dead eyes.

The second they landed on the planet--strange with its bright yellow grass set off by blood-red flowers--Jim flipped out his communicator. "Kirk to _Enterprise._ Come in, _Enterprise."_

"Jim, did you see what I saw?" Leo gasped, still unable to believe it. 

"Yes, I saw it," Jim said grimly, and Leo saw again that flicker, the brief moment of pain that showed in Jim's eyes every time he lost a crew member. "That woman attacked Ensign Wyatt. _Enterprise_ , come in." 

The ground shuddered beneath their feet. Leo gasped and reached instinctively for Jim, who was reaching for him as well. They tried to support one another as the planet began pitching and spasming wildly, but it was impossible, and they fell to the ground. Jim's hand slipped from Leo's and he couldn't even manage to raise his head long enough to see where he'd gone. All he could do was pray that a chasm hadn't opened up and swallowed him. 

Then, suddenly, it was over. Leo clung to the ground for a minute, just to make sure it wouldn't try to get away from him again. Behind him, he heard Sulu's voice. "What kind of earthquakes do they _have_ around here, anyway?" 

Leo managed to raise his head and saw, to his relief, Jim slowly scramble to his feet, looking a little battered but otherwise intact. "They can't have many like that without tearing the whole planet apart," he said, moving over to where Leo still lay and holding out his hand. Leo accepted it, letting Jim pull him to his feet. 

D'Amato had either managed to get to his feet quickly or had caught himself against the rocks. "Captain, just before this tremor--if that's what it was, I've never seen any seismic events like this--I got a tricorder reading of immense power. It's gone now." 

Jim turned to face the geologist, although without letting go of Leo's hand. "Could that have caused what just happened?" 

"Theoretically, no," D'Amato answered. "Something of that power should have leveled old mountains, created new ones." He gestured at the landscape around them. Leo hadn't had much time to notice the topography of the area beforehand, so he, reluctantly, had to take D'Amato at his word that it was unchanged. 

"Let's see what readings the ship got." Jim let go of Leo's hand at last and stooped to pick up his dropped communicator. "Kirk to _Enterprise_. Come in, _Enterprise."_ He waited a moment. A frown slowly crossed his face. _"Enterprise_ , come in. Do you read me, _Enterprise?_ Come in!" He scowled down at the resolutely silent device. "Shock might've damaged it," he muttered. 

Leo happened to glance over at Sulu at the exact moment his face turned chalk white. "Captain," the helmsman practically shouted. "The _Enterprise_ \--she's gone!" 

In three steps, Jim was at Sulu's side, his own face pale, staring at the tricorder. D'Amato looked up from his own instrument. "It's true, Captain--there's nothing there." 

"Nothing?" Leo cried, feeling the color drain from his own face. "What do you mean, _nothing?_ How can the whole ship just be _gone?"_ He looked desperately at Jim. "What does it mean, Jim?" 

Jim looked up. "It means we're stranded," he said quietly.

Sulu was still staring at the tricorder. Tears were starting to form in the corner of his eyes. "It--it must have blown up," he murmured. 

"Let's stop guessing and try to work out a pattern, shall we?" Jim said. "I get no reading of high energy concentration around the planet. If the _Enterprise_ had blown up, there'd be high levels of radiation around." 

Leo bit his lip so hard he could taste the coppery tang of blood. "Jim, could it have hit us--hit the planet, I mean?" He didn't want to think about it, didn't want to believe the _Enterprise_ was gone, but at the same time... 

"Once in Siberia, there was a meteor so great it flattened forests and--" Sulu began. 

"Mr. Sulu, if I wanted a Russian history lesson I'd have brought Mr. Chekov," Jim said sharply. Sulu flinched. "We face the problem of survival. Without the _Enterprise,_ we need to find food and water and we need to find it quick. I want a detailed analysis of this planet. _Now."_

"Yes, sir," Sulu said quietly. He bent over his tricorder and got to work. D'Amato, too, began working on his analysis. Leo and Jim watched from a spot halfway between the two. 

"I've gotta stop taking you on away missions," Jim muttered, looking at Leo. 

He was probably talking to himself, but Leo couldn't help feeling upset--even hurt. "Why? Don't think I'm any help?" 

Jim grabbed Bones by the arm and dragged him away from the others, then spoke in a low, urgent voice. "You're a huge help, Bones, and there's no one else I'd rather have by my side. But dammit, we've got _kids_. And something always seems to go wrong when we're planetside. What if, one of these times, we can't get the party back?" He looked up with haunted eyes. "I don't want them orphaned, Bones. One of us has to be there for them." 

"Captain," Sulu called. 

Jim hurried over to Sulu's side, leaving Leo standing alone, perfectly still. Dammit, how had he never thought of that? His mind ticked over the away missions they'd been on together, just in the past ten months. The planet of the Melkots, when they'd almost been gunned down by the Earps. Miri's planet, where they'd both nearly succumbed to that virus. Capella IV, where they'd come very close to being executed--or butchered--by a man mad for power. Even on the missions they'd gone on alone, things had been tight. Jim had wound up in the middle of a computerized war and nearly disintegrated. Leo still occasionally had nightmares about Taurus II and those long, agonizing minutes aboard the _Galileo_ when he'd feared Spock's logical approach to their situation had killed them all. 

And now this. No, Jim was right. They couldn't risk leaving their children orphans. 

Assuming they weren't all that was left of the crew.

"You're sure your report covers _all_ the vegetation, Sulu?" Jim's voice filtered through Leo's stupor. He shook himself and quickly crossed to join Jim and the helmsman. 

"Yes, Captain," Sulu said quietly. "None of it is edible. It's poison to us." 

Softly, Leo said. "Jim, if the _Enterprise_ really _has_ been destroyed--" 

"Don't talk like that," Jim said swiftly. "The ship's okay. She's _got_ to be. There has to be some other explanation for why we can't find her. Something probably went wrong and they had to warp away quickly...or something." 

"Wherever it is, Jim, it's not here. Without it, do you know how long _we_ can survive?" 

"Yeah," Jim said grimly. "I do." He turned to Sulu. "There has to be water to grow vegetation, however poisonous. A source of water would at least stretch our survival. Mr. D'Amato--" Jim turned to face the geologist--"is there any evidence of rainfall on the planet?" 

"None, sir." D'Amato sounded slightly unsure of himself. Despite what it meant for their survival, Leo felt a malicious little surge of pleasure. "I can find no evidence that there has _ever_ been rainfall on this planet at all." 

Leo moved over to Sulu's side, as the helmsman had suddenly gone pale. In a low voice, he asked, "You all right?" 

"No," Sulu whispered back. He looked up at Leo with haunted eyes. "It just suddenly occurred to me...not only is the _Enterprise_ gone, but...so are the people _in_ it." 

"I know." Leo put a hand on the man's shoulder briefly. Then he noticed the readings on Sulu's tricorder and looked up, breaking into Jim's discussion with D'Amato. "Sulu's picked up an organism that's almost like a virus--some kind of parasitic plant life. That's the closest thing to a mobile life form that's turned up on this crazy planet." 

Jim took a deep breath, visibly pulling himself together. "All right. If this is going to be our home for--as long as it takes--we'd better find out all we can about it. D'Amato, see if you can find any sub-surface water. Sulu, atmospheric sweep." 

D'Amato moved away without another word. Sulu nodded, and with a soft, "Aye, Captain," he headed in the opposite direction. 

Jim turned to Leo. "Bones, discover what you can about the vegetation and your parasites. If they survive, they need moisture. Maybe we can find out how they do it and stretch ourselves out a little longer. I'm going to try and find us some sort of natural shelter." 

Leo bit his lip, then took a step closer and wrapped Jim in a hug. "Be careful, Jim," he said in his husband's ear. "I ain't stayin' on this planet without you." 

"That goes for you, too," Jim said softly, hugging him back. He drew back, planted a soft kiss on Leo's lips, then pulled away.

Leo smiled at him, then adjusted the dials on his medical tricorder and knelt to study the grass. Apart from its canary yellow color, it was visually identical to the grass on the front lawn of the house he and Jocelyn had owned in Atlanta, the ropy kind called St. Augustine grass. The flowers were incredibly like poppies. But of course they couldn't be--not so far from Earth. 

Suddenly, Leo wished Jim's mother could have come along. He'd never met her, but as Slim said, anyone who knew anything about xenobotany knew the name Winona Kirk. She wasn't the useless kind, only interested in flowers; rather, she was an expert in not only classifying plants, but discovering their uses. If anyone could have found edible vegetation on this planet--or made something edible out of the poisonous plants growing there--Leo was sure it would have been her. 

Sighing, he bent himself to the task of capturing a parasite. 

Suddenly, his tricorder dial began spinning wildly. Leo stared stupidly for a minute, then grabbed his communicator. "McCoy to Kirk!" 

"Kirk here." Leo had never been so glad to hear Jim's steady voice. 

"Jim! I've just got a lifeform reading of tremendous intensity! It was suddenly just there!" 

"What do you mean--just there?" 

"That," Leo said. He struggled for an explanation. "All tricorder readings were normal when suddenly this surge of biological life just registered! Wait a minute--" He frowned as his tricorder readings suddenly and without warning went back to normal. "No, it's gone..." 

There was a brief pause, and then Jim said in a tense voice, "Like a door suddenly opening and closing again?" 

"Yes," Leo said, suddenly worried. Where had Jim pulled that simile from so quickly? 

"What direction?" 

Leo glanced at the tricorder. "Zero eight three." 

"D'Amato's section!" Jim's voice abruptly broke off, and Leo knew he was trying to raise the geologist. A moment later, Jim came back, his voice blank. "Bones, Sulu--D'Amato doesn't answer." 

Leo may not have liked the geologist much, but he knew his job--and more than that, if anything had happened to him, it could happen to the others, too. And them he _did_ like. "On my way!" he shouted, pushing himself to his feet and taking off running in the direction he'd seen D'Amato head. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sulu come running, too, and wondered what good the man thought he could do--but on second thought, he knew Jim would want them together.

"Bones--over here!" 

Leo pulled up and turned to where he'd heard the shout come from. Jim stood at the base of a cliff nearby, staring into a crevice. Wedged in between the cliff and a bright red rock was a blue-shirted body. Leo didn't have to get any closer to know that it was too late for D'Amato. 

He walked over and ran over the body with his tricorder. A moment later he drew back, appalled at the information on the little machine, and turned to Jim. "Jim, every cell in D'Amato's body has been--disrupted." 

The three men stared at one another for a minute in a kind of dull horror. Leo knew the other two were struggling with the idea. Truthfully, he had trouble with it himself. Finally, Jim pulled his phaser and paced out a rectangle, about six by three. Leo realized what he was doing a second before he aimed at the dirt and fired. About six inches of topsoil blasted off, revealing a layer of rock the same color as the one D'Amato was wedged against. Jim fired at it again--and again. It didn't even scorch. Clenching his jaw, he tried another spot, with the same result. 

At last, he returned the phaser to his hip. "Better than eight thousand degrees centigrade and not so much as a mark. It's like igneous rock--but much denser." 

Leo had helped Slim with his homework earlier that day and knew the exact temperature of the phaser output--and that it was a nice, round number in the Federation standard unit of measure--but he also knew that, despite it being the Federation standard unit of temperature, Jim steadfastly avoided using the word "kelvin" if he could help it. "Jim, is the whole planet made of this stuff covered over by topsoil?" 

Jim hesitated. "Sulu--it might help if we know more about this rock. I know it was Lieutenant D'Amato's field, not yours, but see what you can find out, okay?" 

Sulu nodded, picking up the tricorder and kneeling over the first spot Jim had blasted. Leo glanced at D'Amato's body and was struck with a pang of conscience. The man may have been a complete and utter asshole, but he was still a crew member. "I guess a tomb of rocks is the best we'll be able to do for D'Amato."

Jim only nodded. The two of them began gathering a pile of liftable stones. About halfway through, Jim suddenly stopped. "I wonder if the Transporter officer on the _Enterprise_ is dead, Bones." 

Leo noted that Jim still steadfastly refused to accept that the _Enterprise_ might be gone for good. "You mean that woman we saw may have killed him?" 

"Well...someone killed D'Amato, that's for sure." 

Leo didn't know what to say, so he just kept collecting stones. Once they had enough, the two of them began extracting D'Amato's body from the crevice. It didn't work at first--not until Sulu, his calculations evidently complete, came over to give them a hand. They laid him in the narrow area Jim had paced out, then heaped him over with stones. Once he was completely hidden, they stood for a moment, heads bowed. 

Sulu shivered. "It looks so lonely there." 

"It would be worse if he had company," Leo said. 

He didn't know how it was possible for Sulu to get any paler, but somehow he did. "Doctor, how can you joke about it? Poor D'Amato, what a terrible way to die." 

"There aren't really any good ways," Leo said softly, putting an arm around Sulu's shoulders. "And I wasn't joking. Until we know what killed him, we're not any of us safe." 

Jim tore his eyes away from the cairn and looked at the other two. "Right, Bones. We'd better stick together, figure this out, and come up with a defense against it. Is it possible the rock itself has life?" 

Sulu wiped his eyes with his sleeve. "You remember on Janus VI, the silicone creatures that--" 

Leo let go of him and interrupted, "But our instruments recorded them. They registered as life." 

"We could be dealing with beings that are intelligent enough to shield themselves," Jim said. 

Sulu looked up at him. Hesitantly, he said, "Intelligent enough to have--destroyed the _Enterprise?"_

"That's our trouble, Sulu," Jim said heavily, and Leo noticed he didn't correct him this time about the _Enterprise's_ survival. "We've got hundreds of questions--and no answers." 

Sulu bit his lip, hard. Leo glanced at Jim, then back at Sulu. "Maybe you can answer one of them, Sulu. Did you find out what this rock is?" 

"Just about." Sulu grabbed the tricorder, then checked over his calculations. Jim looked at Leo and mouthed _Thank you_ just as Sulu said, "It's an alloy, Captain. Diburnium and osmium. It couldn't have happened naturally." 

Jim nodded absently, turning to look at the field again. "This planet has no natural magnetic field. And it's only a few million years old. No way it could have evolved this kind of plant life in that time." 

Leo frowned. "Jim, are you suggesting that this is an artificially-created planet?" 

"If it's artificial, where are the people who created it?" Sulu pointed out. "Why haven't we seen them?" 

"They could be sophisticated enough to hide from our scanners," Jim said. "Or it may simply be that the planet is--" He stopped, biting his lips, and flushed slightly as he glanced at Leo. 

Leo knew exactly what he was thinking, and why he'd hesitated to say it. "Hollow," he completed. _For the world is hollow,_ an old man's voice whispered in the back of his mind, _and I have touched the sky..._

Jim looked away, pretending to study the sky--or maybe he really was studying it, Leo wasn't completely sure, but it looked like an act. "It's getting dark. Get some rest. In the morning, we'll have to find some food and water, or we're in for a very unpleasant stay." 

"As long as it lasts," Leo muttered. 

"I'll take first watch, sir," Sulu said. 

Jim nodded. "Right, Mr. Sulu. Set D'Amato's tricorder for automatic distress in case the--in case a ship happens by."

He stretched out on the ground. Leo lay down next to him and reached for Jim's hand. "Jim," he said softly. "It's gonna be okay." 

Jim twined his fingers through Leo's. He turned so that Sulu couldn't see him, but Leo saw the tears in his eyes, shining in the starlight. "She's still out there somewhere, Bones. She just _has_ to be. But God help me, what if this is another damn spaceship? What if--?" 

"Shh." Leo sat up and propped himself up against the rock behind them. He gathered Jim into his arms and pulled him close. Jim curled onto Leo's lap, obviously needing comfort. Leo stroked his hair. "Whatever happens, Jim, we'll get through it together. It's all right. It's gonna be okay." 

"I'm scared, Bones," Jim whispered. 

"You'd be an idiot not to be," Leo told him. "Get some sleep, darlin'. I'm right here." 

"I love you," Jim murmured. 

Leo pressed a gentle kiss to the top of Jim's head. "I love you, too." 

The night grew chillier as the sun set. Leo wrapped his arms more tightly around Jim, as much for warmth as for comfort, and tried to get some sleep. He must have dropped off for a minute, because he was suddenly jolted awake by the earth shifting beneath him. As Jim sat up sleepily, Leo saw a flare of light in the distance. 

"Lieutenant Sulu?" Jim called. 

Sulu straightened from where he stood, just beyond some rocks. "It's all right, Captain. Just another of those tremors." 

Leo squinted. "What was that light?" 

"Probably just lightning. Get some rest, sir."

Jim and Leo settled back. Leo wondered drowsily how long it had been, and whether Sulu would actually wake either one of them for another shift at watch or try to stay awake all night himself. He was just slipping back under when he heard the sound of a phaser being fired. The sound woke him up faster than a bucket of cold water. 

Jim shot upright, his eyes widening. "Sulu!" 

He scrambled to his feet and took off in the direction of the sounds. Leo tried to stand and bit back a cry--his legs had gone cramped from Jim lying across them. After a moment, he managed to get the blood circulating again and headed after Jim. 

When he arrived at the scene, he saw Sulu lying on the ground, clutching his shoulder, obviously in pain. Jim stood between him and a beautiful woman, blocking her from reaching the helmsman. She seemed distressed. "Please," she said. "I must. I am for Lieutenant Sulu." 

"She's mad!" Leo said. His eyes widened as he recognized her--the woman who had touched Wyatt on the _Enterprise._

"Bones, take care of Sulu." Jim didn't take his eyes off the woman. 

Leo knelt down next to Sulu, pulling out his tricorder. "Easy, now. Let me take a look." 

"Please," the woman said again. "I must touch him!" 

She thrust towards Sulu, and again Jim got in the way. This time she collided with him, her arms stretched around his neck. Leo ignored them, with effort, and asked Sulu, "What happened?" 

"I don't know exactly," Sulu said, his voice tight with pain. "She...touched my shoulder and...it hurts like hell, Doctor." 

"Okay, kid, easy does it," Leo said gently. "Let me just take a look here." He eased Sulu's hand away from where it was pressed against his shoulder. 

"Who are you? Why are you trying to kill us?" Jim sounded furious. Leo, now running the tricorder over the injured shoulder, didn't blame him. 

"Only Sulu. I wish you no harm, Kirk. Under the circumstances--" 

"Circumstances be damned! Why do you wish harm on my men and not me?" 

"I must touch him," the woman said for the third time. 

"No," Jim said firmly.

Leo swore softly as he looked at the tricorder readings. Then Jim spoke, sounding slightly worried. "Did you see that, Bones? Is this a ghost planet?" 

"All I know is that thing almost made a ghost out of Sulu!" Leo said angrily, looking up. He was startled to notice that the woman had completely vanished, but he pushed the thought aside as Jim turned to look at him. "His shoulder where she touched him--all the cells are completely disrupted, exploded from within. If she'd gotten a good grip..." 

Jim's eyes showed his confusion and frustration. _"Why?_ I know we must seem like intruders, but if she can read our minds, she knows we mean no harm. Why the killing, Bones?" 

Sulu looked up. His eyes were slightly unfocused from pain--Leo couldn't blame him--but he managed to draw strength enough to look at Jim. "Captain, how can such people be? So evil? And she's so--so beautiful." 

"Yeah," Jim said slowly. "I noticed..." 

Leo decided to ignore them both, focusing on Sulu's shoulder. He had limited medical equipment with him--mostly for scratches, bruises, and Jim's ever-present allergies, which could occasionally get life-threatening very quickly--but he at least had enough to work with. After a few minutes of work, he looked up. "How's it feel?" 

"It still hurts, but not as bad as before," Sulu answered. 

Leo nodded. "There's a layer of necrotic tissue, subcutaneous, a few cells thick. A normal wound should heal pretty quickly." He hesitated. "But if this isn't normal, if it's infected..." 

"You mean your viruses?" Jim said quietly. 

"It couldn't be! Not this quickly!" Leo fought back the sudden surge of panic. No. He had to stay calm. Steadiest hands on the ship. He could do this. He forced himself to go back to work on Sulu's shoulder. It _looked_ normal, at least.

"She just touched me," Sulu said, and at least he didn't sound as dazed with pain as he had before. "How could it have worked so fast?" 

Jim's mouth set in a grim, straight line. "She touched Ensign Watts. He collapsed immediately. Then she touched D'Amato--she must have--and we all saw what happened to him." He looked thoughtfully at Sulu. "So how did you survive?" 

"Captain, I'm very grateful for the way it turned out," Sulu said softly. "Thank you for all you did." 

Leo felt a lump in his throat. He swallowed and looked up again. "Jim, what kind of power do these people have?" 

"The power, apparently, to disrupt biological processes at will," Jim replied. 

"Then why didn't she kill you?" The words slipped out of Leo's mouth before he could stop them. 

"She isn't finished yet, Bones." 

Leo stood up, temporarily letting Sulu alone, and pulled Jim into a hug. The man clung to him, obviously more shaken than he was letting on. Quietly, Leo whispered, "We'll get through this, Jim. There has to be a way to stop them. You focus on that and I'll take care of Sulu, okay?" 

Jim took a deep breath and nodded. "Okay." 

Leo let go of him carefully, then knelt down next to Sulu again. "How's it feeling now?" he asked gently. 

"Still hurts a little," Sulu replied. 

"Only to be expected, really. If this had gone any deeper you might've lost the shoulder." 

"Hard to lose just a shoulder," Sulu said with a flash of his usual spirit. 

Leo couldn't help but smile. "There is that. Think you could pilot a starship with one arm?" 

"Oh, sure, that's no trick. The trouble would be _fencing_ one-handed." 

"Don't you usually fence one-handed?" 

"Yeah, but--" Sulu winced as Leo prodded a spot on his shoulder with the balls of two fingers. 

Leo stopped. "That hurt?" 

"A little." 

Leo reached for his field medical kit. "So tell me," he said, "why would fencing one-handed be an issue?" 

If anyone had asked Leo that question, even five minutes later, he wouldn't have been able to explain, but it at least had the effect of keeping Sulu distracted while Leo worked on him. At last, he rocked back on his heels, leaning Sulu against the rock. "There. Take a rest, okay? Give it time to heal." 

Sulu smiled, leaning back. "I know better than to argue with my doctor. Not after everything you've done." 

Leo scoffed. "Please. I haven't done anything." 

"You saved Chekov's life," Sulu said, his voice so soft Leo could barely hear it; he knew Jim couldn't. "I'd do anything you told me after that." 

Leo smiled and clapped Sulu on his good shoulder. "Then as your doctor, I command you to get some sleep. You need it. It'll help." 

"Yes, sir." Sulu smiled and leaned back, closing his eyes.

Jim squatted down next to Leo. The planet had three moons, and two were bathing them in silver light, so Leo could see his worried expression. "Is he gonna be okay?" 

"Should be. I haven't seen any signs of infection. With rest, he'll do just fine." Leo stifled a yawn. 

Jim reached out and put a hand on Leo's shoulder. "Speaking of rest, Bones, you'd better get some, too. Go ahead. I'll keep watch." 

Leo hesitated, then leaned back against the rock. "Wake me if you get tired." 

Jim smiled and stroked Leo's hair. "I will. Just rest for now." 

Slowly, Leo's eyes closed. He drifted off to sleep, secure in the knowledge that Jim was nearby. 

When he woke up, the sun hadn't risen yet; he didn't think he'd slept very long. "Jim?" he called, a little sleepily. 

"I'm right here, Bones." Leo felt a hand on his shoulder; he looked up and smiled into Jim's face. "Did you sleep all right?" 

"Yeah, thanks." Leo grunted and stretched. "Is it my shift on watch yet?" 

"Nah, you've only been out...well, without a frame of reference or a chrono it's hard to tell, but I'd guess about two hours." Jim sighed and sat down next to Leo. "I'd kind of hoped you would sleep longer." 

"I'm a doctor," Leo pointed out. "And a father. I'm used to getting by on not a lot of sleep." 

"Which means you should take the opportunity to rest when you can," Jim countered. 

"I did. Twice." 

"Oh, yes. A grand total of three, maybe four hours." 

"Which is plenty enough to recharge my batteries." 

"Is that why you woke up? 'Cause you're fully charged? Or are you just paranoid?" 

Leo paused. "I wouldn't call it _paranoid,_ exactly. But I can't sleep when I'm worried about you." 

"What?" 

"Come on, Jim, you an' I have known each other for more 'n fifteen years. You get in trouble and I have trouble sleeping, you bitch at me about not getting enough sleep and I fake it, but we both know that I don't sleep when you're in danger. Remember that survival course you took, the one you were a week late getting back from? I don't think I slept more 'n ten hours the whole time you were out of contact. And I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have slept at _all_ during the two weeks after you killed yourself climbin' the warp core if Spock an' Scotty hadn't dragged me out of your room." 

Jim stared at Leo. "Bones, I know you worry about me, but you've gotta take care of yourself, too." 

Leo snorted--he couldn't help it. "Right. An' exactly _how_ much sleep did you get during the seventy-two hours the shuttle crew was trapped on Taurus II?" 

"That's different. I'm the captain--" 

"And I'm CMO, and your husband," Leo interrupted. "Which are both excellent reasons to worry about you, as much as you worry about me, and don't try to deny that you do." 

"I wasn't going to," Jim said. 

"Good." Leo leaned over and kissed Jim's cheek. "I love you." 

"I love you, too." Jim smiled, then looked up at the sky. "I wonder where they are," he murmured. 

"If I know Spock--looking for us," Leo answered. 

"Yeah, I know. I was just wondering--how far away they were. Where they were now." 

"They'll be here as fast as they can, Jim. You know that. Scotty'll sit on the warp core himself to squeeze every ounce of power out of it that he can. And Chekov will come up with some brilliant calculations and get them to the exact right spot for optimum rescue missions. We'll be out of here before sunrise." 

"You know when sunrise is on this planet, Bones?" 

"Haven't the foggiest. But they'll get us off before then." 

Jim laughed softly. "When did you turn into such an optimist?" 

Leo couldn't help but laugh as well. "You know, that's the second time since we left Earth that someone's accused me of being an optimist."

On Leo's other side, Sulu suddenly stirred. "Mmm...Captain?" he murmured. 

Jim was instantly up. "Mr. Sulu, how are you feeling?" 

Sulu blinked a few times, looking up at Jim. One of the planet's moons, which had been previously obscured by clouds, suddenly emerged, bathing them in silvery light. "Better, sir. What time--" He checked himself. "How long was I asleep?" 

"Just a couple of hours." 

Leo reached for his tricorder. "Let me look at your shoulder." 

Obediently, Sulu remained still as Leo examined him. Jim leaned against the rock, watching. After a few minutes, he said, "I've been thinking. If this planet is hollow--if there are cities and power sources under the surface--then there have to be entrances. There has to be at least one. We'll do our exploring together. Sulu, do you feel up to moving on now?" 

"I feel fine, Captain," Sulu replied. 

"Bones, is he?" Jim asked. 

Leo nodded, withdrawing his tricorder. "Back in one piece again. But if we run into that woman again..." 

"I've been thinking about that, too," Jim said. "Remember how she kept insisting she was 'for Sulu?' Whatever destructive powers she has, it's aimed at a specific person at any one time. If I'm right, and she shows up again, all we have to do is find out who she's 'for.' The other two will have to protect that one. And just by putting ourselves physically between her and her chosen victim. No weapons affect her." 

"But how does she know about us?" Sulu asked, fear in his eyes again. "She knew my name, my rank--even the name of the ship! She must read our minds--" He suddenly broke off as a high whining noise began, increasing in pitch. His eyes widened and the color drained from his face. "Captain! That's a phaser on overload!" 

But Jim had already drawn his phaser from his hip. Calmly, he said, "The control's fused. Drop." 

Leo hit the dirt instantly. Sulu was also on the ground, his arms over his head. Looking up, Leo saw Jim throw his phaser with all his strength, then throw himself to the ground and cover his head. Leo took the hint from the other two and did the same, just in time. There was an ear-splitting explosion. Debris rained down on them for a minute, then it was over. 

Jim stood up, looking around. "That answers that question," he said grimly. "She _can_ read minds."

Leo managed to get to his feet, and the two of them together pulled Sulu upright. The helmsman was trembling head to toe. Jim put an arm around his shoulders. "It's gonna be okay, Sulu," he said quietly. 

"Captain...I'm sorry," Sulu whispered. "But...I'm scared." 

"I don't blame you. I'm scared, too. But we're gonna get out of this. Together. I _promise."_

Leo put his arm around Sulu from the other side, then reached for Jim. The three stood for a long moment, just hugging one another, giving one another support. Finally, when Sulu had stopped shaking, Jim drew back and looked seriously at the other two. "Let's go." 

He set off purposefully towards the spot where they had beamed down initially. Leo and Sulu followed, each carrying a tricorder. Sulu seemed downcast and quiet, even for him. After a few minutes, Leo asked softly, "Are you all right?" 

"I don't know," Sulu admitted. "I...I thought I was a reasonably brave person. After everything we've been through, I didn't think I got scared easily. But...ever since we've been on this planet, I've been feeling like you and the captain have had to carry me. Like I'm not pulling my weight. That woman and what she can do--it _terrifies_ me. No one should have that kind of power. And I almost died, and that's pretty frightening. And--and I'm worried about Chekov." 

"It's okay to be scared, Sulu," Leo said softly. "Jim and I are, too." 

"You don't show it." 

"We're older, we've had more practice." _And we're together,_ Leo added silently. _Everything's easier when we're together._

Sulu took a deep breath. "At least we know if the _Enterprise_ isn't in range, and that woman is down here with us...that she's not up there with them. So at least they're safe from _her."_

"There is that," Leo agreed.

The three of them kept looking, fanning out enough that they could cover more ground but staying more or less within arm's reach of one another. Not knowing what they were looking for made it more difficult, but at least they knew that whatever it was, they hadn't found it yet. Overhead, the first moon arced across the sky, chased by the second, and the stars shifted position subtly. 

Finally, they reached a plateau and stopped to take a rest. Leo was about to say something when Sulu glanced down at his tricorder and cried, "Captain--there it is again--that magnetic sweep! First nothing, then off the charts, and then--" 

"Like a door opening..." Jim mused. 

Before he could say anything else, the woman stepped out from behind a jutting rock, smiling. Leo tensed, Sulu paled, but Jim faced her steadily. "And for who have you come this time?" 

"For you, James T. Kirk, captain of the U.S.S. _Enterprise."_

Instantly, Leo was in front of Jim. "Keep behind us, Jim!" he cried. Sulu leapt forward and stood next to him, the two of them blocking the woman's access to Jim. She stayed where she was, perfectly still. 

Jim spoke over Leo's shoulder, still in the same calm, steady voice. "Why are you trying to kill me?" 

"You are an invader," the woman replied. 

"We are on a peaceable mission," Jim said. "We haven't harmed you. Yet you have killed our people." In a low voice, directly in Leo's ear, he added, "Bones, get a reading." 

Leo fumbled with the controls of his tricorder as the woman started moving forward again. After a minute, his eyes widened. "Jim, I get no life readings from her!" 

"An android?" Sulu asked, eyeing the woman warily. 

"That would get a mechanical reading," Leo replied. He tweaked his tricorder slightly, but with the same results. "I'm getting nothing." 

"Who are you?" Jim challenged the woman, though blissfully without moving from behind his men. 

"Commander Losira." 

"Commander of what?" 

"This base," Losira replied. 

It was maddeningly unhelpful. Jim took a deep breath and asked, "Losira, how do you feel about killing me?" 

"Feel?" the woman repeated, looking puzzled. Her eyes fixed on Jim, and Leo saw her expression change--melt. He fought back the unexpected flare of jealousy. He knew that expression, had dealt with a thousand women--and quite a few men--who found Jim Kirk attractive, but never one who was actively trying to kill them. 

"Killing is _wrong,"_ Losira said softly. Leo had a brief hope that she might walk away, but then she took a step forward, and another. "You must not penetrate the station." A sort of desperation came into her eyes. "Kirk, I--I must touch you." 

Leo didn't dare look around, but he heard the faint sounds of Jim frantically working the tricorder, talking all the while. "You want to kill me?" 

Losira stopped, briefly, obviously conflicted. Jim kept talking. "You _don't_ want to. Then why do you do it?" 

"I must. I am sent." 

"Sent by whom?" 

"We defend this place." 

It wasn't really an answer, but Jim ignored it. "Where are the others?" 

"No more." Abruptly, Losira lost her confusion. She stretched out her arms and ran at Jim. Leo linked his arm with Sulu's and planted his feet. They rocked when the woman collided with them, but held firm, and though she clawed at both of them to get at Jim, they were unharmed. The faint crunch of boot on rock told Leo that Jim had backed a little further out of her reach. 

"How long have you been alone?" Jim asked. 

As if his words had triggered a switch, Losira's arms dropped. She stepped back and gave him a sad expression. Then, abruptly, she turned sideways and vanished in a thin line.

"Where did she go?" Leo yelped, taking an involuntary step backwards. "She must be somewhere!" 

"She isn't registering," Sulu said, looking down at his tricorder. "But there's that power surge again! Right off the scale!" 

"Like a door...closing," Jim said slowly. He turned and focused on a bright red rock in the distance. As if in a dream, he began drifting towards it. Leo and Sulu exchanged glances, then followed. 

Sulu's tricorder readings were still off the charts when they reached it. Jim tapped the rock lightly. "This must be it." 

The three _Enterprise_ men put a shoulder to the rock and pushed. They tried from all angles, pushing until their faces were red with exertion, but to no avail. Leo straightened, panting slightly. "If this is a closed door," he said, "it clearly intends to remain closed." 

Abruptly the rock slid aside of its own accord, revealing a door that telescoped upwards. The three men stared at it silently for a minute. 

"You think it's an invitation to go in?" Leo asked at last. 

Sulu shivered slightly. "If it is, it's one that doesn't exactly relax me." 

"The turbolift door to the _Enterprise_ bridge would be infinitely preferable," Jim agreed, resting a hand on Sulu's shoulder for a brief moment. "But whatever civilization is left on this planet is down there. And in absence of the ship, gentlemen, our best hope of finding food and water is also down there." 

The three of them drew together by unconscious agreement as they headed through the doorway. The narrow hallway was just wide enough to accomodate them walking in a tight triangle, with Jim at point. After a few feet, it opened into a large chamber. Across from the entrance was a huge, translucent cube, a thousand colors dancing and swirling just below the surface. 

Jim stopped and stared at it. "The brain for this whole operation?" 

Sulu began to unsling his tricorder. Before he could get it out, however, Losira suddenly stood between them and the cube, wearing the same expression she'd worn when she vanished. She moved towards them slowly. 

"Tell us who you are for," Jim said. Losira didn't answer, just kept moving. Tersely, Jim said, "Form a circle. Keep moving." 

Leo and Sulu obeyed instantly. The woman stopped. "You see, you might as well tell us who you are for," Jim said. He paused. "Then again, don't bother. You're still for Kirk, aren't you?" 

"I am for James Kirk," the woman said tonelessly. 

Instantly, Leo and Sulu were in front of Jim again. Behind him, Jim spoke firmly. "But James Kirk is not for you." 

"Damned straight," Leo growled. 

"Let me touch you," Losira begged. "It is my existence." 

"It is my death," Jim replied.

"I do not kill," Losira said gently. Her expression definitely became alluring, seductive. 

"No?" Jim said coldly. "We've seen the results of your touch." 

"But you are my match, James Kirk." Losira still spoke seductively, almost playfully. "I must touch you. Then I will live as your match, even to the structure of your cells--even to the chromosomal arrangement. I need you." 

"That is how you kill. You will never reach me--" Jim broke off abruptly. "Watch out!" 

Leo turned to see a second woman, identical to Losira, moving towards them. "I am for McCoy." 

Leo felt his blood turn to ice water in his veins, even as Jim jumped in front of him. "They're replicas!" he shouted. "The computer generates them!" The last piece fell into place and his eyes widened. "They match our chromosome patterns after they touch us!" 

Suddenly a third woman appeared. "I am for Sulu," she said. In all ways she was identical to the other two. 

The three men stared at one another. Sulu's face was ashen. "Captain--we can't protect each other anymore!" 

Jim's face, too, was suddenly devoid of color, his blue eyes wide. Time for a desperate plan. Leo blurted out, "We could each make a rush at the other's killer!" 

Jim looked at Leo, who realized he was paralyzed with shock. Roughly, he grabbed Jim's arm and turned him to face the woman who had said she was for Sulu, then positioned Sulu facing the woman who was for Leo. He turned to Jim's Losira. The women, unhearing, continued advancing, their arms outstretched. Leo could feel both Jim and Sulu shaking and muttered, "On my signal then--" 

And then, suddenly, there was a sparkle of light, and two figures materialized--Spock and a security guard. They swung their phasers to cover the women. 

"No, Spock! The computer! Destroy it!" Leo shouted, as loudly as he could, never taking his eyes from the woman heading towards him.

Thank God, Spock didn't question him or ask for confirmation from Jim. Both men fired their phasers at the cube, which pulsed with incandescent light. The women vanished. Leo gasped with relief, then turned to the other two men who had beamed down with him. Jim had his head tipped back, his eyes closed, also breathing rather heavily. Sulu had started to shake again. Wordlessly, Leo wrapped an arm around each of them, pulling them close. The three men clung together, silently sharing their relief. 

After a moment, Jim took a deep breath, pulled back from the group, and turned to Spock with a slight smile. "Mr. Spock, to say that I'm pleased to see you would be something of an understatement. We feared you and the _Enterprise_ had been destroyed." 

Spock actually smiled slightly as he holstered his phaser. "We had the same misgivings about you, Captain. We only got back close enough to this planet to pick up your life form readings a few minutes ago." 

"Got back from where?" Jim asked. 

But Spock was studying the burned cube computer with obvious admiration. "From where this brain had the power to send the ship...a thousand light-years away. What a magnificent culture this is." 

" _Was_ , Mr. Spock," Jim corrected him. "Its defenses were run by computer." 

Spock nodded. "I surmised that, Captain. Its moves were all immensely logical. But what of its creators? Are there any specimens?" 

"Replicas," Jim said. "But now the power to replicate them has been destroyed. Your phasers--" 

He stopped as Losira's face suddenly appeared on the wall behind them. She spoke in the same lovely voice as before. "My fellow Kalandarans, I greet you. A disease is decimating us. Beware of it. I regret leaving you only this recording, but we who defend this base may be dead before you arrive." There was a pause in the recording. "In creating this planet, we created a deadly organism. I have awaited the supply ship with the medical officer, but I am sickening with the virus myself. I will set the automatic defense system, and it will defend you from all enemies but the virus. I wish you all well." 

"She's wishing the dead well," Leo said softly. 

Spock turned back to the computer. "It must have created replicas of the only specimen available." 

"She was beautiful," Sulu said softly, his eyes still fixed on the fading image. 

"Beauty, Lieutenant Sulu, is transitory," Spock said stiffly. 

Jim flipped out his communicator. "Kirk to _Enterprise_. Five to beam up." He snapped it closed and added, "By the way, Mr. Spock, I don't agree with you." 

"Oh?" Spock raised his eyebrows. 

Jim shook his head. "Beauty survives. It lives on in the memories of all who behold it." 

Spock looked confused, even as the transporter sparkle surrounded them.

The moment they returned to the ship, Jim quickly looked at the transporter technician. Leo saw his eyes dim slightly as they took in the person at the controls, who was decidedly _not_ Ensign Wyatt, unless he had had some pretty drastic surgery while they were gone. Quietly, Jim said, "Ensign Wyatt?" 

"He was found dead shortly after you beamed down," Spock replied. "Every cell in his body had been--" 

"Disrupted," Jim completed. "We know. I'd hoped--" He broke off, brushing a hand over his eyes, then stepped down. "Come on, let's get back up to the bridge and get out of here." 

The security guard peeled off, presumably heading back to his station. Leo fell into step with Sulu, following Jim and Spock. As they neared the lift, Jim said quietly, "Losira, or her copy or whatever, got to D'Amato. She almost got Sulu, too, but luckily he was able to get out of the way in time. And then to get back and find out we lost Wyatt..." 

"We lost Lieutenant Keenser as well." 

Jim stumbled. _"What?"_

Spock didn't look at Jim as he stepped into the lift. "He discovered a strange woman in the matter-anti-matter reactor who apparently knew every detail of the ship's engines. He shouted a warning, but by the time Mr. Scott reached him, he was dead and the woman disappearing into thin air. Dr. M'Benga and his team reported the same cellular disruption in his body as in Ensign Wyatt." 

"God," Jim muttered, his face white. 

Leo moved to his side, sliding an arm around his waist as Jim sagged, holding him up. Leo looked up and asked, "Are the others...?" 

Spock nodded. "Everyone else aboard is accounted for, Doctor. Including Thomas and Athena. I spoke to Dr. Marcus immediately after Keenser's body was discovered, and she assured me that both of them were fine. Thomas, as per the captain's instructions, has remained on the bridge." 

Leo heard Sulu give a soft exhalation of relief and turned to give an encouraging half-smile. The smile faded as he took in the helmsman's appearance. He was pale and a little shaky, his eyes still showing the faint vestiges of the terror he'd confessed to Leo on the planet. Jim didn't look much better. 

"Not sure you two should be on the bridge right now," Leo murmured, mostly to himself. "You look about done in." 

Jim straightened up, pulling away slightly. "I'm fine, Bones." 

Leo knew that he could order both of them to quarters, or to MedBay. They were exhausted, their nerves strained, and neither was really fit for duty. But he also knew that the rest of the senior command--Spock, Scotty, Uhura, Chekov--had been on duty the whole time they'd been planetside, and that change of shift would come sooner rather than later. At which point Leo would personally drag Jim to their quarters and tuck him into bed. He left it alone.

The doors to the bridge slid open and Leo let Jim go through the door first, knowing it was important that he go in under his own power. Scotty turned from where he stood by the Engineering panel, talking to the young redshirt manning the station. Relief shown in his eyes. "Welcome back, Captain." 

"Thanks, Scotty." Jim looked around with a slight frown, then glanced at Spock. "Thought you said Slim was still up here." 

"I'm right here, Dad." 

Leo gave a slight start as Slim stood up, his face as red as his shirt. What Leo had taken for one of the younger ensigns had in fact been his stepson, seated at the panel. Spock cleared his throat slightly. "It was...necessary to have someone monitoring the ship's energy from up here. Thomas understands the ship's system at least as well as any crewman in Engineering, so I saw no reason to bring anyone else up, especially as he had to stay here anyway." 

Jim was obviously too tired, or strained, or both, to protest. Or maybe he just didn't want to. "That makes sense. Any problems, Slim?" 

"No, sir," Slim answered, still blushing. 

Jim nodded, taking his seat in the chair. The junior helmsman vacated his seat, leaving it open for Sulu, who exchanged a lingering look and a smile with Chekov as he took his position. Leo was fairly certain he was the only one who caught it. Spock returned to his usual station. Scotty waved Slim back to his seat, and Leo took up his usual stance next to Jim's chair. 

"All right, Mr. Sulu," Jim said wearily. "Get us the hell out of here." 

"Aye, Captain." Sulu eased the throttle forward. 

"Might I enquire as to our next destination, Captain?" Spock asked. 

"Mr. Spock, I don't care _where_ we're going, as long as it isn't here." 

Leo tightened his lips, but said nothing. He could tell that, of all the people on the bridge, only Sulu didn't seem startled by Jim's directions. Slim looked extremely worried as he exchanged a glance with Scotty. Out of the corner of his eye, Leo saw Uhura looking at him and turned his head slightly to catch her glance. 

_What's that all about?_ Uhura mouthed. 

_Tell you later,_ Leo mouthed back. 

Spock's only sign of his concern was that he was even more blank and emotionless than usual. "You may not care, Captain, but Starfleet Command certainly will." 

Jim took a deep breath, gripping the arms of his chair tightly. "We are continuing our mission, in the same direction we were heading before," he said, enunciating each word carefully. "Space normal speed. Our orders have not changed." 

To his credit, Spock looked slightly chastened. "My apologies, Captain." 

"It's all right, Spock. You were within your rights to ask."

Leo still said nothing, merely stood beside and slightly behind Jim's chair. Maybe it was that, or maybe they would have been anyway, but the bridge was unusually silent as the ship proceeded on her uneventful course. At last, the watch bell sounded, loud in the silence, signalling the end of shift. 

The next shift filtered onto the bridge, and the remainder of the crew ceded their places. The second they were off the bridge, Leo put a hand on Jim's shoulder. "Quarters. Now. Slim, walk your father down there before you pick up Addie." 

"Got it." Slim put a hand on his father's back, gently guiding him down the hall. Jim was obviously too tired to protest. 

Leo turned to Sulu. "I want to check your shoulder one more time, then if it checks out, you're going back to your quarters, too." 

"Yes, Doctor." 

Quietly, Spock said in Leo's ear, "I will be in the Recreation Room when you finish, Doctor." 

Leo nodded, steering Sulu towards MedBay. 

The necrotic tissue in the shoulder had completely healed; there was no sign of injury. Leo told Chekov, who had tagged along, to take Sulu back to his quarters. He noted the injury and recovery in Sulu's file, spoke to M'Benga about Wyatt and Keenser, and placed a death certificate in D'Amato's file. His tasks done, he headed for the Recreation Room.

Scotty, Spock, and Uhura were there, sitting in a corner and talking quietly. They stopped when they saw Leo. "All right, what happened?" Uhura demanded, rising as Leo approached. "What was that all about?" 

"Combination of exhaustion and terror." Leo dropped rather heavily into a chair. In a weary voice, he gave them the bare facts of what had happened on the planet--the tremors, D'Amato's death, Losira touching Sulu's shoulder, how they had figured out--sort of--what was going on. "Jim tried his damnedest to hold it together for Sulu's and my sakes, but by the end, I think it just all got to be too much for him. And Sulu...every time he'd start to get his feet under him, something would come along and throw him off-balance again." He shook his head. "And over it all was the fear about the ship--about what had happened to her and the people aboard." 

Scotty raised his eyes to Leo's. They were red-rimmed and he'd obviously been crying--unsurprising, as he and Keenser had been friends for an incredibly long time. "You weren't afraid?" 

"Afraid? I was _terrified_. Just did better at hiding it." Leo glanced at Spock. "Thanks for not arguin' with me about shootin' that computer, by the way." 

"Arguing would have served no purpose. It was the logical decision to make," Spock said in a level tone of voice. "And I could see that you were attempting to protect both the captain and Lieutenant Sulu from those women. Obviously you were the only one who was in any way coherent." 

Uhura raised her eyebrows. "If I entered a room and saw three people being threatened by three others--even identical women--and I was told to shoot a computer instead of the women, I'm fairly certain logic would not dictate that the women were computer-generated. Or did you know something about the situation that I didn't?" 

Leo was prepared to swear that a faint greenish tinge came to Spock's face. After a moment, he said, "The logical decision to which I referred, Nyota, was not shooting the computer instead of Losira, but trusting Dr. McCoy's judgement." 

"You said you had surmised the planet's defences were computer-generated," Leo pointed out, although he was touched by Spock's comments. 

"And so I had," Spock replied. "But I had presumed that the woman stalking the _Enterprise's_ crew was receiving her orders from that computer, not originating from it. It was not until the replicas disappeared upon the computer's destruction that I realized the truth." 

"How'd Jim figure it out?" Scotty asked Leo. 

"He didn't. I did," Leo admitted. "At the time, we thought it was just one person who happened to have the ability to disrupt the cells of the body--but only enough energy to focus on one person at a time. It wasn't until I saw the second Losira coming towards me, and saw that she was identical to the one who still said she was 'for' Jim, that I knew there had to be an explanation. Either clones or computers. The fact that she just appeared out of nowhere suggested the latter--and it also explained the weird blinking in and out of existence she did. It was the program shutting off." 

Scotty nodded. "Well, for all your sakes, I'm glad ye were able to suss it out." 

"Scotty, I'm sorry about Keenser," Leo said softly. 

Scotty's eyes brimmed with tears. "The poor, poor laddie," he whispered. After a moment, he looked up at Leo. "Just tell me one thing, McCoy. Did he suffer?" 

"No," Leo said. "The cellular disruption was instantaneous and rapid. There might have been a brief moment of extreme pain, but it would have been over in a second." 

Scotty relaxed. "Thank ye," he said softly. "That's put my mind at ease." 

Leo reluctantly pushed himself to his feet. "I'd better go check on Jim. Goodnight, you guys." 

"'Night, Leo." Uhura smiled at him. 

Leo felt his own exhaustion catch up to him as he headed towards his quarters. He figured Jim would be sitting up waiting for him to get in, and felt a bit guilty about having loitered, but after all, he had work that needed to be done. And Spock deserved to know what had happened on the planet. 

He keyed the code to their quarters, stepped in, and started to call out before he caught himself. Even if Jim wasn't asleep yet, Slim undoubtedly would be--and from the silence, Addie was, too. Leo toed out of his shoes, then poked his head into the first room to check on Addie. 

She wasn't there. 

Frowning, Leo checked Slim's room, but it was also empty. Deciding that Slim hadn't picked up his sister yet, or was still fetching her, Leo crossed to the last door and slid it open. 

Jim was in their bed, and to Leo's mingled surprise and relief, he was sound asleep, propped up on pillows against the headboard. He hadn't even bothered changing out of his torn and dusty uniform. Addie lay on his chest, her fists curled in the fabric of his tunic, snoring softly. And Slim was curled into his side, his head resting on Jim's shoulder, a PADD dangling loosely from his fingers. Jim had one arm around Slim's shoulders and the other hand resting on Addie's small back. 

Leo smiled slowly. Moving carefully and quietly, he eased open a drawer and took out the camera his grandmother had given him for graduating medical school, then stepped back and took a picture of the little scene. He then set about setting his family to rights. He removed Jim's shoes, setting them in the closet. He gently tugged the PADD out from under Slim's hand and set it on the nightstand. He pulled the covers over all three of them. 

And then, not bothering to change out of _his_ uniform, either, he got into bed, managing to at least give the impression of wrapping his arms around the others without waking anyone up. "Lights, two percent," he murmured, and they dimmed obediently. Tucking his head onto Jim's shoulder, he was asleep within seconds.


	26. The Love He's Known

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I know I didn't tag it as such when I started posting this, but to be fair, I didn't know this chapter was coming. However...this chapter has smut. And fluff. It's smuff. Or flut. Whatever.
> 
> Anyway, so yeah, **WARNING: Here be blowjobs.** And I'm going to edit those tags now.

From his time on Tarsus, Jim had developed three habits. The first was that he almost never left food on his plate; he'd known starvation, and wanted nothing of it. The second was that, during a crisis or a serious situation, he slept with one eye open, just deep enough to recharge his batteries but not so deeply that he couldn't be instantly alert if something happened. 

The third was that, when the crisis was over, he slept _hard._

Between actual physical exhaustion and the mental exhaustion from worrying about the fate of the _Enterprise_ and the safety of Bones and Sulu, he'd been ready to drop by the time they beamed back up to the ship. Learning that Keenser and Wyatt were gone hadn't helped matters. Slim had helped him to his room, made him promise to lay still, and gone to get Addie. Once he'd seen his daughter, Jim had instantly pulled her into his arms; she'd clung to him just as hard, saying "dada" over and over again. 

Slim had offered to read the next couple chapters of _Little Women_ \--they'd taken to reading it every night together, sort of a father-son bonding thing--and Jim had scooted over just enough that Slim could sit on the bed next to him. At first he'd believed he was too wired to sleep--and he'd wanted to wait for Bones to get back--but his eyelids had gotten heavy by the end of the first chapter, and despite the emotionally draining nature of the next, Jim had fallen asleep around the same time Slim had finished it, Addie long ago snoring on his chest. 

Now, after a deep and dreamless sleep, Jim stretched, yawned, and roused himself. Slim was gone, Addie was gone, Bones was not in evidence, but Jim felt a lot better. He threw back the covers and swung his legs out of bed, then headed to take a shower. 

He closed his eyes, letting the spray pelt his body. He'd heard that Starfleet was starting to outfit their newer vessels with sonic showers, where the soundwave vibrations would remove the dirt and grime at least as effectively as water did, but Jim personally didn't think anything would ever beat hot water. Or, in certain circumstances, cold water.

As he began shampooing his hair, he found a song bubbling up in his throat. Jim loved to sing, although he rarely did it in front of other people. The last time he'd sung in front of anyone but Bones had been a party Pike had thrown right after they got the _Enterprise_. Although he had brought his guitar with him, he hadn't even sung for Bones since the last five-year. He did sing in the shower, almost every time he took one, but he usually made sure that even Bones was out of the suite before he sang. He was a little insecure about his voice when he sang unaccompanied. And the songs he usually chose to sing were not what one would expect from him. 

_"There's a tempest in yon horned moon...and lightning in yon cloud...and hard the music, mariners...the wind is piping loud..."_

"That's a new one." 

Jim jumped, startled, and nearly fell. Two strong arms caught him from behind, holding him up, and he heard Bones' low, gentle laugh. "Bones," he gasped, looking over his shoulder. "You scared the crap out of me." 

"Oh, we can't have that, can we?" Bones sounded amused. He pressed a kiss to Jim's temple. "I haven't heard you sing since we set out. Why didn't you tell me you could sing more 'n just country?" 

"I can't." Jim blushed. 

"Sounded pretty good to me, darlin'." Bones kissed him again, then, mercifully, let the subject drop as he reached for the soap and a washcloth. "Did you sleep well?" 

"Yeah." Jim leaned back slightly against Bones. "Guess it's almost time for shift...I didn't check the chrono." 

"It's halfway through Beta, Jim. You slept for more'n a day." 

"What?" Jim whirled around, staring at Bones with a mixture of disbelief and irritation. "Why didn't you wake me up?" 

Bones held up both hands. "Because you were flat exhausted. You needed the rest." 

"Shit, Bones, I'm the captain! I can't just--" 

"Yes, Jim, you can," Bones interrupted. "You've got to take care of yourself, too, not just the crew. If there had been a crisis, Spock would've commed you--just like if there was a crisis during your regular off-shift. You were so deeply asleep that you didn't even feel Addie jumpin' up an' down on your chest. That's not like you, and means you wouldn't have been in any fit condition to be on the bridge if I had managed to wake you up." 

Jim was silent for a moment. "Sulu?" 

"Doing just fine. Also slept through most of Alpha. Came into MedBay just as I was leaving. I checked him over again and he's fully recovered and ready to return to duty tomorrow."

"Where are the kids?"

"Slim's in the small gym, taking his first dancing lesson from Uhura--finally," Bones added, quirking an eyebrow. "Addie's with Chekov and Sulu, watching."

Jim reached up and touched Bones' jawline lightly. "And you?"

The timbre of Bones' voice changed to rich, dark velvet. "I'm feelin' like spendin' some quality time with my husband."

Jim pulled Bones down and kissed him. Bones kissed him back, hot and passionate, with almost bruising intensity. One hand cupped the back of Jim's head; the other pressed at the base of his spine, pulling him closer.

It suddenly occurred to Jim just how long it had been since they'd done anything like this. When they'd first brought Addie home, both of them had been too preoccupied with new fatherhood to have much time for sex; when Slim had come along, they hadn't wanted to traumatize him and the walls in their apartment were thin. The early days on the _Enterprise_ had had them both too tired at the end of the day to do more than cuddle--it was always like that at the start of a mission--and then Addie had started teething, which meant she woke up frequently in the night crying. Besides, Bones was over forty and Jim wasn't a horny teenager anymore, and both of them had found something that filled the voids in their lives even better than sex did: one another.

Which wasn't to say that they didn't enjoy it still. And a thirteen-month dry spell was too damn long.

Bones put his hands on Jim's upper chest and backed him up against the wall of the shower. He slid his hands over to Jim's back, trailed them down his ribs, and caressed his hips gently. Jim whimpered into Bones' mouth, feeling his knees go weak, and had to grab hold of Bones' shoulders to keep from falling. Again came that low, gentle laugh.

"Easy, darlin'," Bones murmured. "Wouldn't want you to hurt yourself."

"You bastard," Jim muttered, but without any real conviction.

Bones' hands-- _steadiest hands on the ship,_ how long had that been a running joke between them--were on the move again, cupping Jim's ass, stroking gently, then suddenly giving a sharp squeeze. Jim gasped, feeling the blood rush to the lower half of his body, and tightened his grip on his husband's shoulders. _"Bones..."_

Now it was his lips that were traveling, first brushing Jim's jaw, then the hollow of his throat, then his shoulders. Jim shivered with pleasure as Bones kissed his chest, his tongue flicking lightly over the nipple. One of Bones' hands came up to play an arpeggio on his ribs, the other drumming a gentle tattoo on his buttock, a symphony of desire.

_"Bones,"_ Jim said again.

Bones looked up, a seductive smile on his face, his hands perfectly still, just barely touching Jim's skin. "Not so fast, Jim. We've got plenty of time, an' I intend to take it."

A faint mewling sound escaped Jim's lips. People who met him--people who had known his reputation back at the Academy--tended to assume that he was the dominant one in the relationship, but actually it was Bones, always Bones--Bones who set the pace, Bones who initiated, Bones who knew each and every one of Jim's switches and just how to reduce him to a quivering pile of jelly, how to leave him writhing and begging.

He was on his knees now, still kissing his way down Jim's ribcage, along the line of his hips. Jim moaned. "Bones, _please..."_

It seemed at first like he was going to oblige; his tongue snaked out to lick lightly at the slit of Jim's cock. And then, maddeningly, he moved on, kissing Jim's inner thigh, his knee, his calf, even the top of his foot, before transferring to the other leg and working his way slowly back up, taking his time as he'd said, slow, lingering kisses that drove Jim crazy.

"Bones, oh, God, Bones..."

Finally, at last, Bones' mouth was _there_ , wrapping around the head of Jim's cock, one hand coming around to stroke the shaft. Jim's knees were shaking, his hips bucking, he was panting with desire, gasping out, " _Fuck_ , Bones, _fuck_ ," realizing anew just how _long_ it had really been, how badly he'd wanted, _needed_ this...

Bones made a soft crooning sound in the back of his throat, and that was it for Jim; he came in a rush, a little faster--a _lot_ faster--than he'd really wanted to. _"Damn,"_ he gasped.

Bones chuckled again, sitting back on his heels and looking up at Jim with that heavy-lidded gaze that drove him wild. "Your turn," he whispered.

Jim didn't let Bones get up. Instead, he knelt on the floor of their shower--with difficulty, it wasn't really designed for this--and pressed his mouth to Bones'. One hand tangled in his husband's hair; the other wrapped around the base of his penis. Bones gave a slight growl and grabbed Jim's ass again, kneading the flesh as Jim stroked and tugged.

_"Jim,"_ Bones sighed into his mouth, and then he came, too. Jim collapsed against Bones, suddenly drained of energy. Bones wrapped his arms around Jim, holding him close. For a long moment they simply sat there under the shower's spray, catching their breath.

At last, Bones murmured, "Been way too long." 

" _Way_ too long," Jim agreed. He looked up at Bones. "I don't want to be one of those couples that have a goddamned _schedule_ for sex, but...can we at least try to work it in more often?" 

Bones kissed the top of Jim's head. "You better believe it. I think we've been so focused on the parent part of being married that we forgot about the lovers part." 

"I love the kids, Bones, but I don't want to sacrifice _us_ for them," Jim admitted in a low voice. "You know what I mean?" 

For a minute, Bones didn't answer. Then, quietly, he said, "Yeah. Yeah, I do." 

Jim was about to comment when the hot water diverting to their shower abruptly ran out, dousing them both with icy water. He yelped, Bones cursed, and there was a good deal of slipping and thumping as they scrambled to shut it off and get out. By the time they stood dripping on the tile, however, Jim was laughing. Bones stared at him for a moment, then started laughing, too. 

They dried one another off and wrapped each other in the soft fluffy towels and headed into their bedroom to get dressed. Jim eyed the dusty pile of clothes he'd shucked before going in. "I can't believe you let me get into bed wearing those." 

"If you'll remember, I wasn't here when you fell asleep," Bones pointed out. He tossed Jim a clean shirt and a pair of pants, then started pulling on his own. "Slim gave me the sequence of events. Said he meant to get out of bed as soon as he realized you were asleep, but he was so tired he just closed his eyes for a minute. Next thing he knew it was eight hours later and Addie was fussing for breakfast." 

Jim smiled. "I'm just impressed I managed to stay conscious all the way to the end of the chapter. At least, I hope it was the end of where he read to. I'd hate to think I missed something." 

"What's the last line you remember?" 

Jim thought for a minute, then quoted, "'But a bird sang blithely on a budding bough, close by, the snow-drops blossomed freshly at the window, and the spring sunshine streamed in like a benediction over the placid face upon the pillow--a face so full of painless peace that those who loved it best smiled through their tears, and thanked God that Beth was well at last.' That's it, near as I can recall." 

"Then you got to the end of the chapter." In response to the surprised look Jim gave him, Bones added, "I noticed it on the PADD when I put it on the nightstand last night. You'll have to forgive me, I've never read _Little Women_ \--that's what you're still reading, right? Who's Beth?" 

"Third of the four March sisters." 

"I'm guessing from the line about her being well at last that she'd been sick. What did she have? Wait--" Bones paused, a thoughtful look on his face. "You said it was written in the late nineteenth century, right?" 

Jim nodded. "Starts off during the American Civil War. Mr. March is a chaplain in the Union Army." 

"So the 1860s. Narrows it down a bit." Bones thought for a minute. "Consumption?" 

Jim shook his head. "Scarlet fever." 

"Nasty, but not incurable." Bones smiled. "Obviously, since she was 'well at last.'" 

"Not in the sense you mean," Jim said softly. "She never really recovered from it. Those last couple paragraphs were her death scene."

Bones' smile disappeared. "Oh. _Oh._ Well, that's...that's not something you wanna come home from a rough mission to." 

"Actually...it wasn't so bad. She slept away the end. It was _peaceful_. Not like the agony Wyatt and D'Amato and poor Keenser must've gone through." 

Bones came over and wrapped Jim in a hug. "They didn't suffer, Jim," he said softly. "There would've been a moment of pain, but it wouldn't have lasted more'n a second." 

Jim rested his head on Bones' chest. The euphoria he usually felt after sex--especially sex with Bones--had dissipated, leaving him feeling empty and drained. "Still a damned second too long." 

"Jim. We've been over this. You can't save everyone." 

"But I _should_ be able to, Bones," Jim said, looking up. "I'm the captain, dammit. My job is to keep the crew safe." 

"They know the risks. We all do." Bones stroked Jim's hair tenderly. "It's part of Starfleet training, whether you're enlisted or an Academy graduate. Everybody knows that away missions are dangerous, that things can go wrong even onboard the ship, that there's always a chance of not surviving. Starfleet isn't just exploratory anymore. There's a war on, after all, and like it or not, we're caught up in it. And it's not like they died of something stupid and preventable. You were in the middle of transporting when Wyatt died. You weren't even on the _ship_ when Keenser died. And D'Amato...if he'd had a lick of sense, he'd have commed you or shouted for you as soon as he saw that woman. Let's face it, he was an insufferable prick, he'd have gotten his fool self killed sooner or later." 

Jim managed a slight smile. "You didn't like him much, did you?" 

"That I didn't. No sense in pretending." Bones smiled back. "But the point is that it's not your fault they died--any more than it was Spock's fault Latimer and Gaetano got killed on Taurus II. These things happen. People get hurt. People get killed. Your job is to bring as many of your people through as possible, and Jim, sometimes it's just not possible to save everybody." 

"Doesn't mean I don't feel guilty." Jim leaned into Bones again. "Do you know what kind of hell it is to have to send official notifications to next of kin?" 

"Do you know what kind of hell it is to have to do that _in person?"_ Bones said softly.

Jim froze. He always forgot that Bones had been a doctor _before_ he'd joined Starfleet. Pike had wanted him on the _Enterprise_ because he was a damned good battle surgeon, but while the "battle" part had been developed over his three years at the Academy, the "surgeon" part he'd learned beforehand. They had an unspoken agreement that certain things belonged in the past. It had never occurred to Jim that Bones might have lost a patient. 

But now Bones pressed his face into the top of Jim's head and spoke, his voice slightly muffled. "I worked in the ER of the same hospital I was born in, and don't think that irony was lost on me. ER surgeons lose patients from time to time--we do our best, but like I said, sometimes it's just not possible to save everybody. There was a shuttle crash...four people brought to the hospital in critical condition. I was working on one of them. She'd been badly mangled. Couldn't get repairs done in time. She died on the operating table." He paused briefly. "She was twelve years old." 

"God, Bones," Jim murmured, wrapping his arms around Bones. 

"I had to tell her daddy--had to look a man in the eye and tell him I'd lost his little girl--" Bones broke off and pulled Jim tighter. "An' the hell of it was, when I got off my shift an' went home, Joss handed me Joanna an' I realized that I still had _my_ little girl an' I just hugged her an' cried...an' less than twenty-four hours later I woke up to check on her and--" 

"Bones," Jim interrupted, feeling his stomach clench. "Bones, God, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have..." 

Bones shook his head. "You didn't know." 

Jim wanted to protest, but stopped himself, instead leaning into Bones. Bones didn't need him to blame himself right now, any more than Jim needed Bones to blame himself for things. What they needed was each other--the comfort of one another's arms. He could feel the reassuring throb of Bones' heartbeat through his chest and closed his eyes, letting it calm him. 

"I love you," he murmured. 

"I love you, too," Bones whispered back. He caught Jim's chin with two fingers, tilting it up. "You know what today is?" 

"Uh..." Jim tried to remember what he'd put in the log the day before. "Stardate 2271.45?" 

"And what day is that on Earth?" Bones prompted. 

Jim thought, then smiled. "February fourteenth." 

"Happy Valentine's Day, Jim," Bones whispered. 

He bent and captured Jim's lips in a soft kiss. Jim slid his arms around Bones' neck, returning the kiss, feeling the warmth spread through his body. For the millionth time, he gave thanks for Bones, his love and devotion. He probably wouldn't have been able to function without it. 

Bones deepened the kiss. One hand slid under the hem of Jim's shirt, fingers splaying across the small of his back. Jim felt a jolt of electricity run up his spine and responded with equal fire. One hand tangled in Bones' hair, the other gripped his shoulder for support--

And from the living room came the hiss of the door and the sounds of laughter and muffled voices, including a distinct "See you in a bit." 

Jim groaned slightly as he reluctantly broke the kiss. "Cockblocked by my own kids," he mumbled. 

"If there was a highway around here, I'd tell 'em to go play on it," Bones whispered back. 

Jim stifled a laugh. From outside the bedroom door, he could hear Slim say, "No, Addie, let Daddy sleep." 

"I'm up, Slim," Jim called. 

"Dada!" The door slid open and Addie ran in, wrapping herself around Jim's leg. He laughed, knelt down, and scooped her up in a hug, then looked at Slim. His cheeks were slightly pink, and there were all the signs that he had been sweating, but he was grinning ear-to-ear. In one hand were the black shoes Uhura had given him for his birthday. 

"Hey, guys," Jim said warmly. He rubbed noses with Addie, who giggled, then glanced back at his son. "You all right?" 

"Yeah," Slim answered. "You?" 

"Doing a lot better now." Jim frowned slightly as a memory came to him. "Uh--correct me if I'm wrong, but were you sitting at the Engineering console when I got on the bridge yesterday?" 

"Uh--yessir." Slim's smile vanished and he suddenly looked nervous. "Uncle Spock told me to. Uncle Scotty had a lot that needed to be done in Engineering, and they wanted someone on the console who could--" 

"Hey, I'm not mad at you," Jim interrupted, and was surprised to find out it was true. "Look, why don't you grab a shower--you look like you need one--and then we can talk about it, yeah? I don't even know what happened while we were on that damn planet." 

"Sure, Dad." Slim smiled at Jim, then nodded to Bones and headed into the bathroom. 

Jim turned his attention to Addie. "Did you have fun watching Slim and Aunt Nyota dance?" 

Addie nodded, chattering away at him in baby babble. He pretended to be fascinated with every syllable, encouraging her as he did so. Bones leaned against the doorway and smiled. 

Jim caught his eye. "What?" 

"You, Jim Kirk," Bones said, leaning over their daughter's head to kiss the tip of Jim's nose, "are a truly adorable father."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost forgot. The song Jim sings is an old sea shanty. And he quotes "Little Women," which is in the public domain (I checked).


	27. He Held His Breath

"I don't give a damn _why_ it's not working, just _fix_ it!" Scotty shouted up at the officer precariously perched above him. 

"I _can't_ fix it if I don't know why it's broken, sir!" Ensign Cayne yelled back down. "And with all due respect, sir, I can't figure that out if I-- _damn_ it!" she shouted. 

_Clang!_

Slim bit his tongue. He tended to spend Alpha Shift, once he'd finished his studies, shadowing Scotty in Engineering, unless there was something going on that required he be on the bridge. In the week since Keenser's death, he had noticed a subtle change in the department. Scotty was edgy, snapping at everyone and seldom seeming to even notice Slim was there. Some of the younger engineers--like Cayne, who had only joined the crew at the beginning of the mission but evidenced a real gift for the work--acknowledged him and even made an effort to explain what they were doing as they did it, but most of them were too busy to pay much attention. Tempers were frayed, arguments were common, and there had been a number of small accidents. 

Today it was the cooling towers for the impulse engines. For some unknown reason, all but two of them had stopped running simultaneously, forcing them to shut down all but one engine. The _Enterprise_ made slow but steady progress with her single subspace engine while the Engineering department worked frantically to try and repair the coolers. 

"What did ye drop?" Scotty growled, his brogue thickening. 

"The spanner," Cayne snapped. 

"Least it's no' something crucial." Scotty scowled at the bottom of the tower. "Damn! It's only poor Keenser who--" Rubbing his head, he glanced sideways briefly and snapped at Slim, "Get under there an' get that spanner." 

"Yessir." Slim didn't dare argue, not when Scotty was in that mood. He quickly dropped to his stomach and wiggled under the low edge of the cooling tower. For the first time in his life, he blessed rather than cursed his small size. He still hadn't hit his growth spurt, and if he had, he would never have been able to fit, but he was still so short and wiry that he slid in easily. 

The spanner lay on the deck near the center of the tower. Slim stretched out and closed his fingers around it. Just before he backed out, however, he noticed three things: a thin silver piece of metal, some fragments of what looked like glass, and a length of tubing that was jagged at both ends. "Uh-oh," he muttered. 

He grabbed the tubing and the piece of metal, then backed out. "Unc--" he began, looking up, but Scotty was gone, off by another tower and yelling at the crew members who were working on it. 

"You got that spanner?" Cayne's voice sounded slightly muffled. 

"Yeah," Slim called, "but--" 

"Bring it up here!" 

Slim hesitated. He wasn't supposed to interfere with the running of the ship--everyone had made that perfectly clear. Yes, he'd sat at the Engineering console on the bridge, but that wasn't the same, not by a long chalk. If anyone found out he'd actually been actively working on the cooling towers, he'd be in deep trouble. On the other hand, Cayne was trying to do the work on this tower on her own. Which, if either of the parts he held in his hand were crucial, she probably wouldn't be able to do on her own. 

Gritting his teeth, he scaled the ladder quickly.

"Here's the spanner," he said as he reached the top. 

"Thanks." Cayne took it without looking, then suddenly jerked up. "You! What are you doing here?" 

"You told me to bring you the spanner," Slim reminded her. 

"I didn't know it was you! Dammit, kid, get off here before we _both_ get in trouble!" 

"Yes'm." Slim started to back down, then stopped and laid the length of tubing and the metal piece on the top of the tower. "By the way, do you know if these are important? I found 'em under the tower, not far from the spanner. And I think there was some broken glass or something there, too." 

Cayne looked at the pieces. "Oh, damn," she muttered. She glanced over her shoulder, then looked Slim in the eyes. "All right, you're here and I can't pull anyone else, and I don't much feel like getting my head bitten off asking Mr. Scott for help. Mind giving me a hand? I'll take the blame when we get in trouble." 

"What do you need me to do?" Slim asked promptly. 

Cayne gestured to a round hole in the top of the tower. "I can get my shoulders in, but I get stuck before I go any further. I need you to look down there--I'll hold your feet, you won't fall--and see if you can find out where this bit of tubing goes." 

"You got it." Slim crawled forward, slid his hands over the edge, and wriggled into the hole. 

It wasn't as dark as he might have expected. The cooling tower was open in parts, letting light from the rest of the department in. Slim used both his eyes and his hands to explore as he inched lower. His knees protested as he worked them over the edge, but only for a minute. 

"You're all the way in!" Cayne shouted after a while. 

Slim spotted something and called back, "Can you give me another foot?" 

There was a brief pause. "Yeah. Go ahead." 

Knowing that Cayne was now leaning over the edge, Slim wriggled further in until he could see clearly enough to confirm what he'd thought. Tucking his chin to his chest, he yelled, "Pull me up." 

He levered himself backwards, assisting her with his hands, until they were both kneeling on the top of the tower. Slim wiped his hands on his pants and told Cayne, "Found it. 'Bout halfway down, there's a jagged edge in the tubing that pretty much matches this one." 

"Figures it'd be halfway," Cayne muttered. "Could you tell what took out the tubing?" 

"Yeah. Used to be a reservoir in the middle there." 

Cayne nodded. "Secondary cooling unit. Wait, what do you mean, _used_ to be?" 

"There's a hole in it, 'bout so big." Slim indicated a circle with the thumbs and forefingers of both hands. "Looks like something burst out of it, which explains the glass fragments I noticed." 

"Transparent aluminum. Not glass. No one would use glass to store coolant." Cayne impatiently pushed a lock of platinum-blonde hair back. "You think some of the aluminum cut the tubes?" 

Slim shook his head. "No, if it had cut the tubing, it'd be neater, and it'd only be in one place." He picked up the tubing section. "Look, see how there's this stretched bit? Somethin' pulled on the tubing and ripped this section out." 

Cayne took it from him and studied it. "You're right. Must've been something heavy." She winced. "God, it was probably the spanner." 

Slim somehow didn't think so--he'd found the tubing well away from the spanner--but he didn't say so. "So what do we do now?" 

Cayne set aside the tubing. "We need to patch the coolant storage unit, then repair the tubing. If you're sure about where it is--" 

"I'm positive." 

"Good. I'll take off the maintenance panel nearest that point so we can get at it better. You go grab a sheet of trans-alum, some tubing, a laser welder, and a heat-sealer." 

Slim backed towards the ladder. "What grade of tubing?" 

"Uh, T-6. Bring about two feet of it, we'll cut it to size." 

"You got it."

Slim was halfway across the deck before he let himself think about how much trouble he was going to get into. By rights he ought to send someone else up to help Cayne. But everybody seemed busy with their own tasks. Swallowing down his worry, he grabbed the requested equipment and hot-footed it back to the tower. 

Scotty was nowhere to be seen, but Cayne was halfway up and hanging on the outside of the tower, teeth gritted as she unfastened one of the panels. Slim quickly slung the bag with the equipment over his chest and climbed up the other side of the panel. "Got it." 

"Good." Cayne pulled the panel off and dangled by one hand for a moment. "Quick--is this it?" 

Slim stuck his head in. "Yep." 

"Then give me a hand with this." 

Together, they hoisted the panel up and onto the top of the unit. Cayne studied the hole in the cooling unit. "Okay. Can you use the welder?" Slim nodded. "Good. I'll hold the patch in place, you weld it on. Mind my hands." Cayne plucked the piece of transparent aluminum out of the bag. "Hey, you eyeballed this pretty good." 

"Reckon it's because I saw the hole in the first place," Slim said, but inwardly he glowed at the praise. He pulled out the laser welder as Cayne positioned the patch over the jagged hole. 

Slim thumbed the safety, then carefully wielded the tool a centimeter from the edge of the patch. It heated the outer edge, forming an almost invisible seal that covered the hole completely. Cayne nodded approvingly as he finished. "Good job. Right, let's get this tubing connected. This is gonna be trickier." 

"Because if we put too much pressure on the sealer, it'll close up the tubing," Slim said. 

"That's about the size of it. This time you hold the tubing and I'll do the hot stuff." Cayne flashed him a grin. "That way, if it goes wrong, it'll be my fault." 

Slim grinned back, then pulled out the tubing. "Show me how to do this part." 

"Oh...right." Cayne pulled a pair of snips from her belt. "Okay, first thing, I cut off the torn bits." She cut away the jagged edge of the tubing, leaving a neat, even circle. "Now, line the edge up with the end of the new stuff." 

Slim got a better grip on the ladder above him, then did as Cayne instructed. She pulled out the heat-sealer. "Okay. Here's the tricky part. I've gotta use enough heat that it'll seal, but not so much that it closes the artery." Carefully, her hand trembling slightly, she eased the tool around the faint crack, which disappeared. "All right, give it a tug. A good, hard tug." 

Slim complied. To his relief, the tubing didn't budge. "I reckon that did it." 

"Looks like." Cayne located the other jagged edge and snipped it smooth, then picked up the other end and pulled it across until she knew exactly how much she needed. "Right, I'm gonna give this a little bit of slack, so that if something does fall on it again, it'll have a bit more give. So it needs to be cut...here." She cut the tubing as she spoke, tossing the extra over her shoulder. "Same drill as before. Hold it steady." 

Again, Cayne ran her sealer along the seam. Slim gave it a good tug, then checked both joints, running a finger around them. "Seal's holding, Ensign." 

"Thank God." Cayne's face shone in relief. "Right, let's get this panel back on." 

They worked together, taking in turns to hold the panel steady or tighten the bolts. Then Cayne scrambled back up to the top and reached down to pull Slim up. "Okay, everything ought to be fixed now. We'll put the coolant back in and--" She stopped, frowned, and picked up the bit of metal. "Wish I knew what this was." 

Slim's fingers twitched. "You've never seen it before?" 

"No, never. I'm not sure if it's a sliver off another component or something else. I don't even know if it's crucial or not." The frustration returned to Cayne's face. "And the worst of it is, I don't have any way of checking without tearing the whole damn thing apart and going over it with a fine-toothed comb. And that's just not practical."

Slim bit his lip. There was an alternative, but it was his most closely-guarded secret. He'd been told, the one time he'd shared it with someone else, that it was a useful skill to have, but that it should never, _never_ be anything but a last resort. He'd never told another soul about it. 

But if there was really nothing else for it... 

"I may be able to help," he said slowly. "But--don't tell anyone about this." 

Cayne stared at him. "Oh, yeah. Because I'm _totally_ going to admit that I let the captain's fourteen-year-old son who isn't even technically supposed to be _up_ here do work on the cooling tower. What's the alternative?" 

Slim swallowed. He laid his palms flat on the top of the tower and murmured, "Talk to me. Tell me where it hurts." 

"What are you--" Cayne broke off with a gasp. The metal under Slim's hands glowed for a moment as he concentrated. He closed his eyes, feeling the subtle vibrations coming through his fingers. Some part of his brain interpreted them as naturally as he interpreted speech. 

After a moment, his eyes snapped open. "It's the pin to the temp regulator!" 

"What?" Cayne stared at him. 

Slim scrambled towards the ladder. "Near the bottom of the tower, towards the center, there's a doohickey that regulates the temperature of the coolant, keeps it cool enough that it'll keep the engines from overheating. Which is why there was the hole in the reservoir. The pin fell out and the regulator failed, so the coolant got too warm, turned into gas, and blew out the trans-alum." 

"Damn!" Cayne followed him. "All right, Kirk, if it's near the center, I can't get there through an access panel, so it's up to you." 

"I'll do my best." 

They reached the bottom. Slim crawled back under the tower. In the center of things, there was just enough room that he could raise his head. Quickly, he located the regulator, as well as the hole where the pin had been. "Pass me the pin." 

"Hold on." There was a faint rattle of metal, and the pin slid to within reach of Slim's hand. As he grabbed it, Cayne called, "Sending in a bit of putty so you can cover up that hole. Unless you think that's a bad idea." 

"No, I can see where there was some, but I reckon it came off," Slim called back. 

"Stand by." 

Slim slotted the pin into place, then covered the spot with his thumb. A few minutes later, a small tube rolled towards him. He pinched off a bit of putty, worked it to the correct consistency, and stuck it over the hole, then counted quietly to thirty before testing it. It had dried solid. 

He backed out, then pushed himself onto his knees and grinned at Cayne. "Mission accomplished." 

Cayne grinned back and held up her hand. Slim gave her a high-five.

"Ensign Cayne, where the divvel are ye?" 

"Right here, sir." Cayne quickly pushed herself onto her feet, then gave Slim a hand up. 

Scotty came over, scowling. "Did ye figure out what was wrong with this thing?" 

"Pin came out of the temp regulator, causing the coolant to overheat and expand, blowing out a section of the secondary reservoir and somehow pulling out a fragment of tubing," Cayne answered smartly. "All repaired. We should be able to refill her and have her up and running in--" she hesitated--"thirty minutes." 

"Oh." Scotty blinked, then looked up at the tower. "How'd ye figure that out?" 

"Uh--" Cayne swallowed. 

Scotty glanced at Slim, then focused slightly. "What happened to your shirt, laddie?" 

Slim glanced down and winced. There was a streak of some unidentified substance down the front, probably something he'd crawled through. "Um, well--" 

"It was my fault, sir," Cayne said quickly. "I didn't know who it was who'd gone after the spanner, and I was too busy to go down and get it myself, so I asked him to bring it to me, and once he was up there--" 

"Oh, damn!" Scotty turned white. "That was _ye_ I--Jim's gonna kill me." 

"I'm sorry, sir," Slim said, blushing. "I--I didn't want to argue with you, and...well, I probably _was_ the only person small enough to fit..." 

"And he _did_ help me fix the tower, sir," Cayne put in. "I couldn't have fixed the pin on my own. It's at a point that's hard to access. And I did need an extra pair of hands to fix the reservoir and the tubing." 

Scotty sighed, glancing at his watch. "Ye're sure ye can have the reservoir refilled in thirty minutes?" 

"Aye, sir." 

"Good, 'cause that's when shift changes. Refill the reservoir." Scotty turned to Slim. "If I were ye, I'd run back up to quarters noo. Clean up an' get tha' shirt to the laundry before the cap'n or McCoy see it. We'll keep this between the three of us." 

"Aye, sir," Slim said, turning to go. 

"And--Slim?" 

Slim turned back to look at Scotty. "Yes, sir?" 

Scotty looked at the tower, then back at Slim, and smiled. "Thanks." 

Slim smiled back, nodded to Cayne, and hurried out of Engineering.

He made it up to his family's quarters unobserved. Since he was supposed to have a fencing lesson with Sulu in an hour, he didn't take a shower, instead quickly washing his face and hands to get rid of the grime and fluids he'd acquired while working. He shucked his shirt and, for good measure, his pants, then buried them in the laundry basket, which was only half-full. He then changed his clothes and grabbed his fencing gear. Satisfied that there was no evidence of what he'd been doing, he hurried to the small gym. 

A twinge of guilt assailed him. He felt guilty about breaking the rules, but more than that, he felt guilty about keeping it from his father. That was lying. And he'd _promised_. But at the same time, he didn't want to get Scotty--or Cayne--in trouble. And since neither one of them would let him take the blame, he would have to keep it quiet. 

There was nobody else in the gym when he arrived, which was unsurprising; the shift had only just let out, and it usually took Sulu about half an hour to get changed and grab his gear. That wasn't a problem. Slim knew what to do. He unhooked the sabre from the rack, pulled on his mask, and began drilling his footwork. Before long, he was completely absorbed in the repetition. 

"Getting an early start today?" 

Slim jumped and almost dropped the sabre. Quickly he pulled off the mask and turned sheepishly to see Sulu coming in, a smile on his face. "Uh, yeah," he mumbled. "I--I was early and I thought--" 

"It's okay, Slim, you're not in trouble." Sulu crossed over to the rack and reached for his sabre. 

Slim started to say something, then noticed a distinct absence. "Where's Chekov?" he asked. They'd dropped any pretense at Slim calling the older two "uncle" some weeks before. 

Sulu froze briefly, then pulled the sabre down with a little more emphasis than usual. "I'm not sure." 

Slim bit his lip. He didn't want to pry, but they _were_ his friends. So when Sulu called a break thirty minutes later, and they sat down on the pile of mats with their water bottles, Slim ventured, "Is...something wrong?" 

Sulu didn't answer for a minute, then raised his eyes to Slim's. "I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours." 

Slim didn't pretend he didn't know what Sulu meant. "How could you tell?" 

"You're incredibly focused. Not that that's a bad thing, or that you aren't usually focused, but it's like you're not paying attention to _anything_ but the drills. Which probably means you've got something on your mind that you're trying to forget about."

"I..." Slim bit his lip again. "I ended up helping out in Engineering today. I mean--Uncle Scotty didn't realize who I was when he told me to go get something, and Ensign Cayne didn't know who I was when she yelled for me to bring it to her, but...I could've said no. I _should've_ said no. I'm not supposed to interfere with the work on the ship. But I--I reckon I was kind of excited 'bout the idea of gettin' to help, to do _real_ work." He decided not to mention his gift. 

"What was the problem, anyway?" Sulu turned to look at him more fully. "We lost most of impulse power today. It was only just coming back online when I went off shift." 

"Cooling towers went down," Slim answered. "At least one of them--the one Cayne and I were workin' on--it was 'cause the temp regulator got messed up and the coolant overheated." 

"Just you and Cayne? That doesn't seem right. Shouldn't there have been three or four people working on it?" 

"That's just it. I reckon the shift was a bit overextended. _Most_ of the cooling towers were down, and there just weren't enough people to have more 'n one person on some of 'em. Cayne's good, so I reckon Uncle Scotty thought she could handle it on her own." 

"Obviously she couldn't. So why do you feel guilty about helping?" 

Slim shrugged. "'Cause I ain't s'posed to." 

Sulu managed a small smile. "In other words, you feel guilty about disobeying your dad." 

"Partly that," Slim admitted. "Partly 'bout the fact that I ain't gonna tell him 'bout it. Just don't want Uncle Scotty or Cayne to get in trouble." 

"Makes sense to me. I wouldn't say anything either." Sulu sat back. "Besides, it's like when you beamed down to Capella IV with us. You were ordered to do that. It's not your fault. And there's no reason for your dad to find out." 

"Yeah." Slim fought down the last of his guilt. "Anyway, your turn." 

"Oh." Sulu looked down at his hands. "It's...complicated." 

"Try me."

Sulu took a deep breath. "That last away mission I was on--the one where your dad and Dr. McCoy and I got trapped on the planet and the _Enterprise_ wound up--wherever it wound up?" Slim nodded. "I've been...kind of having trouble sleeping since then. Matter of fact, I've...only been able to get one good night's sleep since then, and it was right after we got back." 

Slim couldn't help but be slightly surprised. "How come?" 

"Well, because--" Sulu swallowed hard. "Because Chekov was there. He...he helped me get back to my quarters, and he stayed talking to me until I fell asleep. But then I had a nightmare about being on the planet again, and I guess I was crying out, because he woke me up. I begged him not to leave me, and he--he sat on the edge of my bed and held me, and...I was able to get to sleep." 

"What's the problem with that?" Slim asked. 

"It's just--we're _friends_. I...I said a lot of stuff I've been keeping hidden for a while. Told him a lot of things I shouldn't have. I didn't want to ruin--he's the best friend I've ever had." Sulu looked up, and Slim was astonished to see tears in his eyes. "And now I've screwed everything up. He wasn't there when I got up the next day--well, it was most of the way through our usual shift anyway, but I don't even know if he stayed through the night after what I said. And he hasn't said a word to me since then. On top of that, I've been having nightmares about Losira..." He buried his face in his hands. 

"I ain't surprised you've been havin' nightmares," Slim said. "After what happened? Don't reckon anyone got out of that unscathed. Dad didn't take it well, findin' out that three people got killed on 's watch. Pa's been quieter 'n usual. An' Uncle Scotty's been bitin' the heads off everyone in 's department. But I ain't too sure you're readin' things right with Chekov." 

"How would you know?" Sulu glared at Slim. 

Slim hesitated, then decided to go for the truth. "What you said, 'bout the stuff you been hidin'...I reckon you ain't been hidin' it as well as you think. Maybe _he_ ain't noticed, but I sure have. I been suspectin' for a while. Matter of fact, I figured y'all were already together an' just not sayin' so." 

Sulu's glare morphed into a look of surprise. "How do you mean?" 

Slim made an effort to get his accent under control--he didn't want Sulu to think he wasn't being serious. All he managed to do was take the edge off it. "With you, it's mostly how you talk 'bout 'im. How you talk _to_ 'im. An' the way in a crisis, you always look over at 'is station. If 'e's okay, you relax. If 'e ain't, you can't focus 'til 'e is. You talk 'bout 'im the way Dad talks 'bout Pa." 

Sulu bit his lip. "I--I can't believe--you never said--" 

"Reckoned it weren't any o' my business, or you'd'a said," Slim replied. 

"But you said you thought I was reading things wrong with Chekov. What'd you mean by that?" 

"Y' mean y' ain't noticed?" Slim asked softly. "The way 'e lights up when you come in the room, the way 'e smiles at you, the way 'e's always more concerned 'bout you 'n 'e is 'bout 'imself? I reckon it ain't a one-way street, the way you feel 'bout 'im." 

"I just...I don't know what to say," Sulu whispered. "Slim, what do I say?" 

Slim smiled slightly. "I reckon you oughta start with the obvious 'n work from there." 

Sulu hesitated, then wiped his eyes with one gloved hand and looked back up. "You mind if we cut this short today?" 

"Nope. Go 'head." Slim stood and held out a hand to help Sulu to his feet.

As they were leaving the gym, the door opened and they almost ran straight into Cayne. "Oops, sorry," she mumbled. 

"No, it's fine. We were just--'scuse me." Sulu skirted around her and was gone. 

Cayne looked down at Slim. "Hey, can we talk?" 

"Sure." Slim felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. "Is everything--" 

"Oh, no, everything's fine," Cayne said quickly. "Cooling towers are all back online, and nobody's in trouble or anything. No, I...I just wanted to ask you about...you wanna talk in here or...?" 

Slim hesitated. "Don't reckon we'll run into anyone in the halls this time of shift if you wanna walk back towards quarters with me." 

"Good idea." Cayne fell into step with Slim as they headed down the hall. They were silent for a while. Finally, she said in a low voice, "What you did today...that thing with the--the glowy thing. How'd you do that?" 

"I don't know," Slim said honestly. "I just...concentrated." 

"Okay, better question. How long have you been able to do that?" 

Slim shrugged. "Long as I can remember. I watched--you know I was in foster care 'fore my dad found me, right?" 

"Yeah, I know," Cayne answered. Quietly, she added, "It's something you and I have in common...anyway, what about it?" 

"I watched one of my foster fathers tryin' to fix an ol' junker of a car," Slim said, a little startled by Cayne's comment but trying not to show it. "He rubbed the hood of the car an' said somethin' like, 'C'mon, baby, talk to me, tell me where it hurts.' He tol' me engines have feelin's, an' if you ask 'em nice, they'll tell you their problems. So I tried it, an'...well, you c'n guess." He sighed. "I didn't stay with them too much longer after that. He said I was a devil child an' called it witchcraft. Maybe it is. I don't know."

"It's a gift," Cayne said. "That's all. A gift. And really, I don't know why he was so startled. For crying out loud, we serve on a ship with a man who can _literally_ look into someone's mind if he so desires. We've seen a computer program that had the power to make someone's cells explode. How bizarre is someone who can talk to machines?" 

"Lots of people can _talk_ to 'em," Slim corrected her. "You an' Uncle Scotty sure can. I reckon it's just rarer for 'em to talk _back."_

Cayne smiled. "True. But how come you didn't just do that in the first place? How come you didn't tell Mr. Scott?" 

Slim looked down at his hands, still encased in the fencing gloves. "One of the other foster families I stayed with--well, it wasn't really a family, just one man. Anyway, he said--told me that it was useful, a skill that might come in real handy someday, but that I shouldn't use it as a crutch. It's supposed to be a last resort. You know, there ain't no shortcuts in engineering. I reckon if I use it too much, I'll try to sidestep the hard work. I used it today 'cause we were in a time crunch an', like you said, the alternative was to tear the thing apart. I used it on the bridge a couple times to get us out of a tight spot. But I don't wanna depend on it. 'Cause what if someday I misunderstand what the machines are tryin' to tell me?" 

"I can understand that. And it does answer my first question. But not the second. Why didn't you tell Mr. Scott?" 

"Because the last time I told anyone, I--I got in trouble," Slim admitted. 

Cayne stopped and stared at him. "Why the hell would you get in trouble for having a _gift_ , for Pete's sake?" 

"Remember, the first time I did it, the man I was stayin' with said I was a devil child," Slim reminded her. "I was only four. Didn't have much cause to use it 'til I was 'bout seven. Man I was stayin' with ran an old movie theater, an' one of his projectors broke down. I told him what was wrong with it--he's the one that told me not to use my gift as a crutch. Couple families later, I was stayin' with a real rough place, an'..." He swallowed. "Farm tractor broke down. Foster father couldn't figure out what was wrong with it. I 's just tryin' t' be helpful, so I did the trick an' tol' 'im." His accent was thickening again, but he couldn't seem to stop it. "He didn't 'preciate it much. Said I was jus' bein' clever at 'is expense." 

"And he hit you, right? And I'll bet your caseworker didn't believe you. You had to stay there, whether you wanted to or not." 

Slim blinked in surprise. "Yeah, how'd you know?" 

Cayne looked away. "I been there."

"You--" Slim stopped. Her earlier words sounded in his ears: _It's something you and I have in common._ It had never occurred to him that there might be other orphans on the _Enterprise_. 

"Yeah," Cayne said softly. "I got lucky, kinda like you did, 'cept I never had anyone that was gonna come for me. In my case, I took the Starfleet entrance exams early. Got in just before I turned fifteen. Don't know if you know this, but I'm only 'bout five an' a half years older 'n you." 

Slim turned to look at her more fully, not as an Engineering officer, but as a person. She was young--one of the youngest aboard the ship, one of the closest to him in age. She knew her way around a warp core, yeah, but now he could see that she also knew her way around heartbreak. She was one of the people he'd struck up a sort of friendship with, but why hadn't he tried to get to know her as more than an engineer? 

"I didn't," he said. "But I ain't surprised." 

Cayne looked back at him. She was only about six inches taller than Slim, the difference being that she was finished growing, while he still had a few more years' growth to go. He hoped. "Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" 

"Good, I guess." 

Cayne managed a smile. They started walking again in silence. Then she said softly, "I reckon it ain't somethin' anyone else would understand. There might be other folks aboard who were orphans, or in foster families, but you 'n me, we're the only ones who really knew what it was like to not be wanted." 

"My dad does." Slim looked up. "Where're you from, by the by?" 

"Oh." Cayne blushed. "Oklahoma. Grew up in 'bout a dozen foster homes in Oklahoma County. Most of 'em were indifferent. One or two were good. An' then there was the last one...I was there three hellish years 'fore I got out, five years back, like I said." 

Slim stopped dead, staring in surprise. _Oklahoma County._ "What were their names? The last family you stayed with?" 

Cayne looked a little embarrassed. She tried to make it a joke. "I wouldn't waste my time on revenge. They ain't worth the jail time, an' you'd prob'ly never find 'em anyhow." 

"They ain't the Dubrowskis, are they?" 

Cayne's smile disappeared. "How the hell did you know that?" 

"I was with 'em, too," Slim said softly. "When I was nine. Reckon it was right after you shipped out to the Academy. My mom was from Arcadia." 

"You're kidding." Cayne studied Slim seriously. "You're serious. He the one that hit you?" 

"For the tractor thing, yeah." 

"You been hit by other fosters." 

"Just one. The Lawsons." 

"How many'd you have?" 

"That I can remember, twenty-three. Might've been others from when I was real little, but I don't remember 'em," Slim admitted. "Eleven years in the system. From when I was two 'til CPS found Dad." 

Cayne nodded. "Same length of time for me. I was four. Momma ran off 'fore I could remember her--Daddy always said she wasn't ready for a family. Lost him in a shuttle accident." 

Without thinking, Slim reached over and touched Cayne's wrist lightly. "I'm sorry." He didn't ask if CPS had found her mother. If they had, she hadn't wanted her daughter--which was unthinkable.

"Ain't your fault." Cayne managed a smile, then glanced at her watch. "I better get somethin' to eat--I'm starved." 

"Yeah, I--I better get a shower." Slim was suddenly conscious of the fact that he was sweaty and probably smelled bad. He turned to the door of his family's quarters, thankfully near. "See you 'round, Cayne." 

"Audra." 

Slim stopped and turned back, surprised. "Huh?" 

"Audra," Cayne repeated. "My daddy liked to--anyway, my name's Audra." 

She looked embarrassed. Slim stared for a moment, then smiled slowly. "Like in _The Big Valley?"_

Cayne--Audra--looked up in surprise. "You've heard of it?" 

"Mondays and Thursdays at the Roxie, two in the afternoon, right after _Gunsmoke_ and right before _Bonanza,"_ Slim said instantly. 

Audra grinned. "We're gonna have to talk more about Oklahoma, Kirk." 

"If I'm callin' you Audra, call me Slim," Slim told her. 

"All right. See you 'round, Slim." 

"See you, Audra." 

Slim found himself humming as he went into quarters. By the time he got into the shower, he was singing, not sure why the song was stuck in his head but not questioning it either. _"Green grow the lilacs, all sparkling with dew...I'm lonely, my darling, since parting with you..."_


	28. As They Pull Away

Jim sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose to stave off the headache he could feel developing. Paperwork was probably his least favorite part of the job, and there was far too much of it on his desk right now. The topic of the paperwork made it worse. And he'd been putting off this discussion for far too long. He couldn't even claim that he'd been busy with away missions; they'd been in a fairly quiet period. Slim was fine, Addie wasn't cutting any more teeth at the moment, and there hadn't been any official communications from the brass.

But things had been apparently building up to a head in one of the departments, and Jim hadn't known until it had exploded. Hence the flimsi sheets spread in a fan arrangement on his desk, signed and counter-signed, and the meeting Jim had finally been forced to call. 

He heard the buzz of the door and lowered his hand quickly, trying to look professional. "Come in." 

The door opened, admitting Scotty. "You wanted to see me?" he said hesitantly. 

"Have a seat, Scotty." As the man complied, Jim studied him. He'd lost a bit of weight in the last month, his cheeks hollow, his eyes a bit red. All efforts to get him to talk had been rebuffed over the last month, but Jim still cursed himself silently for not having noticed. He should have ordered Scotty to Bones for a checkup, should've encouraged Bones to put him on medical restriction. 

Too late now. 

"We'll be pulling up to Starbase Two in a couple of hours," Jim began. "There's a group of new crew members waiting for us there. Including some new Engineering officers." 

"Aye, Jim. You want me to put them on the roster? Is that it?" 

"Well, yes, but that's not why I called you in." Jim took a deep breath and indicated the flimsis. "Mr. Scott, in the last four weeks I have received no fewer than seven transfer requests from Engineering. One of them--" he picked up the first flimsi--"a Lieutenant Jonsen, is going on compassionate leave, as his mother is in the end stages of a terminal illness. And Ensign Maldonado is simply homesick and can't handle the stresses of a five-year mission. Everyone else cites the same reason." He laid down the flimsi and looked Scotty in the eye. "They say that they are unable to continue serving under current conditions." 

"Under current conditions?" Scotty repeated, looking surprised. 

"Unreasonable anger. Constant criticisms. Hostile work environment." Jim leaned forward slightly. "The problem seems to be you." 

Scotty paled. Jim felt bad for him but kept his silence. He'd spent the previous evening grilling Slim, who was reluctant at first, but finally told his father everything. The more he spoke, the more alarmed Jim got--especially when he found out that Scotty had started barking orders at Slim. The boy never wore red when he was in Engineering--he always wore earth tones, dark and muted colors that couldn't be more of a contrast to the uniforms--but apparently that hadn't been enough to clue Scotty in that the person shadowing him was not a crew member. Scotty was losing his reason, and it was affecting his department. 

"Jim," Scotty said at last, "I--I'm not sure what you mean. I--" 

"You've been yelling at people constantly," Jim interrupted. "You're giving orders without paying attention to whom you're giving them--and they're afraid to contradict you because of your moods. Tempers are fraying, people are snapping at one another. Dr. McCoy tells me that accidents from Engineering are up _two hundred percent_ in the last month." 

It shouldn't have been possible for Scotty to get any paler, but he did. It was understandable; he'd always prided himself on his safety record, and now he just wasn't paying as much attention. People in his command were getting hurt and he didn't know. 

This time, Jim didn't make him squirm. Softly, he said, "Scotty, talk to me. Is it Keenser?" 

Tears flooded Scotty's eyes. "We were together for years, him an' I. Like a brother. An' I sent him to his death. 'Twas my fault, Jim." 

Jim didn't waste time trying to convince Scotty that it wasn't his fault. He of all people knew that it wouldn't work. "I understand that. But, Scotty, you've got close to a hundred other people in your department. They count on you, too. And _I_ count on you. I need you at your best to keep this ship running at peak performance." 

"I've not been at that," Scotty agreed. 

"I know." Jim hesitated. "I want you to go up to Med Bay. Get Dr. McCoy to check you over, _thoroughly_. Follow whatever recommendations he has for you." 

"Aye, sir." Scotty stood. "Is there anything else?" 

Jim bit his lip. He hated to do what he was about to do, but while Starfleet cut him a significant amount of slack, there were some things that couldn't be swept under the rug. And with five people citing the same reason for transfer, this was one of them. He sighed and opened a drawer, pulling out another flimsi. "I have to put a warning in your file," he said quietly. 

Scotty took the flimsi and signed it unhesitatingly. "Won't be my first." 

"I'm sorry, Scotty." 

Scotty stopped, staring at Jim. For the first time, something in his eyes seemed to clear. He reached across the desk and put a hand on Jim's arm. "Don't be," he said gently. "I've no right to be going on as I have been. I've put the whole ship in a dangerous position." 

Jim took a deep breath and touched a button on the intercom. "Kirk to Medical." 

"Medical here." 

"Bones, Scotty is on his way to you. Give him a full check-up." 

"'Bout time," Bones muttered. "All right, Jim, I'll have everything set up." 

"Thanks, Bones. Kirk out." Jim turned to Scotty. "For what it's worth, you've done a pretty good job, all things considered." 

Scotty shook his head. "Not good enough. I'll see ye later, Jim." He turned and walked out of the office.

Jim sighed, looking at the signed flimsi. He hated it when he had to lecture one of his men, especially one of his senior command. He felt like it was _his_ responsibility. But Bones yelled at him for trying to take the blame for everyone's mistakes. _The buck stops here_ was a good motto, but as Spock had carefully explained the first time he'd tried to use it, that really only meant that the blame went no _higher_ than Jim. Occasionally it didn't get that far. This was one of those situations. Yes, he should have done something about Scotty's behavior sooner, but he hadn't known about it. And even as captain, he couldn't be everywhere, which was why he had the senior command in the first place. 

Shaking his head, he tucked the flimsi into a file and went back to what he was doing. 

Ninety minutes later, the intercom chirped. "Bridge to Captain." 

Jim pressed the button. "Kirk here." 

"Beginning final approach on Starbase Two, sir." 

"Thank you. Kirk out." 

Setting aside the last of his paperwork, Jim left his office and headed towards the shuttle bay. Rounding a corner, he bumped straight into Slim, who dropped the PADD he'd been carrying. "Sorry, Dad!" Slim gasped, bending to pick up the device. 

Jim retrieved it first, handing it to his son. "No harm done. I should've been watching where I was going...what are you up to?" 

Slim shut off the PADD's screen and tucked it under his arm. "Finally sorted out the last of the logic puzzles Uncle Spock gave me. I was going to see if he had any more." 

"I think you may be the first person in the history of the human race to _ever_ request additional logic puzzles off of Spock. How many did he give you initially?" 

"Ten. The first six were easy, the next three were a nice challenge, and I've been puzzling over the last one off and on for the better part of a week, but I finally worked out that there would have to be a pre-established code in place. It's fun." 

"You're probably the first person to think of Spock's logic puzzles as 'fun,' too." Jim smiled, for the first time all day. "If you're not in a hurry to do anything, want to come to the shuttle bay with me?" 

Slim nodded. "Are we almost to Starbase Two, then?" 

"That's right." Jim looked at his son as they fell into step with one another. "So you know we're getting some new crew members?" 

"No, I didn't know that, but it makes sense. I've--" Slim stopped, biting his lip. 

"Go ahead, Slim, it's okay," Jim prompted. 

Slim hesitated, then blurted, "I've kinda been keeping track. We've lost seven crew members so far on this mission. Plus seven more requested transfers off. That's fourteen altogether. I'd hope we were getting some new crew to replace them." 

"Only seven?" Jim thought back. Gaetano, Latimer, the two guards who had beamed down to Capella IV with them initially, Wyatt, D'Amato, and Keenser...yeah, it _was_ only seven. Seemed like more. He shook his head and added, "Anyway, we're getting a total of twenty. Engineering was a little understaffed, so I requisitioned some extras." 

"Uncle Scotty will--" Slim paused. "He _oughta_ be happy 'bout that." 

"He will be," Jim reassured his son. "I've already talked to him. And things ought to be easier in Engineering for a while." 

"That's good." Slim looked relieved. "I'm sorry I was--" 

Jim shook his head, cutting him off. "Don't be. They needed the help. And Scotty says you know the engines almost as well as he does. As long as you're careful, and only help when Scotty specifically _tells_ you to, I don't mind." He winked. "But let's keep that between us and Scotty, yeah?" 

"Yeah," Slim said, grinning. "Thanks, Dad."

Jim ruffled Slim's hair as they reached the shuttle bay. Seven red-shirted individuals stood around, talking with one another, duffel bags at their feet. They shut up as Jim and Slim approached. 

"Well, men," Jim said, looking around the group, "I suppose this is it." He took a deep breath and walked up to the first crewman, holding out his hand. "Lieutenant Jonsen, thank you for your service aboard the _Enterprise._ I hope you will return when your mother feels better." 

"Thank you, sir." Jonsen looked surprised, but shook his hand. 

Jim moved on to the next. "Ensign Maldonado, thank you for your service. If you decide to go for a deep-space mission again, please let me know and we'll find a place for you." 

"Thank you, sir," Maldonado said, barely a quaver in her voice. 

The rest would be harder, but Jim turned to an ensign even younger than Maldonado whose eyes were red-rimmed and whose hands were shaking. "Ensign Fortuna, thank you for your service. If you're not happy at your new posting, you'll always be welcome back aboard." 

Fortuna looked even more startled than Jonsen, but managed to stammer out a thank-you as well. 

Jim continued down the line, personally thanking each crew member for his or her service and making it clear that there were no bridges being burned here. If any of them wished to return, they would be more than welcome. The crew members all thanked him, with the exception of Ensign Dawe, who did no more than nod tersely. Jim was fairly certain that he would never come back. 

At last, he turned to the young pilot who had drawn shuttle duty. "You may depart when you are ready, Ensign." 

"Aye, sir." Ensign Anderson saluted and headed for the shuttle. The redshirts followed her. With the exception of Jonsen and Dawe, they all gave Slim a quick smile and nod before they left. 

As the shuttle cleared the ship, Jim turned to his son. "Jonsen doesn't like you?" 

Slim shrugged. "Not so I've noticed, one way or the other. He's nice enough, most of the time. It's just that he's worried about his mom, I reckon." He was quiet for a moment. "I can understand that." 

"And Dawe?" 

"Him? Oh." Slim shook his head. "He's been looking for an excuse to transfer off for months. Audr--uh, Ensign Cayne told me he didn't like the way Uncle Scotty ran the department _before_ Keenser died, but that he hadn't applied for a transfer because 'I haven't been promoted quickly enough' ain't a valid enough reason." 

Jim noted the verbal stumble but wisely didn't call attention to it. "Wish I'd known that. I'd have refused his request." 

Slim looked up. "Honestly, Dad, he's got too many enemies in the department. Nobody likes working with him. Better to let him be someone else's problem, to my way of thinking." 

"You might be right there." Jim smiled. "By the way, Spock tells me you're getting really good with a phaser." 

"Thanks." Slim flushed with pleasure. 

Jim was actually kind of floored by the numbers Spock had given him. Slim was a quiet, gentle soul, kind to his little sister, meek as anything around authority. But his marksmanship was excellent--he could score a direct hit with the phaser, exactly where he wanted it to go, virtually one hundred percent of the time. He picked up things quickly in their hand-to-hand lessons, able to hold his own for longer and longer periods every session. And Jim had walked in on Slim and Sulu's fencing lesson the previous day and watched, his jaw scraping the ground, as Slim parried and thrust like he'd been doing it all his life, beating Sulu in their match by a single point. 

He was almost starting to rethink his no-away-missions policy. 

Almost.

"Been meaning to ask you," Jim said as they watched the shuttle recede into the distance. "Did you ever do anything like this on Earth? You know, fencing, fighting, shooting?" 

"No, no, and yes," Slim answered with a half-smile. "The Talbots taught me to shoot a rifle--they had a problem with rabbits. And Mr. Minifee's father had a collection of antique weapons. He taught me to shoot a pistol--a Colt .45." 

Jim started. "You're sure?" 

"Positive. Why?" 

"Nothing." Jim hesitated. "You know that phrase 'Get outta Dodge'? Where _is_ Dodge?" 

"Dodge City, Kansas," Slim answered promptly. "It's where the old TV show _Gunsmoke_ was set. Is this about the planet of the Melkots?" 

Jim turned to stare at his son. "How the hell do you know about that?" 

Slim reddened, but he replied, "Chekov told Sulu and me about it the other day. Sulu mentioned he was still havin' nightmares 'bout Losira, an' Chekov admitted he was still havin' nightmares 'bout gettin' gunned down in a replica of Tombstone. Do y'all ever have away missions where you _don't_ nearly get killed?" 

"Not often," Jim admitted. "Usually only on planets we've visited before. If we're on a new planet, and we can't avoid the natives, we almost always end up in serious trouble. Especially if space travel is something they don't understand yet." 

"Makes sense. Most folks are scared of what they don't understand, I reckon." Slim rubbed the back of his neck. "Xenophobia ain't something humans have a monopoly on." 

"Not by a long chalk," Jim agreed. "But keep in mind, Slim, the Vulcans don't have a monopoly on tolerance, either." 

Slim looked up with a slight smile. "We can all learn from each other. Ain't that what Starfleet is all about?" 

"Starfleet, and the Federation." Jim smiled back. "Doubt we'll ever get the whole galaxy together for a sing-along or anything like that, but..." 

"That'd be a sight." Slim laughed. "Speakin' of, did you know Addie's startin' to pick up tunes? She ain't got the words down yet, but if you sing to her, she'll clap her hands an' babble nonsense in tune. I was playin' the harmonica for her to put her down for her nap, an' she started singin' along to 'Red River Valley.'" 

Jim was impressed. "No, I didn't know that, but I guess it makes sense. Music runs in the family, sort of. My mom played piano when she was younger--still does when she has the time. And I play the guitar." 

"You do? I didn't know that." 

"Haven't had much chance on this trip." Jim studied his son. "Did you ever have formal singing lessons?" 

Slim shook his head. "Just Chorus at school. But my teachers used to say my voice ain't half bad." 

"I know. I've heard you singing in the shower." A lot more frequently of late, Jim added silently. He couldn't always catch the words, but there was one tune he heard over and over again, to the point that he sometimes found himself humming snatches of it on the bridge. Without thinking, he started humming it now, then broke off to add, "What _is_ that song, anyway?" 

Slim, inexplicably, blushed. "'Green Grow the Lilacs.' It's an old folk song." 

Just then the shuttle bay door opened, heralding the return of the _Columbia_. Slim instantly stood to attention, his hands clasped behind his back, and took a half-step backwards. Jim gave him an approving nod, then turned to face the incoming shuttle.

It was and wasn't official Starfleet policy. Someone was supposed to meet new crew members and take them to quarters, but on most ships, a yeoman or an ensign took care of that. The crew members would meet their department heads once they were settled in, and they would be introduced to the captain within the week. 

But they did things a little differently on the _Enterprise_. Jim liked for his crew members to know that he took an interest in their well-being, as well as in them personally. He knew every crew member by sight, knew how long they had been aboard, where they had been stationed previously, their personal histories (or at least those details of their personal histories that were on file, or that they'd been willing to share), what they did best and where they needed improvement. So when they got new crew members, Jim met them himself. 

Once the hangar pressure had equalized, the door hissed open. Anderson exited first, followed by a line of mostly red-shirted men and women. She led them to the door, then saluted. "Reporting back with the new crew members, Captain." 

Jim nodded. "Thank you, Ensign." 

Anderson flashed a grin and a thumbs-up at Slim, then moved out of the way. The first man stepped forward and saluted. "Ensign Kennith Watanabe, Engineering, reporting for duty, Captain." 

"Welcome aboard, Ensign." Jim shook the man's hand. "Fresh from the Academy?" 

Watanabe blushed. "Yes, sir." 

"Nothing to be ashamed of. We all have to start somewhere." 

Slim gave Watanabe a nod and a brief smile, which he returned, obviously somewhat confused, before moving aside. Next in line was a slightly older man who had shaved his head completely bald. He, too, saluted. "Ensign Dillon Alessandro, Engineering, reporting from the _Bradbury_ for duty, Captain." 

"Welcome aboard, Ensign. I hope the transfer won't be too jarring." 

"I'll do my best, sir." Alessandro gave Slim a crisp nod before going to stand next to Watanabe. 

Jim tried to impress names to faces as he shook hands with a sea of people in red uniforms. Ensigns Britt Avison, Malik Koerner, and Katherina Steiger had transferred together from the _Cochrane_ , one of the oldest ships still in active service; Jim made a mental note to encourage Scotty to keep them together and personally train them in the ways of _Constitution_ -class vessels. On the other hand, Lieutenant Eladia Solari, an almost colorless woman with incredibly sharp cheekbones, had come from the _Constitution_ itself. Ensigns Allyn and Porter Simril were twins, brother and sister, fresh out of the Academy like Watanabe. There were the two security guards he'd asked for to replace the ones lost on Capella IV, Jarred Caldera and Mitsue Wyke, and a science officer to take Gaetano's place, Jinny Graydon, the one blueshirt in the lot since they didn't need another geologist.

Behind her was a face that stirred a memory in Jim's mind, although he couldn't place it until the man in the gold shirt saluted. "Lieutenant Kevin Riley, Navigation, reporting from the _Greyhound_ for duty, Captain." 

It all came back to Jim in a rush: a pair of round green eyes, a hurrried climb up the side of a building, a whispered conversation... 

_My name's Jimmy. What's yours?_

_Kevin Patrick Riley._

_Well, Kevin, we gotta get out of here._

_Mommy said to stay here. She said it's safe._

_Not anymore. Here, take my hand. We'll run together._

_I'm tired, Jimmy._

_Okay. Let me carry you. C'mon. I gotcha, Kevin._

Jim realized he was staring. He brought himself to the present and forced a smile. "Welcome aboard, Lietuenant. How many assignments have you had since you graduated the Academy?" 

"This is my fourth, Captain," Riley answered. 

"Then I'm glad to have a man of your experience aboard." _And I'm glad to see you're all right,_ Jim added silently. 

Riley nodded and smiled. The smile froze in place as he locked eyes with Slim. A puzzled look came over his expression, and he tilted his head slightly, as though listening to half-heard music from a distant land. Then he shook his head briefly and moved aside. 

Jim had trouble concentrating on the next few officers, although he did note their names. He was stuck on Kevin Riley. Remembering the big eyes peering sleepily off the flat rooftop of a house in an almost deserted village, the small hands clasped around his neck as he ran, the tiny body curled against his chest and heaving with sobs.

And then the last man stepped forward, and Riley flew out of Jim's mind--temporarily, at least. 

"Lieutenant Blume!" he exclaimed. 

Sure enough, it was the man who had escorted Jim, Sulu, and Chekov to Nylund's office just a few months before. He saluted. "Yes, sir. Lieutenant JG Hector Blume, Engineering, reporting from Starbase Nine for duty." 

"Welcome aboard, Lieutenant." Jim's smile was strained as he shook Blume's hand. "I didn't realize you were an engineer when I met you." 

"I trained as an engineer, sir, but I also trained in administration," Blume explained. "I'm something of a jack-of-all-trades." He paused, then added in a low voice, "And as some would have it, a master of none." 

"I doubt that," Jim answered. "We'll talk more later, Lieutenant." He turned to the twenty new crewmen and raised his voice slightly. "If you'll all follow Ensign Anderson, she'll show you to your quarters. You'll be added to the duty rotas tonight and should receive your schedules before Alpha shift tomorrow. Once again, welcome aboard." 

The crewmen saluted again, then followed Anderson down the hall. Jim stayed where he was for a few moments before moving on slowly. 

Slim kept pace with him, not saying anything until they were in the lift. Then, quietly, he said, "Dad?" 

"Hmm?" Jim started and looked down at his son. 

Slim looked torn between worry and apprehension. "Is...is everything okay?" he asked carefully. "I mean, one or two of those people...seemed like you knew 'em." 

Jim hesitated. "One or two of them, I did," he said at last. 

Slim nodded, then looked at his boots as though they were the most interesting things he'd ever seen in his life. And Jim realized the boy wasn't going to ask. He had to be bursting with curiosity to know how Jim knew Riley and Blume--of course Slim realized those were the two he knew--but he wouldn't ask where he knew them from, or why he'd reacted the way he did. He would wait for Jim to tell him, and if Jim didn't say, he would assume it was none of his business. 

And Jim wanted to tell him. Badly. But he didn't know how he could tell him without revealing the story of Tarsus. Slim didn't need to know about Kodos...or Nylund. 

At last, he said quietly, "I knew Kevin Riley when we were kids. Don't know if he remembers me, but...well, he was really little. And I met Hector Blume when we were at Starbase Nine a few months back." 

Slim bit his lip hard. "You've--you've been kinda weird since we were there. Did something...happen?" 

Jim was silent for a moment, then said, "I ran into a Starfleet officer I've had...issues with before. He has the power to make my life...extremely difficult. And not just by doing things to me." 

"He can get at you through the crew," Slim said softly. 

"Yeah. And he tried." Jim suppressed a shudder at the memory of the way Nylund had baited Sulu and Chekov. "He'll probably try again." 

"Is he the one that gave you the mining contract?" 

"Yeah." 

Slim's lips thinned briefly, but he changed the subject. "Where are we going?" 

"Bridge," Jim answered. "Still two hours left in Alpha shift and I need to be there." 

"Wonder if Uncle Spock will have more logic puzzles for me?" 

"Only one way to find out." Jim smiled as the lift doors opened and they stepped out onto the bridge.


	29. The Doomsday Machine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the episode of the same name by Norman Spinrad.

Leo was working on paperwork when the red alert klaxon started blaring. 

Instantly he set aside his PADD, cursing the ill luck that had him in Med Bay instead of on the bridge this shift. Things were slow at the moment. Usually, in those situations, he was on the bridge, exercising the ship's surgeon's traditional right to be there when he didn't feel like being anywhere else. But today, he'd decided to take a couple of minutes to update his files. Which, of course, meant that now he had no idea what the hell was going on. 

Still, red alert meant he needed to be prepared. It usually meant the ship was going into a potential combat situation, and if they were fired on, even with the shields at full power, there was a high probability of casualties. Leo exited his office and began firing orders at the staff. It was seemingly unnecessary; even the newest recruits knew the drill as well as he did. But Medical was one of five places on the ship where security cameras ran constantly, and the admiralty could demand recordings of those tapes at any time, for any reason. If something went wrong on the ship during a red alert situation, the tapes could be used to pinpoint if there was fault with anyone, and if so, with whom. With Nylund always in the back of his mind, Leonard was determined that he would do all he could to ensure that there was nothing for which Jim could be blamed later. 

They had just gotten everything more or less situated when the klaxon died away, the alert dropping to yellow. Leo observed the way his staff relaxed and was about to head up to the bridge when the intercom stopped him. "Dr. McCoy, meet me in the transporter room." 

Jim sounded exhausted. Leo's brow furrowed in a frown as he strode towards the transporter room. Whatever had gone on couldn't be that severe, or it would have lasted longer. Yet Jim's voice was comparable to how it sounded when he'd been through a serious battle. Which meant either he hadn't slept well--unlikely, since Leo slept next to him and knew exactly how hard he'd slept--or something had happened to stress him out... 

Leo reached the transporter room at the same time as Scotty, who was leading a pack of red shirts. "Doctor," Scotty said with a nod. 

"Scotty," Leo said, returning it. "What's going on?" 

"Haven't the foggiest. Got a comm from Jim asking me to come up here with a damage control team--" Scotty broke off as the door slid open and Jim came in. 

Leo took one look at Jim's face and instinctively reached for him. "Jim. What is it?" 

"The _Constellation_ ," Jim said, his voice absolutely flat. "She's a _Constitution_ -class starship, same as we are. Sitting out there amid the remains of half the system. She's a wreck, powerless and drifting. Life support is running on reserve. The bridge is uninhabitable and the power plants are dead. And we can't communicate with the ship--subspace interference. All we're getting is the distress signal." 

"The crew?" Leo asked, already knowing the answer. 

"We just can't get accurate sensor readings. There aren't any ships in the vicinity, so I ordered the alert dropped, but we also don't know what destroyed the outer two planets in the system. Or the planets in L-370. But _something_ did--all that's left is debris." 

Scotty looked pained. "What are we doing, then?" 

Jim gestured to the transporter platforms. "We're beaming over there. If there's any chance, any at all, that the crew is still alive, we've got to try and help them."

As Scotty led his team onto the platform, Leo grabbed Jim's arm. "You sure you want me along, Jim?" he asked in a low voice. 

Jim looked up. "Yeah, Bones," he said softly. "I know what I said...before. But I need you. I can't do this without you. And it's not like we're going far--we're staying in sight of the ship. Spock's going to be monitoring us, and at the first sign of trouble we'll beam back _immediately."_

Leo wondered who Jim was trying to reassure, but said nothing. 

A moment later, they were aboard the _Constellation_. Leo was startled to see that the transporter room was empty except for them. "Shouldn't they have a technician on duty?" 

"They should," Jim answered. "Like I said, she's a _Constitution_ -class. Carries the same number of crew we do. There ought to have been _someone_ here." 

"Maybe he fainted?" Scotty suggested. The words "or died" went unspoken. 

Leo climbed down carefully and checked behind the console. "This room's empty but for us." 

Jim chewed his lip briefly. "Scotty, take your team down to the engine room," he said at last. "See if there's anyone down there who can tell you what's going on--or at the very least, if you can see what's wrong. Bones, you're with me." 

Leo nodded. As they headed out of the room, he reached over and took Jim's hand. Jim squeezed it, hard, but remained silent. 

They began systematically checking out the ship. Leo was first bewildered, then concerned by the lack of either living crew...or bodies. It was like they'd beamed onto a ghost ship. 

"Dammit, there should be _something!"_ he burst out as they came out of yet another room. 

Before Jim could respond, his communicator chirped. "Scott to Kirk." 

Jim flipped out his communicator. "Kirk here." 

"Captain, this ship's fought one devil of a battle--and lost." Scotty's voice was ominous. "The warp engines are completely destroyed--not just drained, _destroyed_ \--and the phaser banks are completely depleted." 

"Impulse power, Scotty?" Jim asked, leaning against the wall for a moment. 

"I'll check an' get back to ye, Jim. Scott out." 

Jim took a deep breath, then turned to Leo. "You're right. There should be _something_. But I don't think there's anyone on this ship but us." 

"Could they have--I don't know--beamed somewhere?" Leo asked, brow furrowing again. 

Jim flipped out his communicator again. "Kirk to _Enterprise."_

" _Enterprise_ here." Spock's voice was steady as usual. Even Leo found himself drawing a modicum of comfort from it. 

"Spock, this ship is virtually empty but for the six of us. Do a scan of the planets in the system to see if the crew beamed down to one of them." 

"Impossible, Captain," Spock replied immediately. "The innermost planet has a surface temperature that is near the melting point of lead, and the second has a highly toxic atmosphere. Humans could not survive on either." 

Jim's jaw tightened. "Thanks anyway, Spock. Kirk out." He closed the communicator and looked at Leo. "Any more ideas? And I'm not being sarcastic. I really mean that." 

Leo hesitated. He did have one thought, but it was a nasty one and not one he wanted to bring up. Before he could figure out how to phrase it, though, Jim's communicator chirped again. "Scott to Kirk." 

"Go ahead, Scotty," Jim said. The weary look had started to come over his face again. Leo longed to kiss it away, but not while he was talking to Scotty. 

"I may be able to salvage the impulse engines, sir, but it'll take a bit of work. Lucky me I've got one of my best an' brightest here." 

"That may be the best news I'll get on this whole mission, Scotty. Do it." 

"Aye, Captain." Scotty paused. "It may help if I knew what caused all this, though." 

Jim sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Tell me about it." 

"Would the captain's logs tell ye?" 

Jim paused. "They might. Why didn't I think of that? Thanks, Scotty. Keep me posted on the engines. Kirk out." He snapped the communicator closed. "Come on, Bones." 

"Where are we going?" Leo asked, falling into step with Jim and resisting the urge to force him to slow down a little. 

"Auxiliary control room," Jim answered. "The bridge is completely inhospitable, we'd be dead in a matter of seconds if we tried to go up there. But there ought to be backup tapes in there..." 

"Jim." Leo caught Jim's arm, pulling him to a halt. To his relief, Jim willingly stopped. "What's _really_ going on here? I know you're worried, you take everything like this so personally, but this is worse than usual. What's driving you?" 

At first it looked like Jim might try to brush him off, the way he had after Pike's death, but he slowly crumpled. "Matt Decker," he muttered. "The officer in charge is Commodore Matt Decker." 

Leo racked his brains, but couldn't recall ever having met such a man. "Should I know him?" 

"No reason why you should. He'd just graduated from the Academy when you and I met on the shuttle." Jim looked up, and his blue eyes were haunted. "But he's...I know him. He's from Riverside, only a year older than I am." 

"Oh, Jim," Leo sighed. He held out his arms. Jim hesitated a moment, then stepped into them; Leo pulled him tight to his chest. He hated this, hated the way Jim tried to take the weight of the galaxy on his shoulders. But there was nothing he could do about it, really, except to hold him and try to help take some of the burden. 

They stood that way for a minute or two. Leo could feel Jim trembling slightly and cursed whatever had destroyed the planets and damaged this ship, possibly taking the lives of Jim's friend and his crew with it. At last, Jim took a deep breath and pulled back. "Okay. Let's do this."

Leo didn't let go of Jim's hand as they headed into the auxiliary control room. The second the door slid open, however, Jim gave a sharp exclamation and ran forward. Leo was about to call him back when he, too, saw the figure slumped over the console. 

The man was wearing command gold, a slightly fancier version of the shirt worn by captains, and frankly he looked like hell. It was the sort of battered face that you only saw on starship officers whose commands had been put through incredibly rough situations and corn-fed idiots who got drunk and picked six-on-one fights in bars. Leo thought at first that he was unconscious, then realized his eyes were open. 

"Matt," Jim said, almost inaudibly, and then, louder, "Matt, what's going on? Matt!" 

The man stared up at Jim without blinking, seemingly without seeing either. Leo put a hand on Jim's shoulder. "Jim, hold on," he said softly. 

Jim looked up pleadingly. "Bones, is he--?" 

"He's in a fugue state, I think." Leo knelt and passed his hand in front of the man's eyes. The pupils reacted sluggishly. "You've heard of those?" 

"Read a book of short stories by that name once, but...no, not really." 

"It'd take a long time to explain. But, basically, he doesn't know we're here, and he doesn't recognize you." Leo reached for his medical kit and found the appropriate hypospray. "Stand back." 

Jim complied. Leo jammed the hypospray against the man's shoulder with what was probably unnecessary roughness, but the sharp jab would help as much as the contents of the hypo. 

"Give him a minute," he said softly to Jim. "He'll come round, but..." 

There were footsteps behind them. Leo turned to see Scotty come in, trailed by a young female ensign. He vaguely recognized her as one of the newer crew members, but she was M'Benga's patient and he couldn't place her name. Jim focused on his chief engineer. "Scotty. What--" 

"We came to get those logs," Scotty explained. "Thought it'd save ye havin' to relay it." 

"Oh...good thinking." Jim shook his head. "God, what's wrong with me? I can't think straight." 

"You're letting your personal concerns interfere," Leo said bluntly. "Relax." He leaned over and kissed Jim's cheek lightly. 

The commodore was blinking now, a little more regularly. Jim gestured to the console. "All yours, Scotty."

Scotty began the playback. A scratchy, gravelly voice filled the room. _"Captain's log, Stardate 2271.95. Extremely heavy subspace interference still prevents us from contacting Starfleet with news of the destroyed solar systems we have encountered. We are now entering system L-374. Science Officer Masada reports that the fourth planet seems to be breaking up. We are going to investigate."_

At the voice, the commodore's head rose, his eyes gradually clearing. He focused on Jim's face and rasped, "Jim...?" 

"Matt." Jim instantly turned to face his old friend, squatting down to be on eye level. "Matt, what happened? You investigated the break-up of the planet..." 

"Planet..." Decker stared dumbly for a minute, and then his eyes widened in horror. He grabbed Jim's arm. "Kirk, that--that _thing_ \--it's still out there--" 

Jim looked up and caught the ensign's eye. "Ensign Cayne, transmit the _Constellation's_ sensor tapes to the _Enterprise."_

"On it, Captain." Cayne immediately bent over the console and began tapping at the keys. Leo marveled anew at the fact that Jim really did know each and every crew member by name. 

Jim returned his attention to Decker. "What's out there, Matt? What happened?" 

Decker spoke slowly. "We couldn't contact Starfleet. I sent out the distress signal, but I didn't think anyone would hear it, because I was sure there was no one to hear...I was sure we were alone. We were attacked, it disabled the ship. I...I had to save my crew. I beamed them down...to the third planet. I was...the last man aboard...and it attacked the ship again. It disabled the transporters. I couldn't leave." 

"Matt," Jim said, speaking as gently as he could. _"What attacked you?"_

Decker grew increasingly agitated. "It was a thing right out of hell, Kirk." He grabbed Jim's arms tightly. Leo saw his husband wince and had to resist the urge to pull Decker off. "Right out of hell. It...it destroyed the planet. My crew...I _heard_ them, I heard them _begging_ me to rescue them, pleading...I couldn't do anything. I couldn't even _die_ with them, Jim! I had to sit here, helpless to do anything but listen to them be destroyed..." 

He let go of Jim and collapsed against the console, sobbing hysterically. Jim looked up at Leo, pain and anguish stamped on his features. Leo wanted to take him in his arms again, comfort him--but they couldn't do that, not now, not in front of Decker. He reached for his supply kit again and pulled out a hypo with a mild sedative. It wouldn't knock him out--that wouldn't help, not right now when they needed answers--but it would at least calm him down a little.

As he was administering it, Cayne suddenly straightened up and whirled around to look at Scotty. "Mr. Scott," she said, a little breathlessly. "The ship's antimatter stores--they've been deactivated." 

"What?" Scotty nudged Cayne out of the way and studied the readings. After a moment, he straightened up and nodded. "Ye're right, lassie, they have been." 

Jim bit his lip. "Could a general energy dampening field cause both that and the subspace interference, Scotty?" 

"Aye, it could," Scotty said slowly. "But I don't know of anything that could generate such a thing." 

Decker raised his head. His eyes were red-rimmed, but at least he'd stopped sobbing. "Miles long," he whispered. 

Jim turned back to Decker instantly. "What was that?" 

"The--the planet-killer," Decker said. "Miles long, with a maw that could swallow a dozen starships. It used a pure antiproton beam to slice planets into rubble." 

"Is it a machine?" Jim asked. "Or is it alive?" 

"I--" Decker's eyes unfocused. "I don't know..." 

" _Enterprise_ to Kirk." 

Jim grabbed his comm and flipped it open. "Kirk here." 

Spock's voice was crisp. "Captain, an analysis of the _Constellation's_ sensor tapes shows that the planet-killer is an automated weapon." 

"So it's not alive." Jim shot a look at Decker. 

"Not remotely. It is a machine, designed to destroy planets and digest the debris for fuel. As long as there are planets to consume, it would appear to be self-sustaining." 

"Great," Jim muttered. "Anything else you can tell us, Mr. Spock?" 

Spock actually hesitated. Leo knew that whatever he had to say would not be pleasant. "Yes, Captain," he said at last. "Using the locations of the ravaged star systems encountered, both by us and by the _Constellation_ , Mr. Sulu and Thomas were able to determine that the device originated outside the galaxy. And its present path will put it directly on course for the most densely populated part of our galaxy." 

Jim sighed. "I was afraid of that. Kirk out." He snapped the communicator closed and turned to Leo. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" 

At the moment, Leo was thinking that he needed to get both commanding officers back to the _Enterprise_. Decker was a mess--Leo was seriously worried about his mental state--and Jim had the brittle look he'd last seen on the surface of the Kalandran outpost. Actually, of all the people in the room, the only one who wasn't currently worrying him was Ensign Cayne. She had a healthy level of nervousness, but also a good amount of sensibility and levelheadedness. There was no false bravado--she was as shaken as anyone else by what she'd heard--but she would, and could, do what needed to be done. 

"Tell me what you're thinking," Leo said instead.

Jim rubbed the back of his neck. "A doomsday machine. The damned thing is a doomsday machine." 

"A what?" Leo and Scotty said together. 

Surprisingly, it was Cayne who spoke up. "A calculated bluff. It's a device so powerful that the risks of using it would be just as bad for its creators--its handlers--as for those against whom it was sent. The threat was supposed to have been enough. Somewhere along the line, someone's bluff was called. Obviously they couldn't back off, so they hit the big red button." 

"Well put, Ensign," Jim said. 

Leo was definitely uneasy now. "Jim, I think we ought to get Decker back to the _Enterprise_. He needs medical attention and I can't give that to him with what I brought with me." It was true, but he wanted all of them back. He hoped that Jim would see sense. 

Decker raised his head. "I'm not leaving my ship for that thing," he said firmly. "A captain doesn't leave his ship." 

Leo winced at the memory Decker's words evoked. The worst of it was that Jim obviously remembered them, too. "We'll take her in tow, Matt. How about you leave us to get her ready, while you go with Dr. McCoy and get checked out?" 

_No!_ Leo wanted to cry. But Decker hesitated, then nodded. "All right, Jim. I know I can trust you." 

"Of course you can, Matt." Jim pulled out his communicator. "Kirk to _Enterprise."_

" _Enterprise_ here." 

"Mr. Spock, have the transporter room beam Dr. McCoy and Commodore Decker back immediately." As Jim spoke, he gave Leo a long look. 

Leo hated that look. It was the look that said he was trying to memorize his face--just in case they never saw each other again. But he wasn't about to countermand Jim's orders, not in front of Decker. Instead, he mouthed _I love you_ and took up his position. He just had time to see Jim mouth back _I love you, too,_ and then he was surrounded by the swirl of light and transported back to the _Enterprise_. 

"Come on, Commodore," Leo began. "Let's get you--" 

A siren began blaring. The transporter technician jumped and stared uneasily at the lights, which had just started flashing red. Decker turned wildly to Leo. "What's going on?" 

"I have no idea." Leo's stomach churned. 

"Come on." Decker headed for the door of the transporter room. Leo was about to call him back, then changed his mind and simply followed him. After all, the _Constellation_ was a _Constitution_ -class ship, too. Decker indubitably knew his way around. 

Unsurprisingly, they ended up on the bridge. Leo started to ask what was going on, but the question dried up in his mouth. Looming before them was a leviathan, a monster at least a mile long, with a metallic body and a funnel-shaped mouth. It was pursuing the ship--and it was gaining. 

Leo lunged over to stand next to Spock, who was seated in the captain's chair. Jim's voice, blessedly, was coming over the comm. "Whatever happens, we can't let it go beyond the next solar system. You'd better--" 

Whatever Jim was going to suggest was lost as a blast hit the ship, tossing them all violently. Leo only just managed to catch himself against the chair. Decker wasn't so quick and fell to the ground. While Leo was still trying to right himself, the figure at the Engineering console twisted around, and Leo saw the pale face of his stepson. "Mr. Spock, we took a direct hit!" he gasped. "Transporters are out!" 

"Emergency power on screen," Spock said tersely, shooting a quick glance over his shoulder at Leo. "Maximum evasive action! Phaser banks armed and ready--" 

There was another blast, and Uhura jumped. "We've just lost communications!" 

"No!" The cry ripped itself from Leo's throat before he could stop himself. No communications, no transporters--no way of getting in touch with the _Constellation_ \--no way to get Jim and the others back. 

"Maximum evasive action," Spock repeated.

Leo's knuckles, as he gripped the back of the chair, were white. He could barely bring himself to watch as they tried to escape the machine. And then, suddenly, it seemed to lose interest. The _Enterprise_ had escaped. 

Spock sat in silence for a moment. At last, he said evenly, "Communications?" 

"Under repair, Mr. Spock," Uhura answered. 

"Transporters?" 

Slim still looked pale, but managed to answer in a more or less calm voice, "Also under repair." 

"Hmm." Spock took a breath. "Random factors appear to have operated in our favor." 

"In plain, non-Vulcan English, we got lucky," Leo muttered, still badly shaken. 

"Isn't that what I said, Doctor?" Spock said. 

Before Leo could come up with an appropriate response, Sulu said, "The machine is veering off. It's back on its old course, directly in line with the Rigel system." 

"No doubt it has been programmed to ignore anything as small as a spaceship unless within a certain radius," Spock said. "Mr. Sulu, circle back so that we can pick up the captain and the damage control team while we effect repairs." 

Leo's sigh of relief caught in his throat when Decker interrupted. "You can't let that thing reach Rigel! Millions of innocent people--" 

"I am aware of the population of Rigel, Commodore, but we are only one ship," Spock interrupted. "Our deflector generators are strained. Radio is useless this close to the machine. Logic dictates that our primary duty is to survive to report to Starfleet Command." 

"Our primary duty is to maintain the life and safety of Federation planets!" Decker barked. "Helmsman, belay that last command! Track and close on that machine!" 

Sulu stiffened, exchanging a quick glance with Chekov before looking questioningly at Spock. In an even tone, Spock said, "Carry out my last order, Mr. Sulu." 

"Mr. Spock, I am formally notifying you that I am exercising my options under Starfleet regulations and taking command of this vessel as senior officer," Decker snapped. "That thing has got to be destroyed." 

"You attempted to destroy it before, sir, and it resulted in a crippled ship and a dead crew," Spock replied. 

Leo knew by the fact that Decker's face turned brick red that it had been exactly the wrong thing to say. "I acknowledge that my previous attempt was a mistake. This time we will be more fully prepared, and go in with fully-armed phasers, from much closer." 

"The hull appears to be made of neutronium," Spock pointed out. "It will be impossible for a single ship to destroy." 

Decker pointed at Spock. "That will be all, Mr. Spock. You are relieved of command. Don't make me relieve you of duty as well." 

Slowly, Spock rose from the chair. Leo grabbed his arm. "Spock, my God, you're not actually going to let him _do_ this, are you?" 

"Unfortunately, Doctor, I have no choice," Spock replied. "General order 104, section B, paragraph--" 

"To hell with regulations! You and I _both_ know he's wrong--" Leo broke off as Spock turned to look at him. 

"If you can certify him as medically or psychologically unfit, I can relieve him of command," Spock said quietly. 

Leo let go of Spock's arm, torn between disgust and defeat. "You know I haven't had time for a proper exam..." 

"Then, Doctor, unless circumstances change..." Spock shook his head. 

Decker stood in front of the chair, looking at Leo. "Mr. Spock knows his duties, _Doctor_. Do you?" 

Leo stared at Decker, his hands balling into fists. "Yes, _Commodore_ ," he said, hearing the anger in his voice. "To report to Med Bay and wait for the casualties you're about to send me." He turned on his heel and stalked off the bridge, muttering under his breath about false bravado and puffed-up windbags with death wishes. 

It wasn't until he was stepping through the door of Med Bay that he remembered he had left Slim sitting at the Engineering console.

"Dr. McCoy?" The head nurse, Ylana Leder, looked torn between worry and annoyance. "What's going on?" 

"There's a damned fool sitting in the captain's chair and we're all going to die." Leo hadn't meant to say the words and they came out more harshly than he meant them to. Without bothering to apologize, he stalked into his office, letting the door shut behind him. 

He paced, too agitated to sit down. This was _exactly_ what he and Jim had been afraid of, _precisely_ the kind of situation they had both striven to prevent. Because with Decker in the chair, there was no hope. He wasn't like Jim, who would listen to Spock's advice and Leo's protests and be tempered by both of them; he was driven, obsessed by revenge, but still seemingly in control of himself and his actions. Leo saw now what Spock had been trying to do when he reminded Decker of the loss of his ship and crew--it was only partly statement of fact, and mostly an attempt to provoke an emotional response in Decker. If he had been able to prove that Decker was emotionally compromised, he could have removed him from duty. As it was, Decker had kept his head well enough to satisfy Starfleet requirements, and Spock had had no choice but to surrender command. Leo knew that now. 

And the end result was that Leo was pacing in his office like a caged animal, Jim was trapped on a crippled wreck of a ship with no way to communicate, and the kids were separated. And they were all going to die. 

Tears pricked Leo's eyes. He wished he'd held Jim a little tighter, said _I love you_ a little louder, kissed him a little longer. He remembered something Phil Boyce had said once, while Jim was recovering from the warp core incident, when Leo had told him how guilty he felt that he'd been able to save Jim but been too late to save Pike. _You can never spend enough time with the ones you love._ They'd come close to losing one another before, but this time it felt worse. This time it was for real. This time Leo couldn't believe in anything _but_ no-win scenarios. 

A sound came to his ears, over the red-alert klaxon, and he whipped his head towards his door. Crying--a baby crying-- _Addie_ crying. Leo started for the door when it slid open and Slim stepped in, clutching his sister to his chest. She was wailing loudly, tears streaming down her face. 

"Addie, sweetie, don't cry," Leo choked. He crossed over to where Slim stood and wrapped both of them in a hug, pulling them close, sandwiching Addie between himself and her brother. It wasn't only Addie he was trying to comfort; Slim was obviously terrified, and so, honestly, was Leo. Slim clung to Leo with his free arm, while Addie let go of Slim's shirt and clutched at Leo's.

Gradually, her sobs lessened to whimpers, then snuffling. Leo pulled back slightly and looked down at Slim. "Shouldn't you be on the bridge?" he asked quietly, his voice husky with tears. 

Slim shook his head. He'd obviously been crying, too. "Uncle Spock told me to get Addie and come down here. He said...under the circumstances, we--we oughta be together." 

Leo's stomach plummeted. The fact that Spock had said that meant that he, too, thought they were likely to die. As long as Decker was in the chair, it was the only logical conclusion, really. "And what did the illustrious Commodore Decker have to say about that?" he said, the sarcasm thick. 

"He told Uncle Spock that he didn't have the right to order bridge crew around, and Uncle Spock told him I was an exception and that my duty was to my family." Slim tried to smile but didn't come anywhere close to succeeding. "I don't reckon he liked that." 

"I don't think so, either." Leo took Addie from Slim. She wiped her nose on his shirt, then lay her head on his shoulder miserably. "But it was the right thing to do." 

Slim hugged Leo around the waist, leaning his head on his chest. Leo held him with his free arm and felt the boy trembling. "Pa, I'm scared," he whispered. 

"Me, too, Slim," Leo confessed. Tears blurred his vision again. "Dammit, this wasn't supposed to _happen_. I promised your father I wouldn't let anything happen to you--to either one of you." 

"You aren't letting anything happen, Pa," Slim said, his voice slightly muffled in the fabric of Leo's shirt. "I heard what you said up there. You did your level best. This ain't happenin' because you're lettin' it--it's happenin' in spite of everything you could do to prevent it." 

Leo couldn't help the short bark of laughter that escaped his lips. If anyone had doubted Slim was his father's son, that right there would have proved it. Terrified out of his wits, trembling and tearful and knowing he was about to die, he was still reaching out to comfort others. He had every right to blame Leo, to feel like his stepfather had let him down, and even in his last moments he refused to do so. It made Leo love him all the more...and made him long all the more for his husband.

The ship suddenly gave a massive lurch, the power flickering. Leo stumbled backwards, cracking his hip painfully on his desk; Addie screamed, tightening her arms around his neck as he lost his grip on her legs; Slim crashed on top of them both. An instant later the boy was on his feet, peeling Addie off of Leo. "Pa! Pa, are you okay?" 

"I'll live," Leo said grimly, well aware of the irony of his words as he pulled himself back upright. "Are you hurt?" 

"I'm fine." Slim bounced his sister in his arms, making soothing noises--she had, understandably, started crying again. "What happened?" 

"That damned machine probably attacked the ship," Leo said, a little angrily. "And we probably will have casualties coming in any minute. Dammit! I _warned_ him..." 

"What should I do?" 

Leo hesitated. Theoretically he ought to tell Slim to stay in his office, but... 

"Come on," he said at last. "I want you and Addie to stay back out of the way, but I also want you where I can see you." 

Slim nodded and followed Leo into the main part of Med Bay. Leder turned to him. "Doctor, we're getting reports of casualties on Decks Three and Four. Mostly light injuries that nevertheless mean they're being taken off-duty, but a few are on their way up here now." 

"Good. Keep on top of it, Nurse." Leo knew the admonition was unnecessary but gave it anyway. Even though there would be no one to pull the tapes--and no one to get in trouble if the tapes were pulled--he wasn't going to let any stain tarnish Jim's memory. Nylund was that sort of bastard. 

He pulled himself together as the injuries came in. Patching them up took no time at all--the staff could have done it on their own--but Leo was somewhat glad of the opportunity to take his mind off of worrying about Jim. It wouldn't do him any good. 

As he worked on a young science officer who'd had some acid spilled on her in the lab, he happened to glance at Slim and catch an odd look on the boy's face. "Slim? What is it?" 

Slim turned to Leo, his head tilted slightly, still looking oddly at him. "The _Enterprise..."_ he murmured. "Can't you feel it? She's--straining." 

Everybody in Med Bay went very still and quiet, listening. Leo realized that Slim was right. The usual sensation of a ship traveling at space normal speed was absent, replaced instead with the feeling that they were trying to fly through molasses. He could hear a slight change in the sounds of the engines, too, and found himself thinking, _Scotty's not gonna be happy about that._

"What's going on?" asked one of the nurses, anxiously. 

Slim closed his eyes briefly. "Tractor beam?" 

Leo cursed under his breath as he realized that the boy was probably right. They were caught in a tractor beam, indubitably by the doomsday machine. Decker had led them right into a death trap. He wished he could get in touch with Jim, one last time, if only to say goodbye. 

Taking a deep breath, he said, "Well, as long as the ship's still pulling against it, we're not dead yet. Lieutenant Powers, how's the arm?" 

At his words, the rest of the staff got back to work, but Leo knew that they, like him, were moving a bit cautiously, feeling the ship strain and praying it wouldn't reverse. 

Three of the casualties had been released to quarters and they were just finishing up the last round of treatments when the ship gave a sudden lunge before settling into a more familiar rhythm. Leo paused and looked over at Slim. "I think we're free of the tractor beam." 

"Think so." Slim still looked worried. "But pullin' against it like that put a lot of stress on the engines. I ain't sure we'll get very far." 

"We won't be trying to go far," Leo muttered, going back to running the regen over the facial wound he was treating. "Decker's on a vendetta. He's determined to destroy that thing or be destroyed by it." 

"There's a third possibility," Slim said softly. "That the engines will blow and take us all with it, leavin' that thing to continue unchecked." 

Leo didn't trust himself to speak until he had finished with the regen. He nodded to his patient, then turned slowly to look at Slim. "You think that's likely?" 

Slim looked down at his feet--no, not at his feet, Leo realized. It wasn't embarrassment that had made him drop his gaze. He was looking _through_ the floor to the engine compartment. "Yeah. It's just a feel to it, but...I'd say it's pretty darn likely." 

Leo hesitated for a moment, but only for a moment. He crossed the room and took Addie out of Slim's arms. "Go back up to the bridge," he said quietly. "If Spock asks, tell him I sent you. They need you up there. And if...if it gets..." He swallowed hard. "If you need me, I don't give a damn what Decker says, you comm me and I'll be there." 

Slim looked up seriously. "All right, Pa." He hugged Leo, kissed Addie's cheek, and headed for the door. A few steps away, he stopped, turned back, and added, "I love you." 

Leo fought back the tears threatening to well up in his eyes. "I love you, too, son." 

Slim's eyes were suspiciously bright as he turned and hurried away.

Addie had at last calmed down. Leo suspected that it was partly the noise of the red alert klaxon and partly the atmosphere of terror that had upset her so badly, and even now, he wasn't too sure she was actually calm. It was more that she had worn herself out screaming. She had her head leaning on his shoulder, and when he glanced down, he could see that she still looked miserable. Her nose was red, her eyes swollen, and the tracks from her tears were glaringly obvious. Gently, Leo grabbed a handkerchief and wiped her cheeks. 

She buried her face in his shirt, balling her fists into the fabric. "Daddy," she whimpered. 

Leo's heart broke. He couldn't even reassure her that Daddy would be back...because he wouldn't. The transporters were broken, communications were broken, and there was a lunatic in the chair. They were going to die and she would never see Jim again. _He_ would never see Jim again... 

Addie looked up at him, her eyes shiny with tears. "Want Daddy," she said. 

"I know, sweetheart," Leo murmured, kissing her forehead. It occurred to him that Addie had just said her first complete sentence, or what passed for a complete sentence at this stage of development. She had also said _Daddy_ , not _Dada_ , which was a pretty impressive step. He stroked her hair and felt some small measure of pride, tempered with sadness. Jim should have been there to hear it. He should have had the opportunity to know... 

"Bridge to Medical." 

Leo looked up, startled. It took him a second to realize that the voice he had heard was not Decker's--it was _Spock's_. Which meant... 

He leaped forward and stabbed the intercom button. "Medical here," he said, trying to sound normal. "Spock, what--" 

"Commodore Decker is on his way down for medical evaluation," Spock interrupted. "However, if such an examination can be left to someone else...I should appreciate your presence on the bridge, Doctor." 

Which meant that they weren't out of the woods yet. Leo turned to Leder, raising his eyebrows enquiringly, and she nodded in confirmation. "I'm on my way, Spock." 

"Thank you, Doctor. Spock out." 

Leo shifted Addie to his hip and hurried out of Med Bay, practically sprinting for the lifts. As he did, he reminded himself not to taunt Decker, or say anything to him at all if he could help it. There was such a thing as professionalism, after all. But he didn't encounter Decker on his way to the bridge, which made him feel a little uneasy. Even on a ship this large, there were only so many ways to get to any one place.

He emerged onto the bridge a moment later to find a scene much closer to normal: Uhura at the communications board, which was blinking in a promising way, Slim at the Engineering board muttering to himself as he looked at several indicators at once, Sulu at the helm and Chekov at navigation, and--thankfully--Spock in the chair. Leo could see from the set of Sulu's shoulders that he was a good deal calmer now than he'd been even ten minutes previously. 

"Mr. Spock?" Leo said quietly, moving towards the chair. 

Spock looked up, and it seemed to Leo that there was a faint look of relief in his eyes. "Doctor McCoy. Ship-to-ship communications has been reestablished. Captain Kirk personally authorized Decker's removal from command." 

Leo breathed a sigh of relief--at least Jim was alive. "I didn't pass him on the way up here." 

Spock's eyebrows drew together. "That is most unusual. Perhaps--" 

"Sir," Sulu interrupted, his shoulders tensing again. "There's an unauthorized shuttlecraft launching..." 

"Stop it, Mr. Sulu," Spock said, sitting up straight. 

Sulu worked his board, then shook his head. "I can't--it's already gone." 

"Which shuttlecraft is it?" Spock asked. 

Sulu glanced over at Slim, who answered, "The _Einstein_." 

"Hail it, Lieutenant Uhura," Spock instructed. 

Uhura twisted a knob. A moment later, she nodded to Spock, who spoke. "Attention, shuttlecraft _Einstein_. You have made an unauthorized launch. Please return to the _Enterprise_ immediately."

Leo knew, instinctively, who would be responding, even before the eerily calm voice replied. "That's not going to happen, Mr. Spock. You were correct--nothing can damage that machine from the outside. So I'm taking this craft in. Ram it and myself right down that thing's throat." 

"Illogical, Commodore Decker," Spock said. He spoke in his usual calm voice, but Leo noticed his hands tighten on the arm of the chair. "What possible purpose can such an action attain?" 

"My crew..." Decker's voice broke. A moment later he spoke again. "Their deaths are on me. I've been ready to die ever since they did." 

"Matt!" Jim's voice cut in. Leo bit back a gasp of relief, his knees buckling slightly; Addie picked up her head and looked around. "Matt, don't be a fool--this won't do any good." 

"I've already been a fool, Jim," Decker replied. "I let my desire for revenge put your crew at risk. Perhaps this will balance the scales." 

"The death of one man, especially in pursuit of a vain goal, will not provide any sort of balance," Spock said. 

"Turn around, Matt," Jim pleaded. "Head back to the _Enterprise_. Trust me, I know how you feel, but there has got to be another way..." 

"The commander is responsible for the lives of his crew, and for their deaths," Decker said bitterly. "Well, I should have died with mine." 

Uhura whirled around, eyes wide. "Sir, Commodore Decker has just closed off communications!" 

"Captain, are you still in touch with the commodore?" Spock asked. He waited a beat. "Captain?" 

"He was communicating directly with the _Einstein_ , sir," Uhura said. "He can't hear us." 

Spock tensed. Without thinking, Leo put a hand on the first officer's shoulder, staring at the viewscreen. The little shuttlecraft, absurdly small before the machine, moved closer to the gaping maw. It was bright orange and glowing, less like a mouth and more like a portal to hell... 

The shuttle vanished. The glow increased briefly, then dimmed. 

"He's gone." Spock's voice was as blank as ever, but Leo, looking down, saw that he had definitely been emotionally affected. He looked pained. 

Leo gripped his shoulder gently. Spock looked up in surprise as Leo said, "He was obsessed with revenge, and carrying around a ton of guilt for the loss of his crew. But he wasn't insane. Maybe what he did wasn't a logical decision, but it was at least a reasoned one." 

Spock nodded and straightened. Leo, understanding, removed his hand. Turning to Uhura, Spock said, "Lieutenant, please hail the _Constellation_." 

Uhura nodded, tearing her gaze away from the viewscreen. After a moment, they heard Jim's voice, quiet and weary. "Kirk here." 

"Captain, may I offer my condolences on the death of your friend," Spock said. "It is most regrettable." 

"It's regrettable that he died for nothing," Jim said softly. 

Sulu turned around suddenly. "I wouldn't say that, sir." 

Spock stared at him. "What do you mean, Mr. Sulu?" 

"Sensors registered a slight drop in the planet-killer's emanations. They registered right after the shuttlecraft's explosion--do you think that has something to do with it?" 

"It might." Jim suddenly sounded a lot stronger. "Stand by, _Enterprise_." 

"Jim, what the hell are you up to?" Leo muttered, staring at the crippled hulk of the _Constellation_. There was no answer, not that he expected one. Jim was obviously communicating with Scotty and the damage control team. 

Slim turned around. "The transporters are back online, sir, but they're only at partial efficiency." 

"Are we within range to beam from the _Constellation?"_ Spock asked. 

"Not yet. Perhaps ten minutes." 

"Keep me posted," Spock told him. 

"Aye, sir." Slim turned back to his board. Leo couldn't help but be slightly impressed at how well Slim, with absolutely no training, could handle the position he'd been given, however minor. 

A moment later, Jim's voice came. "Kirk to _Enterprise_." 

"Spock here." 

"Mr. Spock, I don't have any sensors over here worth mentioning, so the instant I'm within transporter range, let me know." 

Leo breathed a sigh of relief. At last, Jim was seeing sense. Spock spoke blandly. "Acknowledged, Captain. May I ask your intent?" 

"Decker had the right idea, but the trouble was he just didn't have enough firepower. Scotty's rigging a thirty-second detonator switch on the _Constellation's_ impulse power reactor. I'm going to pilot this ship right down that machine's throat--and you'll have thirty seconds to beam the five of us out before the reactor blows." 

Leo swayed, catching himself on the chair again. Spock looked up, meeting Leo's eyes, and if he'd had room for anything but the overwhelming fear that had assailed him again, he would have been astonished at the emotion in Spock's face--a mirror of Leo's own concern and fear, albeit a touch more restrained. Spock swallowed and turned back to the viewscreen. "Jim, thirty seconds is very fine timing. The transporters are not at one hundred percent efficiency; our repairs were perforce rather hasty." 

It was a measure of Spock's concern that he addressed Jim in an official situation as anything other than _Captain_. Jim, thank God, seemed to realize that. "That's a chance I'll have to take. However, it does change things a little. Beam back Mr. Scott and the damage control party as soon as you're within range. I'll be the only one to stay on board until the last moment." 

Leo closed his eyes tightly, biting his lips to keep from crying out. Jim was right. Of course he was right. It was the only way, and he couldn't risk the lives of the rest of the crew. But to hear him say it... 

"Acknowledged," Spock said briefly. "May I point out one potential problem?" 

"Go ahead, Spock. Your advice is half your value." 

Leo opened his eyes as Spock said quietly, "It is not a flaw with your plan, necessarily. But your family is on the bridge. If we are unable to transport you off the _Constellation_ in time..." He trailed off, leaving the truth unsaid. If Jim didn't make it off the ship in time, he would die when the ship was consumed. And Leo, Slim, and Addie would be watching.

There was a long silence. When Jim spoke again, it was in a quiet, slightly cracked voice. "Bones?" 

"I'm here, Jim," Leo managed. 

"Bones, you know I wouldn't do this if there was any other way. It's our only chance. If I don't make it back--" Jim's voice broke. He gathered himself and tried again. "If I don't make it back, I'm counting on you to take care of our kids for me, okay?" 

"You know I will, Jim," Leo said softly. 

The communicator went silent for a long moment. Leo noticed Chekov getting fidgety and said quietly, "Mr. Spock, do you have any need of navigation for the next few minutes?" 

Spock looked up, one eyebrow raised. "We do not. Why do you ask?" 

In response, Leo bent over and set Addie down on her feet. "Go on, Addie, go see Uncle Chekov." 

Addie didn't want to let go of Leo's hand at first, but after a moment, she toddled over to Chekov and tugged on his sleeve. He scooped her up and set her on his lap, and she curled into him, sticking her fingers into her mouth and sucking on them. Leo watched the navigator visibly relax as he stroked Addie's short dark hair and knew he'd been right to send her over. Sulu threw him a grateful look over his shoulder. 

Slim turned around. "We're within beaming range, sir, but we don't have enough control over the transporters to pick four men out of five--and even if we did, we wouldn't know which four until they were already back onboard." 

"Acknowledged." Jim's voice came over the communicator, indicating that the connection hadn't been cut. "I'll leave the bridge. Make your pick-up in sixty seconds." 

Leo watched the chronometer tick down the seconds. At precisely the sixty-second mark, Spock gave the order to energize. A moment later, Slim muttered what sounded suspiciously like a curse word and turned around quickly. "They made it back safely, sir, but the transporter blew under the load." 

Spock quickly pressed the button that connected him with the transporter room. "Mr. Scott, how long will it take you to repair the transporter?" 

"I dinna ken, sorr." Scotty's brogue was thicker than usual, indicating how serious it was. "I maun wurk fas'. Stand by." 

Leo bit his lip hard, tasting coppery blood. His eyes fixed worriedly on the _Constellation as it moved slowly towards the planet-killer. Somewhere on there, Jim was sitting with a thirty-second detonator switch and the vague hope that he'd be able to get out of there in time. And Leo knew Jim. If it looked like things were going to get hairy--if it came down to it--he'd throw the switch even if the transporters weren't working._

Leo had finally gotten some hope back. He couldn't stand losing it again.

After what were probably the longest ten minutes of Leo's life, during which time the _Constellation_ drew nearer and nearer, Scotty's voice crackled over the intercom. "She's fixed, Mr. Spock, but I dinna think she'll last long. Better hurry." 

"Captain, did you hear that?" 

"I heard, Spock," Jim's voice replied. "Stand by." There was a ten-second pause, and then, "Beam me aboard!" 

Leo held his breath. After a moment, Jim spoke again, ominously. "Gentlemen, I suggest you beam me aboard." 

Scotty's voice then. "It's shorted out again!" 

"Fix it, Mr. Scott!" Spock snapped. "Quickly!" 

Jim's voice was frighteningly quiet when he spoke again. "Spock, Bones--the countdown is ticking. And I can't reverse it. I have twenty seconds--nineteen--eighteen--" 

"Jim," Leo cried, gripping the back of the chair again to keep from falling to his knees. Sulu reached over and grabbed Chekov's hand, both of them squeezing tightly. Addie, in Chekov's lap, began whimpering again. 

"Bones, I love you so much--" 

_"Mr. Scott!"_ Spock shouted, his voice actually cracking. 

"I've got it, sir!" Scott yelled. 

_"Energize!"_

Leo couldn't take his eyes off the viewscreen. Almost before the word had left Spock's mouth, the _Constellation_ disappeared into the mouth of the planet-killer. A split-second later, there was a vast, white-hot explosion that had everyone on the bridge flinching and shielding their eyes. Slim seemed the hardest hit, wincing, clutching his temples, and screwing up his face in obvious pain. But when Leo was able to look at the screen again, he could see that the fire was fading, and the planet-killer was no longer glowing. 

Quietly, he said, "Is it...?" 

"Radiation is still too intense to see properly, Doctor." Spock's voice was equally quiet. "But it is beginning to fade." 

Sulu studied the sensors in front of him. "All energy sources deactivated, sir. It's dead." 

Normally, everyone would have been cheering, but the mood on the bridge was subdued, one of dull relief and nothing more. Leo guessed that they, like him, weren't willing to celebrate their survival until they knew what the cost was. 

The hiss of the lift door seemed unusually loud. Leo turned around and couldn't hold back a gasp. _"Jim!"_

He lunged forward and threw his arms around Jim. Jim clung to him tightly, burying his face in Leo's shoulder, trembling harder than he had since being on the Kalandran outpost. Leo felt hot tears soaking into the shoulder of his shirt and didn't care, because he was crying, too. He'd been damned terrified--even setting aside the fact that he'd spent a lot of it sure they were all going to die with Decker at the conn, when he'd seen the _Constellation_ blow up, he'd been absolutely certain that Jim was still aboard her, that he'd just witnessed his husband's last moments. That Jim's last words had been the same as his father's. 

"I love you," he said, his lips against Jim's ear. 

"I love you, too," Jim answered, his voice still muffled in Leo's shirt. 

Abruptly, he jolted to one side. Leo pulled back slightly to look at him, worried, just as Jim lifted his head and looked down. He freed one hand from around Leo and reached down; Leo, following his gaze, saw Addie clinging tightly to Jim's leg, her face buried in his pants. "Daddy," she whimpered. 

"Daddy's right here, Addie," Jim whispered, his hand trembling as he ran it over her short black curls. He looked up then, turning his gaze to the Engineering console. An instant later, Slim joined the small huddle, his arms wrapped tightly around Jim's waist. Jim shifted his arm so that it was around both his son and Leo. The four of them stood for a long moment, clinging to one another, reaffirming that they were all here and alive and _safe_ at last. 

Finally, Jim drew back, slowly and reluctantly. He wiped his eyes, then said in an almost normal tone of voice, "Status, Mr. Spock?" 

"As I mentioned, Captain, repairs to the warp drive, shields, and--presumably--transporters will take one solar day," Spock replied. There was still an unusual amount of emotion in his voice. He hesitated, then added, "I am...gratified to know that Commodore Decker did not give his life in vain." 

"He died in the line of duty, Spock," Jim said quietly. "And my logs will reflect as such." 

"As it should be." 

From behind Leo came the sound of a throat clearing. He turned, startled, to see Scotty standing with the young ensign--Cayne, Leo remembered--who had been on the _Constellation_. Jim nodded. "Scotty, you needed something?" 

Scotty nudged Cayne, who took a deep breath. "Sir, about the transporters...Mr. Scott can't spare many engineers. He asked me how big a team I would need to repair them, and--well, sir, if you'll grant permission, I was hoping Sl--Thomas could give me a hand. Between the two of us, I think we can have them fully operational in a couple of hours. And that'll free up more people to get the warp drive and the shields repaired." 

Leo was surprised. He knew Scotty praised Slim's abilities with the engines, but he'd never known that any of the other engineers thought of him as anything but a nuisance. He looked at Jim, eyebrows raised. Jim hesitated, then nodded slowly. "If you feel up to it, Slim." 

"I do, sir." Slim seemed to have recovered. 

"Off you go, then." 

Slim nodded, patted Addie on the head, and followed Cayne off the bridge, Scotty right behind them. Spock's brows drew together. "Captain, are you certain--" 

"Yes," Jim interrupted. "I am." 

Spock let it go at that. Leo looked out the viewscreen again at the lifeless hulk of the planet-killer. "Ironic," he murmured. 

"What is, Doctor?" Spock asked. 

"Overloading the engines, rigging the ship to blow--essentially, the _Constellation_ was a hydrogen bomb. A version of a twentieth-century doomsday device...used to destroy a twenty-third century doomsday device." 

Jim scooped up Addie, settling her on his hip. "It worked. That's all that matters right now...Spock, you don't look particularly happy." 

Spock stepped back slightly, leaving Jim's path to the conn clear. "I was merely thinking about probability. Statistically, it is unlikely that whatever culture created this machine only created one. Likely there are several." 

"We can only hope that this is the only one active," Jim said, but Leo noticed he tightened his grip on Addie, just a little. 

"I agree." Spock raised one eyebrow. "I dislike having to deal with the same problem twice. It is...untidy." 

Leo snorted softly. Jim slid an arm around his waist, staring out the viewscreen, and Leo could tell that his thoughts were with Decker and his slaughtered crew. 

"I," he said softly, "prefer my problems tidy. It saves lives."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bones' line about the ship's surgeon traditional right to be on the bridge when he doesn't feel like being anywhere else is borrowed from the Star Trek: TNG novel Ghost Ship, which is fabulous and should be read by everyone.


	30. He Thought He'd Found His Home

It didn't surprise Slim in the slightest that things on the _Enterprise_ were still subdued, even twenty-four hours after the destruction of the planet-killer. He and Audra had, true to her prediction, repaired the transporters in a little over two hours, without speaking except occasionally to request tools or materials from one another--and that, often, was unnecessary, as both of them seemed to know what was needing before the other even began speaking. Once they were sure they were back to full operational status, by silent agreement, they had gone down to the engine room. Scotty, who was supervising the work on the warp drive, had sent both of them to work on the deflector shields. 

Slim hadn't wanted to stop work when the shift changed, but Scotty had quietly insisted. He and Audra had gone to the canteen, eaten without saying a word, and then gone back to their respective quarters, where Slim had barely had time to change into his pajamas and get into bed before he'd fallen into a deep sleep. 

His father, who still looked incredibly shaken even after what Leo privately assured Slim had been a good night's rest, had asked Slim to keep Addie all day, so he set himself to entertain his sister. Alone of everyone on the _Enterprise_ , she seemed unaffected by the events of the previous day--probably she was too little to really understand what had happened. She'd been scared because the grown-ups were scared, but her daddy and her papa were safe, so she was her usual sunny self. They'd had breakfast as a family, and he'd played with her in their quarters until lunch, then taken her down to the smaller gym, put on some music, and "danced" with her, practicing the waltz and foxtrot steps Uhura had taught him while his sister clung to his neck and giggled. 

They hadn't seen another soul all day. 

"Well, Addie, what now?" Slim asked, as the last song on the recording played itself out. Usually by now she was down for a nap, but she still seemed wide awake. 

Addie pointed upward. "'Tars!" 

It was the newest word in her vocabulary. Slim smiled. "All right. Let's go look at the stars." 

"Yay!" Addie clapped her hands together, bouncing a little. 

Slim debated picking her up and carrying her, then decided the walk might tire her out. He took her hand, letting her pull slightly as they headed for the lift. A few people were on it--Beta shift, just waking up and heading to the various canteens to have what for them was breakfast before it was time to report--and they nodded to Slim, who nodded back. Addie waved and jabbered at them in her own personal language, babble with one or two real words sprinkled into it. Nobody responded, but if Addie noticed, she gave no sign.

The observation deck was a level by itself, and Slim and Addie had it to themselves. He let go of her hand, allowing her to run across the room and press against the window, her mouth and eyes round as she stared at the bright stars moving past them. 

"'Tars," she said, pointing as Slim joined her. 

"That's right, Addie." Slim sat cross-legged on a low cushioned bench in the corner. Addie ran over to him, and he pulled her onto his lap. "How many stars can you see?" 

Addie frowned, her expression a smaller copy of Leo's. "'Tars," she said again. 

"Yes, they're stars. Let's count them together." Slim knew Addie didn't know her numbers yet, let alone how to count, but he took her hand and used it to point at some of the nearer stars as they passed them. "One, two, three, four, five..." 

When he got to ten, he stopped. "Ten stars! Just like Addie's fingers!" He uncurled her left hand and counted the five fingers on it, then did the same on her right. "See? Ten fingers." 

Addie giggled, then snuggled back against Slim's chest. He could feel her starting to get drowsy, so he wrapped his arms around her and began singing softly. It was a song he'd learned on the harmonica, a classic Earth cowboy song, one that every schoolchild still learned, even if they didn't always know what buffalo or antelope were. Or, for that matter, what a "range" was. But it was the fourth verse that had always held Slim's heart. _How often at night when the heavens are bright...with the light from the glittering stars...have I stood here amazed and asked as I gazed...if their glory exceeds that of ours..._

Addie's eyelashes fluttered, and she gave a soft, contented sigh. By the time Slim finished the last verse of the song, she was sound asleep. He shifted to make them both comfortable, smiling fondly at her. 

Jim had known what he was doing, telling Slim to spend the day with his sister. Maybe it was her cheerfulness, maybe it was doing something different than his usual routine, maybe it was just that he was needed. But he was a lot calmer and more relaxed than he'd been on the bridge the day before. He could almost put it where it belonged--in the past. 

If only he could forget what had happened when the _Constellation_ blew up.

He stroked Addie's hair absently, staring out at the stars. Really, he thought, he ought to take her back down to their quarters and put her in her cot. Alpha shift would be letting out soon, if it hadn't already, and Jim and Leo would probably go looking for them. As strung out as everyone was, they didn't need the added stress of not knowing where their children were. 

But he didn't move. Partly it was that he didn't want to disturb Addie. But mostly, it was just that the stars relaxed him, too. On Earth, he'd often gone outside at night and sat on the porch, or lain in the middle of a field, and stared up at the sky. Mr. Pinkerton had taught him the constellations, both Greco-Roman and Native American, and Mr. Minifee could name every star and planet visible in the western hemisphere and had imparted that knowledge to Slim. He knew how to find his way from anywhere in North America to anywhere he wanted, just by following the stars, even if the North Star wasn't visible. The stars were his friends--his family. He'd always felt more comfortable when he could see them. 

"Hey." 

Startled, Slim looked up and managed a small smile. Audra stood next to him, holding two bottles loosely in her right hand. "Hey," he said, keeping his voice low. 

Audra held up the bottles. "Mind if I join you?" 

"Go right ahead." Slim scooted over a little. Audra sat down and handed him one of her bottles. He glanced at the label--apple fizz. "How'd you know this was my favorite?" 

"I didn't. Honest engine." 

"Honest engine," Slim repeated. "I ain't heard that one since I left Oklahoma." 

"Me, neither." Audra popped the lid off her bottle with her thumb, caught it, and pocketed it. "But it's my favorite, so I reckoned you might like it. Glad I was right." 

Slim pried the lid off his own bottle and held it up. Audra tapped hers against his before they both took sips. For a few moments, they sat in silence, watching the stars pass by. 

At last, Audra spoke quietly. "Everything's repaired. We've got full warp and shields again." 

"That's good," Slim said. "Sorry I didn't come down today, but..." He gestured to Addie, who had twisted to curl against his chest. "Sister duty." 

Audra smiled softly. "That's okay. Family's important, too. I never had brothers or sisters, 'cept in foster homes." 

"It ain't the same," Slim said, positively. 

"You'd know." 

"How's Uncle Scotty?" 

Audra didn't seem startled at the abrupt change of subject, but then she probably understood his concern. "Doin' a lot better 'n he's been. I reckon what happened yesterday might've helped him a lot, actually." Unconsciously, both she and Slim had lapsed into the western drawl of their childhoods. 

"How d'you figure that?" Slim asked, frowning a little as he turned to face the ensign. 

"It ain't his fault, what happened to the Commodore," Audra said, taking a pull at her soda. "And nobody from the _Enterprise_ died. Not even your dad, an' let's be honest, we all thought he wasn't gonna make it off the _Constellation_ in time. But his delay-trigger worked right like it was s'pposed to, that--that _thing_ was destroyed, an' no one got hurt." 

Slim rubbed absently at his temple. "Reckon you're right." 

"Headache?" Audra asked, looking at him oddly. 

"Memory of one." 

"You're gonna have to explain that one, cowboy. Why're you rememberin' a headache?" 

Slim took a deep breath. "Audra--I felt it," he said softly. "It screamed in pain. It--I _felt_ it die. I--I don't know how else to explain it. But that's what happened. I swear I ain't makin' it up." 

Audra went white, staring at him. "I didn't reckon you were," she said, slowly. "But--Jesus, Slim. You heard...was it the planet-killer or the _Constellation?"_

"I ain't sure." Slim thought for a minute, trying to remember. There'd been the flash, and then the lance of pain through his mind, a silent scream echoing in his mind--no, _two_ screams. "Both of 'em, I think." 

"Lord a'mighty," Audra muttered, looking out at the expanse of space before them. "You...I thought you had to be touchin' a machine an'--an' _ask_ it to talk to you--" 

"So did I," Slim said. "And that ain't never happened before. I mean, I ain't never been around a dyin' starship or anythin', but...I never heard a machine scream." 

"Were there--any words?" 

Slim tried to think. "I--I don't remember. I wasn't really thinkin' about it at the time." 

Audra shook her head. "There ain't nothin' in the books about this, you know. I don't reckon anyone's ever had your gift before. Or if they have, they ain't ever shared it with anyone."

"You reckon I oughta tell someone?" Slim asked. "Like Dad, or Uncle Scotty...or Pa?" 

Audra was silent for a long moment, staring at her bottle of apple fizz. At last, she said softly, "No. I mean, at some point, sure, you oughta tell 'em. But I ain't sure now's the time. Scotty's only just gettin' over Keenser. An' the captain an' Doc McCoy...they looked dreadful shook up yesterday. You really wanna drop another bombshell on 'em?" 

"Not right now," Slim admitted. He sighed, taking another swig of his soda. "It ain't always this..." He gestured vaguely with his free hand, not sure exactly what word he was looking for. 

Thankfully, Audra understood. "I dunno. This is my first tour, remember? I graduated from the Academy, served a few months planetside, and came aboard the _Enterprise_ at the start of the mission, same 's you did. I ain't got anythin' to compare it to." She paused, then added, "Hope not, though. Maybe the rest of the mission'll be easier." 

"I sure as shootin' hope so." Slim looked down at his sister, then said softly, "I wouldn't want her gettin' orphaned. I mean...I know it's always a possibility, but..." 

"Yeah," Audra said, just as softly. "I know." 

They sat in silence for a while. Finally, Slim said, "How'd you know I was up here?" 

"Hmm?" Audra started, looking at him. 

"You turned up here with two bottles of soda, like you were expectin' me. How'd you know?" 

"Oh." Audra blushed furiously. "Actually...I didn't." 

Slim looked down at the soda in his hand and started blushing, too. "I didn't mean to--" 

"No, no, I offered," Audra said quickly. "I was sorta hopin' to run into you at some point. But...I came up here because I like it." She looked out at the viewscreen. "I've never been happier 'n I am when I'm workin' in Engineering...but I've never felt more at home 'n I do when I can see the stars." 

"I can understand that. I feel the same way." 

"Yeah?" Audra looked sideways at Slim. 

Slim nodded. "Yeah. I was just thinkin', 'fore you came in, 'bout how when I was growing up, I'd go out and look at the sky, whenever I felt most alone. I didn't even know my mother was in Starfleet back then, but...I dunno." He looked out at the stars again. "Reckon I always knew I belonged out here." 

“We’re all of us made of stardust,” Audra said softly, looking back out at the stars. “Some of us just remember it better ‘n others.” 

“That a quote?” It sounded familiar to Slim. 

“Not a famous one. It’s somethin’ my daddy used to say to me.” Audra smiled slightly. “When I was real little. He was a farmer, never really wanted to go off anywhere. But I reckon he always knew I’d wind up in space.”

"You're in it for life, then?" Slim asked, curious. 

Audra hesitated. "Now, I don't know 'bout that. Reckon that depends on you." 

"On me?" Slim, inexplicably, blushed. 

Audra blushed, too. "Not--I didn't mean it like that!" She mumbled something under her breath before continuing hastily. "I just mean--you an' Addie, you're the experiment, right? The test. To see if there's a future in havin' families on starships. I really want a family someday. But I ain't gonna go off in space an' leave my kids behind. So I reckon--well, if this works, you an' your sister, I'll stay in. Raise a family among the stars. If not, I'll stay on Earth, or on a colony or somethin'. Maybe try for a space station posting if I want to stay in Starfleet." 

Slim rubbed the back of his neck. "I c'n understand that. Never thought about it, really," he admitted. "Addie an' I are lucky, real lucky. If our dad was anyone other 'n James Tiberius Kirk, they'd've let him quit Starfleet an' we'd've had to stay in San Francisco. It would've been another eight years 'fore I could've seen all this." He gestured at the panorama before them. 

"An' we might never have met," Audra pointed out. 

"That, too," Slim agreed. He looked sideways at her and smiled shyly. "I'm right glad we did." 

Audra smiled back. "Me, too." 

Addie shifted in her sleep, slipping three fingers into her mouth and sucking at them. Slim adjusted his position to make her more comfortable. "Glad she finally dropped off. Usually she's just gettin' up from her nap about now, but she had way too much energy today. Not sure why." 

"'Cause she was gettin' to hang out with her big brother," Audra said. "She got to be a 'big girl.'" 

"Well, maybe." Slim grinned. "I half-expected her to fall asleep while we were dancin', but I swear it just made her wake up more." 

Audra raised her eyebrows. "Dancin'? What kind of dancin'?" 

"Ballroom," Slim answered. "Aunt Nyota's been teachin' me." 

"Oh, yeah--I remember her givin' you the shoes for your birthday. Waltz? Tango? Rumba?" 

"The waltz an' the foxtrot, so far." 

"Never learned the foxtrot. Rawlins didn't do that one." 

It was Slim's turn to raise his eyebrows. "Who's Rawlins?" 

"Henry Rawlins," Audra explained. "Dance instructor at Starfleet Academy. I took it as an elective my first semester, an' I liked it so much I kept doin' it." 

Slim grinned. "Reckon I'll do the same, then. If they're still offerin' it by then." 

Audra grinned back. "They will. An' Rawlins'll be glad. Never enough guys sign up for the class." 

"Wonder why?" Slim mused. "It's fun." 

"Dunno." Audra shrugged. "But you'll be his top student, I bet." 

"How would you know?" Slim shot back. "You ain't ever seen me dance." 

"Only one way to change that, cowboy," Audra retorted. And then she blushed again, clapping a hand to her mouth.

Slim was trying to come up with an appropriate response to that when a voice spoke behind him. "Everything all right?" 

Slim and Audra both jumped--for a wonder, Addie didn't stir--and turned to see Jim standing behind them, looking tired but smiling slightly. "Oh--hi, Dad," Slim said, feeling a blush start and wishing he knew why. "Yeah, everything's fine. Aud--we were just talkin'." 

"Nothing wrong with that. Did Addie behave herself today?" 

"Sure did," Slim answered. "Only real weird thing was she didn't go down for her nap like usual. I thought dancin' would wear her out, but it didn't. She wanted to see the stars, so..." 

Jim nodded, eyes crinkling in a grin. "She's a Kirk, all right. Can't get enough of space." 

"I don't blame her, sir," Audra said softly, looking back out the window. 

Jim reached over Slim's shoulder and carefully lifted Addie into his arms. "I'd better go put her down in her cot...Slim, if you want to stay up here, you can, but I was hoping you'd be interested in a game of chess." 

Slim enjoyed chess, and he didn't really want to say no to his father anyway, and he also had a feeling if he stayed put he'd just end up blushing again. "I'd love to," he said, getting to his feet and giving Audra a quick smile. "See you 'round, Audra." 

Audra smiled back. "See you 'round, Slim." 

Jim didn't say anything until they were in the lift, at which point he turned to Slim with a grin. "So she's the one, huh?" 

"What one, Dad?" Slim asked. Darn it all, he was blushing again. 

"For the last month or so, you've been singing the same couple of songs over and over again. I can't always hear the lyrics properly, but the tunes get stuck in my head and I can usually find someone who knows what they are. And they've all been love songs." Jim's grin broadened. "And every once in a while, you get this look on your face--a look I haven't seen since we left Miri." 

It actually took Slim a minute to remember who Miri was. "Oh," he said. "Yeah. I forgot about her." 

"Boy, you've got it _bad,"_ Jim said, raising an eyebrow. 

"I don't know what you're talking about," Slim protested. His voice jumped an octave as he spoke. It was still changing, but it usually stayed pretty consistent unless he was under stress. 

Jim placed a hand on Slim's shoulder, supporting Addie with the other arm. "I'm teasing you, Slim. But seriously. I'm not asking as captain, I'm asking as your father--do you have a crush on Ensign Cayne?" 

"I never really thought about it," Slim admitted. He sure was now, though. They'd only really been talking since Keenser died, at least about things other than engineering. But she'd told him her first name, offered to let him call her that almost immediately, and he'd told her to call him by his nickname. She was the only person outside the senior command that he really felt comfortable around. He tended to blush a lot when they were talking, and when she'd made her comment about seeing how he danced, a solution had sprung immediately to mind that may or may not have been what she had in mind. "Reckon I do." 

Jim's expression grew serious. "Far be it from me to presume to dictate matters of the heart, but...remember, you're only fourteen." 

Slim considered whether or not to point out that he was only eighty days from his fifteenth birthday but decided against it. "I know, Dad. An' Audra's twenty already. I won't do anythin' stupid." 

"You wouldn't be my son if you didn't do anything--wait, she's only twenty?" Jim blinked, obviously startled. "That can't be right--she was just out of the Academy when she came aboard, she has to be at least--" 

"She got into the Academy early, an' she's five an' a half years older 'n I am. She's twenty." 

Jim shook his head. "You'd think that would be something I'd have known," he mumbled. In a more normal tone of voice, he said, "I don't mean to imply that I don't think you've got any sense. I know you do. You're a lot more sensible about--a lot of things--than I was at your age. I just don't want you to get hurt. So promise me one thing, all right?" 

"Anything," Slim said, looking up at his father. 

"Just promise me you'll stop if things get uncomfortable. I don't care what the situation is, or who else is involved. If you ever feel uncomfortable, if you ever feel like things are going too fast--I want you to promise me that you won't just go along with it because you think it's what's expected of you." 

Slim had never seen his father looking so serious, about anything--not even the most dire tactical situations had brought that level of intensity. "I promise, Dad." 

"Good." Jim relaxed visibly and smiled again. "You want to be white or black?"


	31. A Rambler

It was a rare evening when Jim found himself alone in quarters. But Slim had his fencing lesson--after dinner, unusually, but Spock had given him target practice during his usual fencing time--and Bones had insisted that Addie needed a routine check-up. He'd also insisted that Jim, who was admittedly less than thrilled with medical procedures in general, not be present while Bones held their daughter and M'Benga performed the physical. He was off-duty, everything was in the clear, there had been no communications from Starfleet, and there were no discipline or morale problems being reported. Even his paperwork was, for once, up to date. 

Jim had no idea what to do. His choices were somewhat limited. He could go up to the gym and watch Slim and Sulu pretend to try and kill each other. He could try to interest himself in a book, although half the pleasure in reading was in curling up next to Bones while they both read or in sitting with his arm around his son and his daughter in his lap while they read aloud. He could find Spock and persuade him into a game of chess. 

Or... 

His eyes strayed to the closet. Inside it was a black case, containing an object that, as he'd told Slim, he hadn't touched in quite some time. Certainly not on this trip. His fingers twitched slightly, eager to touch wood and steel again. Making up his mind, Jim got to his feet, crossed over, and pulled out the case, opening it to expose its contents. 

It was a Zemaitis guitar, somewhat battered and definitely old but lovingly maintained. It had been passed down in his mother's family for generations, tracing back to (according to family legend, which couldn't always be trusted) a young man who'd played bars in Nashville until a not-yet-famous singer overheard him and offered him a spot in the band, from whence he had catapaulted to stardom. Most members of the family had treated it as a treasured museum piece, tending to it but seldom touching it. But James Bennett, the grandfather for whom Jim had been named, had left it in his will to his one and only daughter, and Winona had given it to Jim for his thirteenth birthday after his guitar teacher had (apparently) raved about his skill with the instrument. She hadn't cared that he'd wanted to play it instead of admire it from afar--in fact, she'd encouraged that. 

Jim had a lot of good memories about strumming and singing to this instrument. He and his mother had played duets, her on the piano and him on the guitar and both of them smiling and feeling closer than they had in years. He'd paid for his motorbike, the one he'd abandoned in Riverside, with money he'd earned playing in smoke-filled bars. He'd impressed Bones, a couple months after they met, by strumming a series of intensely complicated bluegrass pieces and even a couple of classical pieces. He remembered the astonishment and--yes--pride in Pike's eyes when Jim played "Looking for Space" at the party he'd thrown after giving Jim the _Enterprise._ Thought of all the nights he'd played love songs for Bones.

_Music speaks when words cannot._ He'd told Chekov that once, years ago. It had always been Jim's escape, his way of expressing things he couldn't say. And yet he hadn't played his guitar since finding out he was a father, hadn't even sung a lullaby to his daughter. Maybe he was learning how to express himself normally. Or maybe he was forgetting. 

Fighting back the momentary panic--that he might have forgotten something so important to him--Jim quickly twisted the tuning pegs, plucking the strings softly until he was sure the guitar was in tune. He played a couple of quick chords. Satisfied, he sat on the edge of the couch, found his fingering, and began to play. 

Bones teased him about his love for twentieth-century music, but the truth was that Jim's love of the music had started with the family legend about Winona's great-great-great-grandfather, Monty Allen, owning the guitar Jim now held in his hands. That love had only intensified when he'd actually learned to _play_. He enjoyed more modern music, too, but acoustic guitars had gone out of fashion more than fifty years before Jim was born and most songs didn't sound right without the proper equipment. 

He warmed up with an instrumental, a rendition of Chopin's _Prelude in A Minor_ that his mother had always particularly loved, before launching into a medley of his favorite Alan Jackson songs. Not the ones about heartbreak and loss--"Monday Morning Church" was a gorgeous song, but something he tried not to think of because it reminded him of his mother breaking down in tears on what would have been her silver wedding anniversary--and there were plenty with references he didn't understand. History classes were all well and good, but somehow he didn't think that the stark references in his sixth grade textbook to the first major disaster of the twenty-first century in the United States of America gave him the proper frame of mind to understand the emotions behind "Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning." 

But the love songs, and the songs about country living-- _those_ Jim understood. After a few minutes, he felt himself relaxing, all the tension that had unconsciously built up in the last fourteen months melting away. God--had they _really_ been in space for fourteen months? As he shifted from "Chattahoochee" into "Chasin' That Neon Rainbow," the part of his mind that wasn't focused on the chords counted back. Yes--just about that. Addie had been born on Stardate 2270.23, nineteen days after Jim's thirty-seventh birthday and fifty days earlier than expected. Jim and Bones had managed to arrive the next day, due to a combination of transporters and a very fast (and recklessly-piloted) shuttle. The _Enterprise_ had returned to Earth on 2270.32. Jim had found out about Slim on 2270.41, he'd arrived in their lives on 2270.46, and they'd set off on their mission on 2270.60. In Earth reckoning, March the first. 

Today was Stardate 2271.122. Exactly sixty days before Slim's fifteenth birthday. Jim wondered if they should give his son another party or let it slide. It occurred to him to wonder what Slim wanted. They'd thrown him the party because both Jim and Uhura had been indignant that he'd never had one, but had it ever occurred to either of them to ask him if he _wanted_ a fuss made over him? It was the whole Starfleet Academy thing all over again. They'd just _assumed_ that Slim would want the same things they would have at his age. 

Jim paused and shook out his fingertips as he reached the end of the song. His callouses had started to soften over the past year or so, and he was frankly surprised that the steel strings hadn't caused them to start bleeding. But that didn't seem to be an issue. Readjusting his fingers on the frets, he began picking out a slower song, a higher song, and then started singing along softly. _"Remember when I was young and so were you..."_

It wasn't a song he'd exactly planned on singing in his medley, inasmuch as he'd planned any of this. But the rest of the songs he'd been singing were the faster ones, the "fun" ones. "Remember When" was a ballad, a song dripping with nostalgia. And, up until recently, it was a song he hadn't understood, not completely. He and Bones had experienced a lot of the things in the song, but there was one verse that he'd never really _known_ until recently. 

_Remember when the sound of little feet...was the music we danced to week to week..._

He didn't notice that the door had slid open until played the end of the song and heard applause. Jumping, he looked up to see Slim, Chekov, and Sulu standing in the doorway, clapping. Bones stood behind them, grinning and holding Addie on his hip. She giggled and clapped her hands together. "Yay, Daddy!" 

Jim felt his cheeks growing hot. "How long have you been standing there?" he demanded. 

"Since about verse three," Bones said, his grin broadening. "Think it was the third one. The one about the little feet?" 

"No, that's the fourth. Third verse is _Remember when old ones died and new were born."_ Jim set aside the guitar and stood up, directing a smile at his daughter. "Hi, pumpkin." 

Addie grinned, showing off her small pearly white teeth. "Daddy." She pointed to the guitar. "Dat?" 

"It's a guitar," Jim told her, picking it up. 

"'Taw?" Addie looked at the guitar, puzzled, then up at the ceiling. 

" _Gui_ -tar," Jim repeated, slowly and distinctly. 

" _Git_ -taw," Addie said back to him. 

Bones kissed her on the top of her head. "Good girl!" 

Addie smiled happily, then pointed at the guitar again. "Git-taw," she said, then looked at her father. "Git-taw." 

"Yes, sweetheart, it's a guitar," Jim said. 

Addie looked frustrated and pointed again. "Git-taw," she said emphatically, then started babbling. At least, Jim _thought_ she was babbling. 

Slim grinned at his sister, then looked up at Jim. "She wants you to play for her, Dad." 

"Oh." Jim realized that Addie had been singing one of the little songs Slim was always singing to her. "All right." He sat back down and picked up the guitar. "The rest of you can come in, if you want." 

Bones sat on the couch next to Jim. Sulu and Chekov managed to squeeze into the armchair together, which made Jim smile slightly. Slim chose to sit on the floor. Jim checked the tuning pegs on the guitar, then asked the group at large, "Any requests?" 

"Git-taw," Addie said. Evidently she was quite proud of her new word. 

Bones laughed, settling her back on his lap. "How 'bout that one you won the karaoke contest with that time, what was it--'Shipmates and Cheyenne?'" 

"Oh, God, yeah." Jim recalled both the incident and the song, which was truthfully one of his favorites. He played a few rhythmic chords, then began singing the old folk song. It was a little wistful, the tune repetitive, but Jim had always loved it.

Slim closed his eyes as the music played on, a faint smile on his face. To Jim's surprise, when he sang the chorus for the second time, the boy joined in. _I'll hold me one...just one rising sun...'til long after daylight is gone... ___

"You know John Denver?" Jim asked, pleased, as he finished the song. 

"Yeah," Slim said, opening his eyes. "The Talbots had an antique--I think they called it a 'record player?' Relic from the mid-twentieth century, anyway. They had a whole bunch of John Denver records, used to play 'em all the time." 

Jim was glad his son had _some_ pleasant memories of his foster families, anyway. "Well, in that case, recognize this one?" He started playing a series of plucked notes, running up and down a simple scale, little more than broken chords. 

The grin on Slim's face was pure Kirk, half smirk of triumph and half genuine delight. He came in at more or less the appropriate time. In truth, "Cowboy's Delight" was one of those songs Jim would have _expected_ a country boy from Oklahoma to know, but it was still a pleasure to listen. Jim joined in with half-remembered harmonies. 

When they finished, Addie clapped her hands. "Yay!" 

Chekov smiled, his whole face lighting up, making him look younger than his twenty-nine years. "I agree with Addie." 

"You've got a good voice, Slim," Sulu complimented the boy. 

Slim blushed. "John Denver's still in my range, I reckon. Low enough that I don't crack at odd times." 

"And high enough that you can hit the notes," Jim added. "I remember those days." 

"How long did it take your voice to finish changin'?" Slim asked. 

Jim hesitated, trying to remember. "Three months, I think. Started cracking around the end of eighth grade, but it had settled down by the time I started high school." 

"You would," Bones said with a good-natured grumble. "I cracked and squeaked for two years before I hit my growth spurt and everything evened out." 

Slim gave a theatrical groan. "Two _years?"_

"It's not likely you'll take after me, Slim," Bones pointed out. "We're not blood relatives." 

"Oh, yeah, I forgot."

Jim couldn't suppress a grin at the look on Bones' face. Slim had spoken absently, but with no evidence of guile. He really _had_ forgotten that he and Bones weren't really related--that he, unlike Addie, had not been genetically created in a laboratory. And Bones was genuinely astonished by that. 

To be frank, Jim wondered why he _wasn't_ astonished by that. Slim looked nothing like Bones. He couldn't have been anyone's son but Jim's. Spock Prime had even said he was _exactly_ identical to the Jim Kirk he had known in his youth. Yes, he was quieter than Jim was, less reckless, but he was still a Kirk, and that much was obvious. He and Bones didn't share anything beyond a tendency to drop the terminal G's from their gerunds and present participles. In theory, Jim should have been as startled as Bones that Slim tended to forget. 

But after what Slim had said, the night he was sick, about his mother's father, Jim understood. Blood didn't mean anything. Slim's grandparents had made it clear that they didn't want him. Bones had made it clear from the beginning that he _did._ Love was the most important thing to Slim. Bones loved Slim, therefore they were family. And the line between "family" and "blood relative" was a fuzzy one. Natural that it should blur, or even disappear entirely, from time to time. 

Addie turned to look at Slim with a bright, happy smile. "'Lim?" she asked--obviously asking a question, not just saying his name. She pointed at his mouth and babbled. 

Slim smiled broadly and got to his feet. "Be right back." In the doorway to his room, he paused, then asked over his shoulder, "Hey, Dad, do you know 'Song of Wyoming?'" 

"Sure do," Jim said, surprised. It was one he seldom played on guitar, but he loved singing it--it made him think of home, even though he was from Iowa. He'd actually won a karaoke contest once with that song, just after their first five-year mission. 

"Git-taw," Addie said, looking up at her father. 

Jim decided not to wait for Slim to come out. He took a second to remember how the song began, then started playing. Addie's eyes got huge as Jim sang, drawing out the phrases lovingly, putting the best western spin he could on it. 

He almost lost his place at the end of the second line when he heard a long, quavering note sound through the air. Looking up, his eyes met Slim's. The boy had gone into his quarters and retrieved the harmonica that had once been Christopher Pike's, and had joined in. Jim couldn't hold back the grin that split his face as he remembered the next note and started in again. 

There was a moment of silence when they finished, broken only by Addie clapping. "Yay!" 

Sulu and Chekov applauded, too. Bones simply smiled softly. "You two sound good together."

Jim raised his eyebrows at his son with a grin. "Want to try a couple more?" 

Slim looked uncertain. "I dunno, Dad. I don't know too many songs, and the ones I do know are mostly old cowboy songs, campfire songs, that sort of thing." 

"What songs _do_ you know?" Jim asked, patting the arm of the sofa. 

Slim took the hint and perched on it, keeping back so he wouldn't hit the neck of Jim's guitar. "Like I said, mostly old cowboy songs. 'Goodbye, Old Paint,' 'Home on the Range,' 'Red River Valley,' that kind of thing." 

"Okay, since I don't know any of those, what songs do you know that aren't more appropriate to an episode of--of _Gunshoot?"_ Jim said. 

_"Gunsmoke,"_ Slim corrected, apparently automatically. He blushed, but didn't apologize for the correction--which Jim presumed could be considered progress. "Um, I know most of Neil Young's songs, a couple of Bob Dylan songs..." 

Jim shook his head. "Maybe if you told me titles, I'd be able to guess, but I don't know either of those singers." Bob Dylan was ringing a faint bell, but not one he could really be sure of. 

Slim rattled off a list of titles, only about four of which Jim even recognized and only one of which he knew the chords to. "Sorry, Slim, the only one of those I know is 'The Times They Are a-Changing.' What else do you know?" 

Slim looked down at the harmonica in his cupped hands. "Oh. Um. 'Katmandu,' 'Moon River,' 'Good Vibrations,' 'He Stopped Loving Her Today...'" 

"I know that one, but I'm not singing it." The song, considered one of the greatest country music songs of all time, hit a little too close to home for Jim. 

"Uh, there's 'He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother,' but that has a piano part..." 

Jim chuckled. "Mom and I used to play that one a lot when I was just learning to play. You're right, though, the piano part is kind of important." He sighed. "Sorry, Slim, I thought this would be easier." 

"It shouldn't be too hard to find music," Sulu pointed out. "I bet there's some in the ship's library." 

"We'll look later," Jim assured his son. 

Slim blushed. "Thanks, Dad. I'd like that. I mean, I know some instrumental pieces, too, but I didn't reckon that was what you had in mind, so--" 

"I don't mind just playing. My voice could use a rest anyway." Jim smiled. "Are we talking bluegrass here, or--?" 

"Couple of bluegrass pieces, couple of classical pieces, but mostly jazz." 

"I don't know jazz, but I do know classical and bluegrass. Why don't you start?"

Slim's blush deepened. He stared at the harmonica for a minute, then suddenly gave that smile again, the one that Bones always preempted with a stern _Whatever it is you're thinkin', Jim, the answer is no._ Before Jim could say anything, Slim played a series of notes that Jim at first thought he'd misheard. He looked up at Slim, startled, but Slim just grinned, the harmonica still hovering just in front of his mouth, the look in his eyes clear. _Your move, Dad._

Jim plucked out the same series of notes on his guitar, letting the last note quiver in the air. 

Slim's grin broadened. He played another, very similar riff; Jim echoed it. They went back and forth for a minute or two, before Slim played eight notes that nearly any Terran would have recognized instantly. Indeed, Sulu and Bones were both grinning before Slim had finished the phrase. Only Chekov looked confused as Jim, grinning as well, repeated the notes. And then they were off, playing one of the goofiest pieces Jim had ever learned. Chekov's jaw dropped as Slim flew through the complicated riffs and phrases, the harmonica going back and forth so quickly it was a wonder his lips didn't catch on fire. 

Sulu started clapping along, grinning. Bones couldn't clap with Addie on his lap, but he jiggled his leg in time to the music, bouncing Addie. She giggled and tried to clap along, too, her rhythm not quite as good as Sulu's but close. Jim watched her out of the corner of his eye and remembered Slim telling him that Addie was starting to sing along with his lullabies. It was pretty easy to tell that she had the family flair for music. 

At last, Slim and Jim ended the piece with the traditional ending, a shared chord. Jim shook out his fingers and Slim was panting slightly, but both of them were grinning ear to ear. The listeners clapped. 

"Zat was brilliant," Chekov said, his eyes sparkling. 

Sulu laughed. "I've never heard 'Dueling Banjos' played on the harmonica before." 

"It ain't easy," Slim said, a little breathlessly. "Lotta tonguing involved. I don't reckon I could do it more 'n once in a blue moon. But it's a fun one."

"How about something a little slower?" Bones suggested. "It's kind of late. Probably time Little Mischief here was tucked up in bed." 

Jim thought for a minute. "What classical pieces do you know, Slim?" 

"Mostly faster ones, but--" Slim paused. "Do you know Pachelbel's _Canon?"_

Jim's eyes widened in surprise. It was his mother's absolute favorite song, one he'd played with her time and again in his teenage years. "You mean this one?" He began strumming softly, perhaps a little slower than usual. 

Slim smiled. "Yeah." He joined in, also keeping it soft, drawing out the notes in a languid way. 

It was obvious, as they played, that this was one of Slim's best pieces. He closed his eyes, the music of his harmonica blending with the tones of Jim's guitar. Addie settled back against Bones' chest, obviously comfortable, a sleepy smile on her rosebud lips. To Jim's amusement, Chekov, too, seemed to be falling under the spell of the music. His head dropped onto Sulu's shoulder, his long eyelashes fluttering. 

The last notes faded away into silence. After a moment, Addie said softly, "Yay." 

Bones kissed the top of her head. "Apparently that's not an adequate lullaby." 

"Works on navigators, though," Jim said softly, a twinkle in his eyes. Chekov had lost the fight to remain conscious and was breathing lightly in his sleep, curled against Sulu's side. 

Sulu chuckled lightly, running a hand over Chekov's curls. "I don't suppose the composer was Russian, was he?" 

"Pachelbel? No, he was German. Baroque." 

"And you know what they always say--if it's not Baroque, don't fix it," Sulu said with a twinkle in his eye.

"Did you just quote _Beauty and the Beast?"_ Jim laughed. 

"What's _Beauty and the Beast?"_ Slim asked. 

Sulu's eyebrows shot up. "You've never--oh, we are _so_ fixing that. It's an old Disney movie from the late twentieth century." 

"You _do_ know who Disney is, don't you?" Jim added. 

Slim blushed, but nodded. "Sure. They showed a lot of the older films at the Roxie. But I ain't seen any of the ones that came out after--uh--I think _Pete's Dragon_ is the newest one I've seen." 

"That's a good one," Bones agreed. "Either of you two men of the world ever seen it?" 

"No, never," Sulu and Jim said in unison. 

"Blend of live action and animation. Great music." Bones looked up at Jim. "Main character reminds me of you." 

"Pete or the dragon?" Jim asked, grinning. 

"Pete. He's had a rough life an' he's been pretty beaten down, but he's still optimistic, still willin' to look on the bright side." Bones smiled slightly. "Still willin' to trust an' love." 

"Would that make you Elliot, Pa?" Slim asked. 

Jim figured Bones would laugh, but instead, his husband just looked thoughtful. "No...no, I don't think so," he said slowly. "I think I'm more Nora than I am Elliot. If anyone was Elliot, it was Christopher Pike." 

Jim was a little startled. Slim thought for a minute, then slowly smiled. "An' that right there tells me just about everythin' I need to know 'bout Christopher Pike. What he was like, I mean." 

"Yeah," Bones said. "Yeah, I'd say so." 

Jim swallowed, trying to keep his tone light. "Okay, I need to see this movie. Anyone up for a marathon in a couple of days? We could get the whole senior command in on it." He raised his eyebrows at Slim and added, "Maybe your friend Cayne would want to come, too." 

Slim blushed, but only said, "Maybe."

Addie shifted on Bones' lap and pointed to Slim's harmonica. "Git-taw?" 

"No, sweetie, it's a harmonica," Slim said absently. 

Jim wondered how she would cope with that word. Her vocabulary consisted of one- and two-syllable words, and she had trouble with her R's, pronouncing them as W's. Addie frowned, obviously puzzled. "Mo'ka?" she said at last. 

"Close enough." Slim smiled. He hesitated, then brought the instrument up to his mouth and began to play. 

The music was beautiful. Jim had never heard it before, and he closed his eyes, listening. He assumed it was one of those old cowboy songs, but then there was an additional sound on top of it--soft, but slightly off-key. Bones was singing along. 

Surprised, Jim turned to look at his husband. He'd never heard the song before, but it was evidently one Bones knew well. The words were simple and poignant, filled with love and longing. As Bones sang, he stroked Addie's hair lightly, cradling her to his chest. Slim quieted his music, shifting his pace to accommodate Bones' singing. Jim felt something clutch at his heart as the words sank in. _I'll draw a ray of hope around you...circling in the air...lighted by a prayer..._

"That was beautiful," he said softly as the song ended. 

Bones pressed a light kiss to Addie's cheek, then stood, cradling their now-sleeping daughter. "I'll be right back," he mumbled without looking at Jim. 

Jim was a little confused. He looked at Slim. "What was that song?" 

Slim wiped the mouthpiece of the harmonica on his sleeve. "It's called 'Candle On the Water.' Most famous song from _Pete's Dragon_. When Nora's singin' it, she's thinkin' about her fiancé, who's been lost at sea for a year. Her dad told her she needs to be realistic an' realize he ain't comin' back, but she won't give up on him." 

"Oh." Jim's stomach twisted. _"Oh."_ It was a beautiful song, but he could understand now why Bones hadn't looked at him on his way out. From the way Sulu's arm tightened, almost imperceptibly, around Chekov's shoulders, he could tell that the helmsman was thinking the same thing.

Bones came out of Addie's room. "She's out like a light. Don't think we'll be hearin' from her for the rest of the night." 

"Good." Jim gave Bones a warm smile. 

Sulu glanced down at Chekov, his expression softening. It was a look Jim knew well--one Bones often gave Jim, when he thought Jim couldn't see him. "I probably ought to get him out of here before he spends the whole night curled up in your living room." 

"We wouldn't mind, but the two of you would probably wake up awfully stiff," Jim said. 

"Yeah." Sulu managed a smile, then shook Chekov's shoulder. "Pasha, wake up." 

Chekov muttered something in his sleep, burrowing deeper into Sulu. The helmsman chuckled. "Pavel, c'mon, you can't sleep here," he said, a little louder. 

Still Chekov didn't stir. Jim winked at Sulu. "Here, let me give you a hand." He set aside his guitar, crossed the room, and leaned over to speak in the navigator's ear. _"Mr. Chekov, what's our heading?"_

"Huhwah?" Chekov jolted upright. The top of his head impacted with Jim's chin, making an audible _click_. Jim promptly bit down on his tongue, _hard._

Sulu covered his mouth with his hand, but Jim could see by the navigator's eyes that he was trying valiantly not to laugh. "Are you all right, sir?" 

"I deserved that," Jim mumbled, rubbing his jaw. 

Chekov looked bewildered and slightly terrified. "Wh-what--" 

"You fell asleep," Sulu told him. He managed to maneuver himself out of the armchair, pulling Chekov to his feet. "C'mon, let's go." 

"Are you all right, Mr. Chekov?" Jim asked, his voice slightly thicker than normal. 

"Just fine, Keptin," Chekov answered. 

Bones smothered a smile. "Night, you two." 

"Night," Slim added. 

Once the two younger officers had left, Bones got up and crossed over to Jim. "Let me see," he said, taking hold of Jim's chin gently. 

Obediently, Jim opened his mouth, sticking out his tongue. Bones inspected it. "You're all right. Didn't break the skin. It's probably gonna be sore for a bit, but you'll live." 

"Will you kiss it and make it all better?" Jim asked, smirking slightly. 

"That sounds like my cue to leave," Slim said from behind Bones. 

Jim winced. "Sorry, son, I forgot you were there." 

"It's okay, Dad." Slim grinned. "If you don't mind, I'm gonna go ahead and take my shower." 

"Go right ahead. Let me know when you're out and we can read another couple of chapters." 

Slim nodded and headed for the bathroom.

The rest of the evening passed normally. Jim and Bones played a game of backgammon (which Bones preferred to chess, presumably because Spock disliked it) while they waited for Slim to finish in his shower. Jim went into his son's room, sat on the edge of his bed, and read the next two chapters of _Jurassic Park_ , which they were both enjoying even if the science that made up the initial premise was laughable. He tucked his son in with a kiss, even though fourteen was really too old for such babyish rituals, then turned out the lights for him and went into his own bedroom. 

Bones was already in bed, wearing a pair of sweatpants he'd had since his college days, lying on his side and not really looking at the door. Jim quickly stripped down to the grey cotton trousers he used as pajamas. "Lights, two percent," he said, sliding into bed. 

The lights dimmed obediently. Jim slid his hand over Bones' shoulder. "Bones," he murmured in his husband's ear. 

Bones rolled over and clung to Jim, with a ferocity that surprised him. "Jim," he whispered. 

Jim felt Bones shaking, and then felt something hot and wet drop onto his face. "Bones, what is it? What's wrong?" 

For a moment, Bones didn't answer. When he did, his voice was trembling. "Just...that song...I just got scared, Jim. We've had a lot of close calls and they've scared me. I can't lose you. An' I don't know what'd be worse--knowing you were dead, or not knowing what had happened to you..." 

Jim nuzzled the crook of Bones' neck. "I know. Scares me, too. I can't stand the thought of something happening to you, and me not knowing..." He broke off, swallowing hard. 

"But that's not very likely," Bones mumbled. He pulled Jim closer to him. "I don't usually go on away missions without you. All the years we've been out here, an' I've only gone planetside without you once. But you...Jim, you go on your own all the time. An' you said you don't want us both goin' on missions anymore. What if something happens...and I don't know?" 

Jim felt again that sinking sensation, the clutch at his heart he'd felt listening to the words of the song, the twisting in his gut he'd felt when Slim explained the context. Bones kept talking, his words muffled against Jim's shoulder. "An' it's not like--I know you, Jim, if you lose a crew member an' you don't know what happened, you won't leave until you've found him. But if you're the one who goes missing..." 

"Bones," Jim said softly, cutting him off. "Bones, listen. You know I can't promise that I'll never get hurt, that I won't get killed or go missing or whatever. All I can promise is that I'll try. I'll do my best, no matter what, to keep myself alive for you. I love you more than anything else in the universe. But that's why I don't want you going on missions with me. The truth is I don't want you going on away missions at _all_. I can't stand the thought of losing you. Of you dying or of you being missing. I can face just about anything as long as I know you're safe." He stroked Bones' hair gently. "And you know damned well that nobody on this ship is leaving _anybody_ behind. We're a family. _Ohana_ , right?" 

Although Bones was still shaking, Jim could feel the beginnings of a smile against his skin. "You watch too many Disney movies." 

"No such thing." Jim kissed Bones' temple lightly. "Trust me, Bones. It'll be okay. I promise. I will _always_ come back to you." 

"I'll hold you to that," Bones said softly. 

"I know." Jim hoped it wouldn't prove a promise too difficult to keep. 

They lay in silence for a long moment. Finally, Bones said, "How's your tongue?" 

Jim had almost forgotten about it. "Still a little tender, but I'll be okay." 

One of Bones' hands released its death grip on Jim's back, came around to stroke his cheek. His voice took on a velvety tone. "I believe there was talk of me kissing it better?" 

Jim chuckled, tilting his head towards Bones'. "Be my guest."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The italicized lines are song lyrics. In order:
> 
> "Remember When" - Alan Jackson  
> "Shipmates and Cheyenne" - John Denver  
> "Candle On the Water" - sung by Helen Reddy in the movie _Pete's Dragon._


	32. And All At Once

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the longest chapter to date, so be prepared for that. It also deals very heavily with illness, including serious medical distress. 
> 
> For added fun, try to identify the fandom references in the character names (mostly the medical staff) in this chapter. Answers are in the notes at the end of the chapter.
> 
> ALSO I COMPLETELY FORGOT! (Thanks to Joja for reminding me!) Addie's stuffed tribble, Gottlieb, was invented by Ricechex and Laipin over on Tumblr for a series of pictures/drabbles involving kid!Bones and kid!Jim, and they kindly let me use him. Thanks, y'all! <3

"Bridge to Medical." 

Leo frowned at the intercom, turning away from the test he'd just ordered. It was Alpha shift, and he knew Jim was on duty, but Spock was the one comming him. Had they pulled into orbit around a planet or a starship without Leo knowing? Was Jim on an away mission? That had to be it. 

He thumbed the switch. "McCoy here," he said, bracing himself for an unnecessarily technical explanation. 

Instead, Spock said three words, simply, but with a texture of emotion that sent a tingle of fear down Leo's spine. "It's Jim. Hurry." 

Leo froze for a moment, then turned and ran out of Med Bay. 

He made it to the bridge in what seemed like no time, clutching his tricorder tightly. Jim was slumped in the captain's chair, his head held in both hands. Spock stood next to him, and when he looked up, his eyes were dark with concern. 

"What's wrong?" Leo barked, crossing the bridge in three strides. 

Jim managed to look up. His face was pale, but there was a thin line of sweat on his forehead. There were also faint purple streaks on his throat, which Leo was definitely concerned about. "'Ones? What're you..." he mumbled. 

"Hold still, Jim." Leo began running the tricorder over Jim's face. He looked up at Spock, raising an eyebrow. 

"I did notice that the captain seemed...unusually quiet, but he insisted he was fine. As he normally complains about every ache and pain, I accepted his analysis," Spock told him. "Five minutes ago, however, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he fell forward out of the chair, at which point I contacted you. He regained consciousness a moment later and I was able to help him back to his seat, but..." 

Leo nodded. Mentally, he cursed himself for not having noticed anything sooner. Something like this had probably been coming on for a couple of days, at least. Dammit, they were _married_ , he should have noticed _something..._

The tricorder beeped. Leo looked down at the numbers, did a double-take, and snapped, "Med Bay. _Now."_

Jim got up without protest, which was definitely worrying. Usually he whined about having to go to Med Bay, or insisted he was well enough to finish his shift. Leo bit his lip, then nodded to Spock. Before he could move away, however, Sulu said in a suddenly worried voice, "Doctor?" 

Leo turned, figuring Sulu just needed reassurance that Jim would be okay--which Leo wasn't sure he could give right then. But Sulu wasn't looking at him, or the captain. He was looking at Chekov. Leo followed his gaze and cursed. "Hang on a minute, Jim," he snapped, pulling out his tricorder again. The navigator, too, was pale and sweating. And the numbers on the reading were the same. "All right, kid, you're coming, too. Spock, you're gonna need another navigator for the remainder of this shift." 

Spock nodded, his Vulcan mask slipping back into place. Leo hauled Chekov to his feet. The young man looked up, and Leo saw the same faint purple streaks on his throat. Whatever it was Jim had, Chekov had the same thing. Alarmingly, however, there was a slight film over both eyes. Leo tugged Chekov towards the lift, putting his other arm around Jim and supporting them both. 

"How long have you been feeling bad, Jim?" he asked as they descended. 

Jim shrugged one shoulder. "Had a headache when I got up this morning. Took a couple pills...didn't really help. Other 'n that, nothing." 

"Chekov?" Leo turned to the other side. 

Chekov was leaning heavily against Leo. Heat radiated off his body. "Just today," he answered, his voice hoarse. "I'm just tired. And my eyes feel like zey are on fire." 

"Just relax," Leo said, as calmly as possible. "We'll get this sorted out." 

Inside, however, he wanted to scream. He wasn't too worried about Jim; he may have been dramatically sick, but he usually got better just as dramatically. Chekov, however, was a major concern. For reasons Leo had never been able to figure out, he had a relatively weak immune system. When diseases went around the _Enterprise_ , he was usually the first to catch whatever it was and the last to recover, and there were almost always complications. Leo still remembered a year into their first five-year mission, when Spock, Sulu, and Chekov had all contracted chicken pox; Sulu and Spock had recovered quickly, but Chekov had developed a secondary infection, which had nearly cost him his life. Ever since then, Leo had kept a special eye on the navigator. And Chekov definitely had a complication from whatever disease this was. Or else Jim just hadn't progressed as far. Mentally, Leo was betting on the former. 

His comm chirped. He let go of Jim, reluctantly, and flipped it open. "McCoy." 

Carol's clipped British tones came over the device. "Doctor, I know you're working, but I'm worried about Addie. She's incredibly warm to the touch, and there are some odd marks on her throat--they look almost like bruises, but I don't see how they can be." 

Leo's blood ran cold. "Bring her to Med Bay. She's not the first person to present those symptoms--I think there's something going around." 

"On my way. Marcus out." 

Leo tried to focus on Jim and Chekov as he led them down the corridor, but now he was getting worried. So far, Addie had been remarkably healthy, not so much as a cough or a sneeze. But whatever this illness was, it looked a lot more serious than a damned cold. If Addie had it, there was no guarantee that her immune system would be up to handling it.

The two lead nurses looked up in alarm as Leo came in. "Two of them, sir?" asked the senior of the two. 

"Yes," Leo said shortly. "Soon to be three--Dr. Marcus is going to be bringing Addie in momentarily. Nurse McCall, I need you to do her examination." 

"Me? But--" McCall caught herself. "Yes, Doctor." 

"Thanks, Dix." Leo paused in helping Jim to his bio-bed and looked up at her. "I'd do it myself, but..." He trailed off. 

McCall nodded. Thankfully, she understood. Leo turned to the other nurse and added, "I'd like you to run the exam on the captain, Nurse Stanley." 

"Yes, Doctor." Stanley moved to Jim's side. 

Leo helped Chekov to a bio-bed. "All right, kid, just take it easy," he said gently. "How are you feeling?" 

"Tired," Chekov said hoarsely. "And hot. Especially my eyes..." 

"Okay. We'll see what we can do for that once we've finished these tests." Leo certainly wasn't going to give him anything until he knew what they were dealing with. 

Carol came in, carrying Addie, who looked absolutely miserable. McCall indicated a bio-bed, then began the same battery of tests on Addie that Leo was giving Chekov and Stanley was giving Jim. Addie didn't move, merely sat listlessly on Carol's lap. It was definitely worrying. 

The tests Leo was running ruled out most of the usual diseases. He was just debating whether or not to pull blood for an additional test when the orderly who was monitoring the blood test Leo had ordered for the Engineering lieutenant said in a foreboding tone of voice, "Doc..." 

Leo gave Chekov a reassuring smile and crossed to the orderly's side. "Yes, DeSoto?" 

Silently, DeSoto turned the readout screen towards Leo. He stared at it for a full minute, speechless, then grabbed a PADD and called up the information he was hoping wouldn't match. It did. "But that makes no _sense,"_ he muttered. "The striatae are characteristic..." 

The lieutenant coughed, rubbing at her chest. She then looked at her hand, grimaced momentarily, and made an attempt to surreptitiously wipe it on her pants. Leo caught the motion and crossed over, suddenly worried and angry. "What is it?" 

"Nothing," the engineer said quickly--a little _too_ quickly. 

Leo took a closer look at her neck and saw the faint differentiation in tone between it and the skin on her face. He cursed under his breath and grabbed for the pile of supplies, extracting an antiseptic wipe. "Hold still," he ordered the lieutenant. 

She made a slight noise of surprise, but Leo ignored her, furiously wiping away the makeup covering her chin and throat. A single glance confirmed what he'd been afraid he would see. He threw down the wipe angrily. "Dammit! Why didn't you say something?" 

"It has no relation to my illness," the lieutenant protested, her hand covering the bare patch. 

"Like hell it doesn't." Leo shot across Med Bay and stabbed at the intercom button. "Medical to Bridge!" 

"Spock here." Spock's voice was as calm as always. 

"Spock, we've got a problem. Better get down here." 

There was the briefest of pauses. "I am on my way. Spock out." 

Leo stepped away from the intercom and turned to his staff. "Dix, Hank, set our patients up in the secondary bay. See if you can modify a bio-bed so Addie won't fall out." Not, he had to admit, that there was much danger of that; she was lethargic and probably wouldn't squirm too much, but better safe than sorry. As the two nurses headed off, Leo began keying in a sequence on the bio-computer to synthesize what he was going to need. 

Once the sequence was in place, he strode back over to the engineer. "Why the hell didn't you come in sooner, Lieutenant Solari?" he demanded. 

"I didn't think it was anything to worry about," Solari said. "I'm naturally warm." 

"And those marks on your throat?" 

Solari stiffened. "Those have nothing to do with--" 

"I'm not talking about the bruises, dammit," Leo said, cutting her off. "What you do on your personal time is immaterial. I'm talking about the striatae--the thin purple streaks, the ones you _couldn't_ explain. Why didn't you come in as soon as you noticed those?" 

For the first time, Solari dropped her gaze. "We tried something a little unusual the night before I noticed them first. I thought they were just a side effect." 

"When?" Leo asked again. 

This time, Solari answered. "Four days ago." 

Leo cursed. "I hope you're satisfied," he growled, snatching up the discarded wipe and moving to throw it away. 

"Bones," Jim said weakly. "What is it?" 

Leo glanced over his shoulder. "Just relax, Jim."

Before Jim could say anything, Spock came in. He pulled up short at the sight of Carol and Addie, then crossed the room to stand next to Leo. "Doctor, what is it?" 

Leo beckoned Spock into his office. Once the doors slid shut behind them, he said, "The numbers don't lie, Spock. All four of them have the same illness. Rigelian fever." 

Spock stared at him. "I am unfamiliar with that particular disease, Doctor. Is it serious?" 

"Yes, it is. Starts with fever, sweating, and purple striatae on the throat, which darken as the disease progresses. Tremors come next, sometimes shortness of breath. Rarely there are other, more serious symptoms, usually indicating complications. Unconsciousness falls within a week." Leo swallowed, hard. "If untreated...it's invariably fatal." 

Spock didn't blink. "But you can treat it?" 

Leo bit his lip. "That's the trouble, Spock. There's only one cure for it. Ryetalyn. It's a rare mineral, and the Federation doesn't have many deposits. Certainly not in sufficient quantities to equip starships with it. I don't have any onboard. And I need at least fifty grams per patient if I'm going to have a hope with any of them." 

"We shall have to obtain some, then. How long do we have?" 

"If we're hoping to save all of them? A week, maybe ten days. No more than that. Lieutenant Solari's been ignoring the symptoms for four days. She'll be unconscious before very many more have passed, and once she's unconscious, I can't guarantee I'll be able to keep her alive for more than six standard days." 

"I will order scans to begin immediately." Spock paused. "Doctor. How contagious is Rigelian fever?" 

"Extremely. But there is an innoculation. I've already started synthesizing it--the disease is rare enough that the innoculation isn't standard, and it's not something ships normally carry. It'll take about four hours to produce enough for the entire ship." Leo looked up at Spock. "Priorities, Slim, Sulu, and...whoever Solari's partner is. Then the medical staff--I'll need all of them on hand for the innoculations. Once that's done, the rest of the crew can be sent in." 

"I agree, Doctor." Spock tilted his head. "I would add Dr. Marcus to your list of priorities, as she is Athena's primary caregiver." 

Leo nodded. "Good point. I'll comm Slim personally, as well as Solari's partner. If you could send Sulu down..." 

"Certainly. May I ask, however, how you know that Lieutenant Solari is in a relationship with someone? If you had asked her, she would logically have given you the name." 

It was probably a breach of doctor-patient confidentiality to tell Spock, but since Solari hadn't actually told Leo anything at all and the lack of makeup on her neck would make it clear, Leo had no qualms about answering the question. "Breathplay." 

Spock blinked. "I beg your pardon?" 

"She's got bruises around her neck, obviously made by someone's hands. She wore makeup to cover the marks, and when I demanded to know why she hadn't reported the striatae, she told me that 'we' had tried something new and that she thought the marks resulted from that. Obviously it was consensual, which means she's into erotic asphyxiation. In layman's terms, breathplay."

Spock stared at Leo for a long minute. Finally, he said quietly, "I do not pretend to understand humans, Doctor." 

"Spock, _I_ don't pretend to understand humans, and I _am_ fully human." Leo smiled weakly. "It's a kink--a paraphilia. Some people's minds work that way. As long as everyone involved is okay with it, there's no real harm. The only harm in this case is that it led Lieutenant Solari to cover up an illness for four days, thereby running the risk of setting off an epidemic. I guess it's lucky that we've only got four patients." 

"Thus far," Spock said soberly. "Will the inoculation have any effect on an already-infected patient?" 

"No," Leo said. "No good--nor ill, though, if it comes to it." 

Spock nodded. "I will begin sweeps for ryetalyn deposits and send Lieutenant Sulu down promptly." He hesitated, then added, "There will be no need for him to return to duty this shift." 

Leo breathed a sigh of relief at Spock's understanding. "Thank you, Spock." 

He followed Spock into the main Med Bay, stopping by Solari's bio-bed as Spock headed for the door. "Lieutenant. Who's your partner?" 

The normally colorless Solari flushed pink, but answered in a low tone. "Ensign Kennith Watanabe." 

"Where is he this shift?" 

"Engineering. He's on Alpha this week." 

Leo nodded. He crossed to the intercom and pressed the appropriate button. "Medical to Engineering." 

After a moment, Scotty's voice answered. "Scott here." 

"Scotty, I need you to send up Ensign Kennith Watanabe. And--is Slim down there?" 

"Aye, he is. I'll send them both along. Is everything all right?" 

Leo hesitated. "Not really. I'll explain later." 

"All right, McCoy, they're on their way. Scott out." 

Leo flicked a couple more switches. "All off-duty medical staff, report to Medical immediately. Repeat, all medical staff to Med Bay." 

McCall came out of the secondary Med Bay. "We're set up, Doctor." 

"Good. Get our patients back there." Leo drew the first hypo of the vaccine out of the bio-comp. "Dr. Marcus, hold on. I'm going to give you your vaccine now." 

Carol nodded. She allowed Leo to jab her with the hypo before standing up and following the orderlies who were pushing Jim, Chekov, and Solari into the other room. McCall took the second hypo. "This for you, Doctor?" 

Leo was about to say no, he'd wait, when he realized the folly of that. His husband and daughter were both patients; he needed the vaccine quickly, lest he become infected himself. "Go ahead, Dix."

As the hypo hissed, the door opened and Sulu entered, looking worried. "Dr. McCoy? Is P--is Lieutenant Chekov all right?" 

"Have a seat, Sulu." Leo took the next hypo and crossed over to the helmsman's side. Quietly, he said, "He has Rigelian fever. It's still early, though, and hopefully we'll find ryetalyn deposits before it's too late." 

Sulu swallowed. "Can I see him?" 

Leo gave Sulu the inoculation. "You can, but there's something you need to know. Chekov has an...additional complication." 

"Complication?" Sulu looked up, his eyes wide with fear. 

"Yes." Leo hesitated, then sat down on the edge of the exam table next to Sulu and said softly, "Sulu, the fever is attacking his eyes. He's losing his vision." 

"What?" Sulu gasped, his face turning white. "Oh, my God. Can you--can't you--" 

"We'll do--" Leo stopped. " _I'll_ do everything I can, Sulu." He stood up. "Go on. Go see him. Try to keep him calm." 

"I will." Sulu stood up and headed for the secondary medical bay. 

Slim entered just as Sulu left. Behind him was a nervous-looking redshirt. Leo beckoned them over. "Ensign Watanabe?" he asked. 

"Yes, sir." Watanabe looked even more nervous. "Is something the matter, sir?" 

Leo retrieved two more hypos of the vaccine. "Michaels, draw off the inoculations," he said to a passing orderly as he went back over to the other two. To Watanabe, he said, "Roll up your sleeve." 

"Pa, what's going on?" Slim asked. 

"Rigelian fever. There's been a small outbreak and I'm trying to keep it from going further." Leo jabbed Watanabe's shoulder with the hypo. "This is a vaccine for it. Won't help if you've already got it--and, unfortunately, you're both highly at risk, especially you, Watanabe--but if you don't have it yet, you'd probably both come down with it before the day's out without the vaccine." 

"Why especially me?" Watanabe asked, rolling down his sleeve. 

Leo met the ensign's eyes. _Good God, he can't be more than twenty-two._ "Because Lieutenant Solari has probably been ill for the last four days." 

"Oh." Watanabe swallowed. "Is she okay?" 

"She's still conscious, if that's what you mean," Leo said grimly. "You can go see her if you want. She's in the other room." 

"Yes, sir." Watanabe left. 

Slim sat down on the exam table, rolling up his sleeve. Quietly, he said, "Dad?" 

Leo looked up at his stepson. "And Addie," he admitted. "And Chekov. Chekov's the worst off of the bunch, but they're all pretty sick. Hold still." 

As Leo administered the hypo, Slim sat in silence. Finally, however, he asked, "How bad?" 

Leo sighed. "Bad. If we can't get it treated, they're all going to die." 

Slim turned pale. "Can you--there _is_ a cure, right?" 

"Right. Ryetalyn." 

"That's rare, isn't it? I know it doesn't exist on Earth." 

"You've kept up with your studies," Leo murmured, setting aside the spent hypo. "Yeah, it's really rare. And we need a lot of it. But it's out there. We'll find it. We have to." 

Slim slid down off the table. "Pa..." 

"Go," Leo told him, nudging him in the direction of the secondary medical bay. "They'll--they'll want to see you." 

"Okay, Pa." Slim crossed the room without his usual vigor.

The rest of the medical staff was beginning to filter in. Leo gathered them and gave them the run-down of the situation, then began administering the inoculation. Once he was sure his staff was protected, he crossed over to the intercom and pressed the button. "Medical to Bridge." 

"Spock here." Spock's voice was as calm and steady as usual. 

"We've got the first batch of the vaccine ready, and my staff is inoculated. You can send in the rest of the crew whenever your ready." 

"Acknowledged, Dr. McCoy. Spock out." 

Leo stepped back from the machine. A moment later, he heard Spock speak on the ship-wide broadcast system. "Attention, Enterprise. This is First Officer Spock speaking. Several crew members have been diagnosed with Rigelian fever, for which there is a vaccine. All crew members are hereby ordered to report to Medical Bay to receive the vaccine. Any crew member scheduled for Beta shift, please report immediately. Alpha and Gamma shifts, as well as any off-duty personnel, I ask that you wait until the commencement of Beta shift to report, so that Beta can report for duty as quickly as possible. There are to be no exceptions. Spock out." 

The first crew member reported less than two minutes later. Leo had already worked out a system, and they were able to get the vaccinations handled efficiently and more or less quickly. As the last of the Beta shift filtered out, with fifteen minutes to spare before shift change, Leo left the vaccinations in the hands of his staff and headed into the secondary sickbay where the infected people were. 

There were now seven patients altogether, including Addie, three more engineers having shown symptoms when they arrived to be vaccinated. Leo was pretty sure that Solari was "patient zero"--the source of the epidemic. The room was relatively quiet. Watanabe had slipped out some time earlier, but Slim and Sulu were both still there. Sulu held Chekov's hand tightly in both of his; Slim was talking quietly to Jim. 

Leo walked slowly down the row of beds, checking vital signs and adjusting IVs as needed. Solari and one of the other engineers had progressed to the tremors, but no one was unconscious yet, which was a mixed blessing. At the last bio-bed, Leo was stopped by a hoarse, feeble whisper. "Who is zat?" 

Leo stepped up to the side of the bio-bed opposite Sulu and touched the young navigator's hand. "It's me, Chekov." 

"Doctor?" Chekov blinked furiously. A panicked expression came over his face. "Wh-where are you?" 

"I'm right here." Leo's heart sank, but he tried to keep his voice calm. "Look to your left, Chekov. Follow the sound of my voice. Do you see me now?" 

Chekov looked at him desperately. Leo could definitely see the fuzziness in his eyes now and cursed silently--the disease was progressing rapidly. _Of fucking course it is. "I--I see a shape--it is blue--but--Doctor, I can't see you, I can't--"_

The bio-bed beeped, registering a rapid rise in Chekov's heartbeat. Leo put a hand on the top of his head gently, stroking his hair back from his forehead. "Easy, kid," he said gently. "Don't panic. I'm gonna take care of you, okay?" 

"Why can't I see?" Chekov whispered. 

"Just relax. It's going to--" Leo broke off. He couldn't promise Chekov it would be all right. He didn't know that. "We'll do everything we can. Trust me." 

Chekov's fingers gripped Sulu's tightly. His heartbeat slowed down, and he nodded slowly. "I can do zat." 

"I'm here, Pasha," Sulu murmured. He looked up at Leo, his eyes wide with fear. 

Leo had to move away so that Sulu wouldn't see the fear in his own eyes. Being afraid wouldn't help his patients. He could indulge in it later, once he was off-duty. For now, he had to be professional.

"Bones?" Jim mumbled. 

"I'm right here, Jim," Leo said, crossing back to Jim's side. 

Jim looked up at him through eyes half-swollen with fever. "What's going on?" 

Leo stroked Jim's hair back from his forehead in a tender gesture. "Rigelian fever." 

"Addie, too?" 

"Yes, Addie has it, too. And Chekov, and a handful of engineers." Leo kept stroking Jim's hair; he knew from long experience that it usually helped calm Jim down when he was stressed. "The rest of the crew is gettin' the vaccine now." 

Jim blinked hard, leaning into Leo's hand. "'S it bad?" he mumbled. 

Leo hesitated, but he knew he couldn't lie to his husband--or his captain. "Yeah, Jim. It's bad." 

"How bad?" Jim pressed. 

"If we can't find a planet with sufficient ryetalyn deposits..." Leo's voice broke. "Just relax, Jim. I'll take care of you." 

"I know," Jim whispered, lying back and managing a small smile. "You always do." 

Leo bent over and kissed his forehead lightly. He squeezed Slim's shoulder gently and headed back out. Time to put his doctor face back on. Time to be the CMO and not the father or husband of two possibly dying patients. 

"How many vaccinations have we done?" Leo asked M'Benga as he came out into the main room. Alpha and Gamma shifts were starting to filter in. 

M'Benga dispensed the hypo into the arm of a science officer and sent him on his way. "One hundred and sixty-seven, not counting medical personnel." 

Leo counted. One hundred and sixty-seven regular crewmen, plus forty-one medical officers, plus the seven patients equaled two hundred and fifteen all told--exactly halfway. "We're making good time. How's the supply holding up?" 

"Just fine. Williams and Gage are keeping track of who's been innoculated," M'Benga added. 

"Thanks for thinking of that, Geoff." Leo glanced over to where the nurse and the orderly were checking off names on PADDs and pointing crewmen at the next available doctor. He grabbed a hypo and moved over to an empty exam table. 

Two hours later, Kelly Brackett, one of the junior doctors, set aside a spent hypo wearily. "Is that it?" 

Another junior doctor, Joe Early, held up a few hypos. "Depends. Did we make extra?" 

"The bio-comp was programmed for exactly enough doses for the entire crew, minus the four who were sick before I started," Leo told him. "We have twenty-seven additional patients, but some were inoculated before symptoms were noticed. So you can't just count the number of leftover vaccines and know if we're done. We'll need that list." 

Williams and Gage were already comparing their PADDs. At last, Gage looked up. "Uh, Doc, the only ones who aren't either in the back room or safely inoculated are Mr. Spock, Mr. Scott, and Lieutenant Uhura." 

"Thanks, Johnny." Leo hit the appropriate button on the intercom. "Medical to Bridge." 

"Spock here." 

"The rest of the crew's been vaccinated, Spock. You and Uhura better come down." 

"Acknowledged. We are on our way, Doctor. Spock out." 

Leo switched circuits. "Medical to Engineering." 

"Engineering." The voice was young and female and decidedly not Scotty's. 

"Is Mr. Scott there?" 

"No, sir, he's on his way to Medical for his vaccine. He should be up there in a couple of minutes. Can I help you with anything?" 

"No, that was all I was calling about. McCoy out." Leo switched off the intercom and turned to his staff. "Good work, everyone. Regular Beta shift, stick around. Everyone else can go." As the crew dispersed, he turned to M'Benga and added, "I'm going to go file my paperwork, Geoff, then I'll be back out to help. If you have any problems, call me." 

"Will do. Thanks, Leonard." M'Benga smiled slightly. 

Leo nodded, turning and heading for his office.

The doctors and nurses performing the inoculations had already placed notes in the files, but Leo had to sign off on all four hundred and thirty-two of them. However, he had a more important task to perform first. Sitting down at his desk, he snapped on the recording device. "Chief Medical Officer's log, stardate 2271.130. Sickness has come to the _Enterprise_. We have thirty-one patients diagnosed with Rigelian fever. Twenty-three are from Engineering. Three are security guards. Two are science officers, both working in the secondary chemistry lab. Two are members of senior command. The remaining patient is a civilian." 

Leo took a deep breath before continuing. "'Patient Zero' has been tentatively identified as Lieutenant Eladia Solari, age thirty-nine, from Engineering. Solari was the first to present symptoms; however, she did not report them until four days had passed, allowing the infection to spread. The remaining crew has been inoculated against the fever, which should stop its spread. However, due to Solari's delay in reporting her symptoms, we are placed at a disadvantage. I estimate that we have no more than a week to find sufficient quantities of ryetalyn, or we may not be able to save all of our patients. Much longer than that, and we may not be able to save any of them." 

He signed off on the log and pushed it aside, then looked at his hands. Normally his hands were rock-steady, his nerves ironclad, his demeanor professional. He could carry the ship through a crisis completely on his own if he had to. No matter how dire the situation, no matter how much danger people were in, no matter how much he cared about his patients, he was calm, unflappable, and solid. 

But here, in the privacy of his office, he allowed himself a few minutes to shake.

He stood up as the door slid open and Spock stepped in. "Doctor," he said quietly. 

"Spock," Leo replied with a nod. "You've been vaccinated?" 

"I have. Dr. M'Benga tells me there are additional patients. As the ship is on an even course, I felt it important to speak with you about...the state of things." 

Leo understood what Spock was saying--and what Spock wasn't saying. "Want to sit down?" 

Spock tensed slightly. "Thank you, I prefer to stand." 

Leo shrugged and leaned against his desk, folding his arms over his chest. "All right. We have thirty-one total patients, counting Addie. I'm pretty sure that 'patient zero'--the colloquial term for the first person to contract a disease in an epidemic--is Lieutenant Solari. Incidentally, her partner is Ensign Kennith Watanabe, and no, he doesn't have the fever. However, twenty-two other engineers do. Also two chemists and three security guards. None have been sick longer than a day or two, except for Solari. And they're all progressing along typical lines, except Chekov." 

"How is Lieutenant Chekov's case different?" 

"He has an additional complication," Leo said slowly. "His vision is deteriorating." 

Spock went still. Quietly, he said, "Can you reverse it?" 

Leo spread out his hands, palms up. "If we can cure the fever before he loses his sight completely, it'll heal on its own--it'll just add a couple of days to his recovery time, so he'll be in Med Bay longer than anyone else. Otherwise...well, there are two choices. One is an internal regrowth factor, an injection that will clear out the dead bacteria and repair the damage, restoring sight. There are two drawbacks--it's painful as hell, and it only has a sixty-two percent success rate. The odds are good, but not great. The alternative is a sensor web, but it takes a while to train to use. And..." He hesitated, then said in a low voice, "Spock, I'm not sure if he can still be a navigator if he has to wear one." 

Spock was silent for a long moment. At last, he said, "Navigation is not so difficult as piloting--that, I agree, could not be done safely with the aid of a sensor web--but navigation, perhaps, can be. Even if it could not, I am certain that the captain would find a job that Mr. Chekov can do on the ship without the use of his eyes. If it comes to that. Let us hope, however, that it does not." He cleared his throat. "I assume that this alters our timeline, however. How long do we have before the disease claims Mr. Chekov's eyesight?" 

"I don't know, Spock," Leo admitted. "I just don't know. When I picked him up on the bridge, he just had a--like a film over his eyes, but when I spoke to him a few minutes ago, he said all he could see were shapes. It's not a typical symptom. I can't say with any degree of accuracy how long he's got. I would say my initial assessment of a week is still the best we've got." 

"Then that is the assumption I will proceed upon," Spock said. He hesitated, then added, "With your permission, I should like to visit the patients before I return to the bridge." 

Leo straightened up. "Come on, then."

The two men walked into the small room where the Rigelian fever victims were. The first thing Leo noticed was that Slim had gone; however, Sulu was still holding Chekov's hand. Leo could understand that. They hadn't officially been a couple for very long. He remembered how tightly he'd clung to Jim in those first weeks, especially after Nero and the _Narada_. Hell, he _still_ held onto Jim pretty tightly. So he didn't blame Sulu in the slightest. 

Scotty was there, too, making the rounds of his engineers, speaking softly to each one. He looked up and nodded as Leo and Spock passed him by. Chekov, Jim, and Addie were at the end of the row. Jim looked up as they approached and managed a weak smile. "Mr. Spock, everything all right on the bridge?" 

"Everything is fine, Captain. We are scanning for planets with ryetalyn deposits as we speak," Spock answered. "How are you feeling?" 

"Mostly tired," Jim answered hoarsely. "And heavy. Feel like I could sleep for a month, but at the same time I can't seem to fall asleep, you know?" 

"I understand." Spock looked up at Leo. "Can you assist him with that, Doctor?" 

Leo shook his head regretfully. "I would if I could. But it's too risky." Especially for Jim, who had a long list of medical allergies. But even for the others, it was too much of a risk. 

"I'll make do." Jim leaned back. 

Addie shifted in her modified bio-bed and slowly stretched up an arm, her little fingers reaching feebly. "'Pock," she whimpered. 

It was the first time Addie had said his name. Leo felt a small pang of jealousy that his daughter, when she was sick and hurting, was asking for _Spock_ and not one of her own parents, or even her beloved older brother. But at the same time, it was gratifying to see the way the green-blooded hobgoblin melted at the little voice. 

Spock reached for Addie's hand. She wrapped her fingers around his index and middle fingers. "'Pock," she said again. 

"I am here, Athena," Spock said softly. 

Leo smothered a smile and moved over to Chekov's bed. "How are you feeling, Mr. Chekov?" he asked gently. 

Chekov looked up at him--or at the very least in his direction. "Scared," he whispered. Tears welled up in his eyes. 

Sulu tightened his grip on Chekov's hand, looking up at Leo imploringly. "Doctor," he said softly. "He _is_ going to be all right--isn't he?" 

Leo couldn't lie to Sulu--to either of them. "I'll do my best. I can't promise any more than that." 

Spock met his eyes. Gently, he disengaged his fingers from Addie's and fell into step with Leo as they headed back down the corridor. 

Out in the main medical bay, Leo grabbed Spock's wrist, meeting his eyes. "Hurry," he said simply. 

Spock nodded and left silently.

Leo went back to his office and finished the paperwork. Once he was sure he had dotted every I and crossed every T, he sat back, thinking. Logically, he ought to sign off-duty, get himself something to eat, and get some rest. But he knew damned well that he wasn't going to do that. He always had trouble taking himself off-duty when Jim was hurt or sick, and now Addie was sick, too. So, sighing to himself, he pushed away from the desk and headed to check on the patients. 

As he stepped into Med Bay, the door slid open and Slim came in. He'd changed out of his uniform facsimile and into a muted grey shirt and slacks. Tucked under one arm was Addie's stuffed tribble; a PADD dangled from the other hand. Leo fell into step with him. "Good thinking." 

Slim looked down at the tribble. "She's probably scared stiff. Needs something to hold." 

"And that?" Leo asked, indicating the PADD. 

_"Jurassic Park._ I thought it might help Dad get some rest--when I left, he said he almost felt too tired to sleep." 

Leo raised an eyebrow. "So you're going to lull him to sleep by reading him a novel about genetically-created dinosaurs going on the rampage?" 

Slim shrugged. "We're on the sixth iteration. I think it's startin' to wind down. And even if it ain't, it'll give him somethin' to think 'bout other 'n the fact that he's miserable." 

"You have a point there," Leo admitted.

They entered the smaller room. Leo paused in the doorway to watch his stepson walk down the row of bio-beds. He stopped to say a quiet word or two to most of them, which wasn't surprising; they probably worked together fairly frequently. At last, however, he reached the end of the row. Leo moved closer, ostensibly checking vital signs but actually listening to Slim. 

"Hey, Addie," he said softly, bending over the bio-bed. "How ya feelin', baby girl?" 

"'Lim," Addie mumbled. 

"I brought somethin' for you," Slim said. He brought the stuffed tribble from behind his back and held it out. 

Addie's little hands reached up, closing around the toy's fur. "Gott-yib," she said, pulling it close. 

Leo had no idea why they had named the tribble Gottlieb--probably it had been Jim's idea--but it was too late to change it now; Addie had learned it. Slim smiled at her. "There you go, Addie. He'll keep you safe." He bent over and kissed his sister's forehead, then sat down next to his father's bed. "How 'bout you, Dad? How're you feelin'?" 

"I've been better." Jim's voice was so hoarse Leo could barely hear him. "But I've been worse, too. How are you?" 

"All right. Stomach feels weird, but--" 

"Weird? Weird how?" Leo interrupted, turning and directing a scowl at his stepson. "You didn't tell me you were feeling weird." 

Slim looked up in surprise. "It ain't serious, Pa. Just a little...nauseous, I guess." 

"Hold that thought." Leo grabbed a tricorder and ran it over Slim, then sighed. "Great. You're having an allergic reaction to something in that vaccine." 

"I am?" 

"You are." Leo crossed to a cabinet, grabbed the appropriate hypo, and pressed it to Slim's shoulder. "Slim, if I give you something and it makes you feel odd, _tell me._ You're lucky--this was a mild reaction--but it could have been a lot worse. Especially given your family history--Jim's allergic to more stuff than the rest of the crew put together." 

To his credit, Slim looked abashed. "I didn't think it was a big deal. I'm sorry." 

"It's all right. No harm done--this time." Leo raised his eyebrows meaningly, but smiled. 

Jim looked worried. "Bones--that won't negate the vaccine, will it? Him being allergic?" 

"You're still immune to the Melvaran mud flea virus, aren't you?" Leo smirked. 

Jim groaned, leaning back. "Don't remind me." 

Slim gave Leo a puzzled look. Leo laughed. "Tell you later." 

"Okay, Pa." Slim turned back to Jim. "I brought _Jurassic Park_ with me. I thought maybe...you know, maybe we could read a little more?" 

Jim smiled. "That'd be great, Slim." 

Slim smiled back and switched on the PADD. Leo moved away as the boy began, "Sixth Iteration. Return. 'Its electric motor whirring, the cart raced forward down the dark underground tunnel...'"

M'Benga didn't seem to mind Leo staying on duty, and since he was the one doctor who ever dared stand up to his CMO, Leo kept working. It wasn't, he knew, like there was a lot to be done; without the ryetalyn, he couldn't cure the fever, and he could only do so much towards easing the symptoms. But he kept at it, checking temperatures and dispensing water as necessary. Most of the patients were bearing up rather well, although all of them had started trembling. Addie was worrying, largely because she couldn't articulate her symptoms--she didn't have the vocabulary yet--and just lay on her bio-bed, cuddling Gottlieb and looking pathetic. But everything looked pretty typical. 

Chekov was the most worrying. He hadn't slipped into unconsciousness yet, but the film over his eyes was getting worse, and he didn't seem to know where he was anymore. Everyone else was holding steady at temperatures of 39.3, give or take a tenth of a degree, but Chekov's fever was climbing rapidly. When he reached 39.8, Leo drew another vial of blood to run some more tests. 

He stared at the results on the bio-comp, then swore violently. "Geoff, Kell, come here a minute." 

M'Benga was at his side instantly. "What is it, Leonard?" he began, then stopped, his eyes widening at the figures. "Damn. Damn! Whose test is that?" 

"Chekov's," Leo said grimly. "His fever's been getting worse, so I ran a few additional tests." 

Brackett stepped up. "What's the matter, sir?" 

Leo pointed to the output screen. "You tell me." 

Brackett was technically still serving his residency, so it took him a minute or two to analyze the data properly. At last, he said, "Those numbers, sir...I've never seen anything like them before. It looks like Rigelian fever, but augmented." 

"It's a variant called Rigelian-Kassaba fever," Leo informed the young doctor. "Even rarer than the usual variety. And even more drastic. Oddly enough, however, it isn't contagious. It seems to be a mutation of the usual disease. Ryetalyn will still cure it, but... _damn_." He bit his lip hard. "This changes everything. Kell, go back into the cooler, find the _coldest_ bag of saline we've got." 

"Yes, Dr. McCoy." Brackett hurried off. 

Leo crossed over to the intercom. "Medical to Bridge." 

"Spock here." 

"Revised estimate, Mr. Spock. I can't guarantee that we'll be able to save everyone if we don't find ryetalyn within the next forty-eight hours." 

There was a pause. "I copy, Doctor. With your permission, I will be down momentarily to speak with you." 

Leo hesitated. "Granted," he said at last. 

"Ten minutes, Dr. McCoy. Spock out."

Brackett hurried over with the bag of saline. "Why did it have to be so cold?" he asked. 

Leo snatched the bag from Brackett's hand. "Lieutenant Chekov has a dangerously high fever. We need to bring it down. Intravenous hydration is our first, best option, and the cooler the liquid is, the more likely it is to have an effect. Geoff, if Spock shows up, tell him I'm in the back room." 

M'Benga nodded. Leo tried to keep himself from flat-out running into the secondary medical bay. 

"Well?" Jim was saying as he headed down the aisle. "What happens next?" 

"That's the end of the book," Slim answered. "There isn't any more." 

"You're kidding," Jim said weakly. 

Leo glanced at Chekov's numbers and bit back a curse. Forty degrees even. "Mr. Chekov, how are you feeling?" 

Chekov's face was a picture of misery, even worse than Addie's. He opened his mouth, but all that came out was a faint whimper. Leo quickly set up the IV line, squeezing the saline bag a couple of times to get the flow started. He felt Chekov's forehead, then headed over to the supply station, found a sterile cloth, and ran it under the cold water for a moment. 

"What's that?" Sulu asked anxiously as Leo returned. 

"Damp cloth." Leo laid the cloth over Chekov's eyes and forehead, smoothing it down as gently as he could. "How's that feel, kid?" 

"Hmm," Chekov mumbled. He relaxed, just a fraction, but it was enough to tell Leo that something was helping, at least a little bit. 

Leo looked up at the screen above the biobed. Except for the temperature, the numbers were all identical to everyone else's, but Leo knew that wouldn't last much longer. Two days, at best, before they started changing alarmingly, and when that happened, Leo couldn't guarantee he'd be able to pull through. 

There were three alert settings on the biobeds. All the others were set on the default alert; Leo leaned over and changed Chekov's to a lower, more insistent tone. If anything happened--anything at all--the bed would alert him, and because of the differentiation in tone, he would know it was Chekov's. Part of him wanted to move Chekov closer to the door, or transfer him to a private room, but one look at the kid and a first-year med student could have seen that he couldn't be moved. 

"Leave it to you, kid," he murmured, running a light hand over Chekov's curls. 

"Is he--is he gonna be okay?" Sulu asked, his voice cracking slightly. 

Leo couldn't look Sulu in the eye as he turned to head back out of the room. "I don't know." 

He returned to the main Med Bay just as the door slid open and Spock entered. "Doctor," he said, inclining his head in acknowledgement. "I have ordered increased range and frequency of sensor sweeps. If there is ryetalyn anywhere within a day's journey, we will find it." 

Leo nodded, knowing that Spock would have been looking as hard as possible anyway. "Let's just hope we do." 

"Has Lieutenant Solari fallen unconscious?" 

"No, everyone's still awake," Leo said. "But--here, take a look at this." He indicated the output screen, which still had Chekov's test results on it. 

Spock studied the numbers, his face impassive. "Whose results are these?" 

"Chekov's. He's got a variant of the disease called Rigelian-Kassaba." 

"How does it differ from the ordinary Rigelian fever?" 

Leo closed his eyes briefly, remembering the page in his xenopathology textbook that had burned itself into his brain. "It's a lot more rapid in its progress, for one thing. The fever is higher--that was what led me to run the additional tests. Everyone else has a temperature of thirty-nine point three degrees, give or take a fraction of a degree. Chekov's is currently forty degrees even--I've put him on a saline drip and I've got a cool, damp cloth over his eyes, which should keep it from getting any higher, even if it doesn't reduce it, although that's what I'm hoping for. What's more, it attacks the nerves. That's why his vision is going. And before very long, he's going to be in extreme pain, which will continue even after he's unconscious. Once he _does_ drop unconscious, I'll have thirty-six hours at the outside before it's too late to save him." 

Spock's face was completely blank--the completely emotionless mask that Jim had once said, paradoxically, meant he was in the grip of some strong emotion. "When you say extreme pain..." 

"We're talking on a level with the pain you experienced when that--creature--absorbed itself into your spinal column on Deneva," Leo said softly. "And Chekov doesn't have your training, or abilities. He won't be able to withstand it on his own, and I can only take the edge off it. Spock, you've _got_ to find me some ryetalyn. Even if you can only find enough for one dose...the others have a little longer, or they should, but I don't know how long Chekov has." 

"I--we--will do everything we can," Spock said, his voice soft. He turned to go, then stopped. "Doctor--does the diagnosis of Rigelian-Kassaba fever change the prognosis on Lieutenant Chekov's eyesight?" 

Leo actually smiled. "That's the one piece of good news in all this, Spock. The fact that it's Rigelian-Kassaba actually makes the internal regrowth factor sixty-one percent more likely to work properly. The chances of it failing are point one eight percent." 

"Why, Doctor, that was almost Vulcan precision." Spock lifted an eyebrow. 

"Get out of here," Leo growled, but without any real malice.

He watched Spock leave, then turned and went back into his office. He needed to update his log, as well as both Chekov's and Slim's files. Log first, he decided. Once the door closed behind him, he reached for the recorder and snapped it on. 

"Chief Medical Officer's log, stardate 2271.130, supplemental," he began, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms. "Subsequent tests have revealed that Lieutenant Pavel Andreievich Chekov has a variant of Rigelian fever more commonly known as Rigelian-Kassaba fever. Because of this, he has a dangerously high fever, currently holding steady at forty degrees Celsius. He is also losing his eyesight, and will soon be in extreme pain. I can only do so much towards relieving it. And time is extremely short. If we do not find at least enough ryetalyn to cure one patient within forty-eight hours, I am afraid that Lieutenant Chekov will not survive." 

He signed off the log, updated Slim's file to note his allergy to the vaccine and Chekov's to note the change in diagnosis as well as treatment, then took a deep breath and left his office. 

Gage came hurrying towards him, his forehead creased in concern. "Doc, Lieutenant Solari and Ensign Shelton just lost consciousness." 

Leo stopped, feeling a chill run through him. "Damn! I would have expected Solari, but not Shelton yet...anyone else?" 

"Negative, Doc, everyone's still conscious, even Addie." 

"Thanks, Gage." Leo took a deep breath and headed into the secondary medical bay. He owed it to Chekov to tell him what his diagnosis was--and, for that matter, he owed it to Sulu and Jim as well. Jim, as captain, deserved to know what was going on with his crew. And Sulu had been Chekov's point of contact even before they'd started dating--kind of like Leo and Jim. Now that they were officially together, Sulu deserved to know the details. 

As he walked down the aisle, he heard Slim's voice. "'Consumed by flames, the torso crackled and the fat sputtered, and then as the skin burned away, the black, flat ribs of the skeleton were revealed--'" 

"What the hell are you reading?" Leo exclaimed, wrinkling his nose. 

Slim jumped, almost dropping the PADD, and blushed. "Uh, _The Lost World._ It's the sequel to _Jurassic Park..."_

"Lovely." Leo turned to Chekov, and his expression softened. The helmsman was still holding the navigator's hand, stroking his hair tenderly. Chekov's breathing was shallow and ragged, and when Leo glanced at the screen, he could see that while the fever hadn't risen, it hadn't gone down, either.

Suddenly the K3 indicator shot up to eighty percent. Chekov gave vent to a hoarse moan. His fingers tightened around Sulu's, and his jaw clenched tightly, eyes screwing up beneath the dried-out cloth. Sulu's face went white. "Pasha!" 

Leo ran for the supply station and grabbed a hypo, then returned to Chekov's side and jabbed him. "Come on, come on..." he muttered, watching as the painkiller dispensed into the navigator's bloodstream, then looking up at the screen again. The K3 indicator wobbled for a second, then began creeping upwards again. He cursed under his breath. 

"Doctor, can't you do anything for him?" Sulu pleaded, looking up. 

"That's literally the only painkiller that can be given to someone with Rigelian fever," Leo said, watching Chekov contort in agony and feeling the young man's pain as if it were his own. "And I've already given him as much as I safely can. It's not working." He sat down on the opposite side of the biobed from Sulu and took Chekov's other hand in his. Gently, he rubbed the back of Chekov's hand. "Easy, kid," he murmured. "I'm here. We're here." 

He continued to talk softly, muttering reassurances and trying as best he could to comfort Chekov, for another fifteen minutes. At last, Chekov's face went slack and his fingers went limp under Leo's as he, mercifully, lapsed into unconsciousness. 

Sulu's face was so pale it was almost translucent. "God," he whispered. 

"I know." Leo gently slid his hand away from Chekov's, came around the biobed, and put an arm around the helmsman's shoulders. "Come on." 

"No--I can't leave him--not after--" Sulu said brokenly. 

"Doctor's orders," Leo said, gently but firmly. "Beta shift's almost over. You've been in here since before Alpha ended, and I know damned well you haven't eaten since before you went on shift this morning. You've got to eat something." He turned to look at his stepson and added, "Slim, you come on, too." 

"I ate already, Pa," Slim protested. 

"I know, but you need your sleep. You can't stay here all night. I promise you can come back tomorrow." Leo looked from Slim to Sulu. "And if anything happens, M'Benga or Early will comm me right away. So come on. Slim, you're going back to quarters and going to bed. Sulu, you're getting something to eat--" he hesitated--"and then you can come back." 

"You, too, Bones," Jim said from his biobed, his voice barely above a whisper. "Don't forget to...take care of yourself, too." 

Leo kissed his husband's forehead. "I'll see you in the morning," he murmured. "I love you, Jim." 

"Love you, too." Jim smiled and leaned back, closing his eyes. 

Leo herded Sulu and Slim out of the room. Both of them looked anxiously over their shoulders; Leo didn't dare let himself. Once outside, he motioned for them to wait before stepping over to the intercom. "Medical to Bridge." 

There was a brief pause. "Spock here." 

"Three patients have fallen unconscious, Spock," Leo said quietly, knowing that his voice would carry. "Lieutenant Solari, Ensign Shelton...and Lieutenant Chekov." 

Another pause, even longer. "I copy, Dr. McCoy. I will keep you posted on our progress." 

"I'm going off-duty until Alpha shift. Comm me personally." 

"Acknowledged. Spock out." 

Leo stepped away from the intercom and turned to M'Benga. "See you in the morning, Geoff." 

M'Benga's eyebrows shot up. "You're not staying on duty?" he blurted. 

His confusion was understandable; Leo usually didn't sign off duty when Jim was sick or hurt until he absolutely had to, pushed to the limits by exhaustion or hunger or both. But this was different. He and Jim had made a promise to one another, the night they had made the decision to go into space as a family: Addie and Slim didn't get left alone at night. Unless circumstances absolutely dictated otherwise--like when they'd both been trapped on the Kalandran outpost--at least one of them had to be in their quarters during Gamma shift. Even if they were sleeping, they were still there. Addie, in Med Bay, would be looked after well; Slim needed someone, even if he was almost fifteen. 

"Not tonight. But I'll be back for Alpha." Leo put a hand on Slim's shoulder, squeezing lightly. "But if anything happens..." 

"I'll comm you. Or Weaver will." M'Benga nodded in understanding. "Goodnight, Leonard." 

Leo steered Slim and Sulu towards the lift. "Slim, we'll walk you back to quarters if you're sure you don't want to eat." 

"I'll go with you." Slim's voice was soft. "If you don't mind." 

"I don't mind."

The officer's mess on Deck Five was empty this time of day; most of the junior officers preferred the one on Deck Three, Uhura and Scotty were probably asleep, and Spock was on the bridge--the Vulcan half of him was able to go up to seventy-two hours without rest, he'd once told Leo. (They had eventually struck a deal that he wouldn't attempt to go more than five shifts in a row without taking a break of some kind.) Leo deposited Slim in a chair, then dragged Sulu over to the food slots. 

"Really, I'm not hungry," Sulu muttered. 

"Tough. You're eating anyway." Truthfully, Leo wasn't particularly hungry either, but he knew he had to set a good example. Usually he kept himself on a pretty strict diet--and tried to keep Jim on the same, which was an uphill battle--but tonight, he decided to treat himself to some good old-fashioned comfort food. And he wasn't going to bother with a full meal, either, especially since he knew he wouldn't be able to eat it. What he _really_ wanted was a sip of the Saurian brandy he kept in a cupboard in his office, or a couple fingers of bourbon, but he couldn't drink on duty, and since he wouldn't be off-duty for more than a shift, he wouldn't let himself go there. 

"I don't think I can," Sulu said. 

Leo inserted his card into the food slot. "You don't have to eat a full meal, Sulu. But you have to eat _something_. What's your go-to comfort food?" 

"Hot cocoa and graham crackers," Sulu admitted. 

"Then get it." Leo pulled out a plate of peach pie and a cup of black coffee. "It's not like I'm exactly having a nutritious meal here either." 

Sulu made the appropriate selections and retrieved his own plate and mug, and together they joined Slim, who had folded his arms on the table and was leaning on them. The three sat in silence for a while. The pie looked delicious, but it tasted like ashes in Leo's mouth; the coffee, bitter and scalding, burnt his tongue. Sulu absently turned one of the graham crackers into a pile of fine crumbs without tasting one of them.

"Pa?" Slim said after a while. His voice was quiet enough, but in the silence it was almost unnaturally loud. "What exactly _is_ Rigelian fever?" 

Leo set down his fork. "What do you mean?" 

"I mean--obviously it's a fever, an' it originated in the Rigel system, but...what causes it? What does it do?" 

Since Sulu looked at least dully interested, too, Leo took a cautious sip of his coffee and began. "It's a bacterial infection, but one that's particularly resistant to antibiotics. Ryetalyn is the only thing that has any effect on it whatsoever. It...the bacteria attack the body aggressively. First sign is a fever, second is light purple striatae on the throat. Patients begin exhibiting violent, uncontrollable tremors or shivering. Unconsciousness--different than normal sleep, mind you, and we can tell the difference--eventually sets in, and once that happens..." 

"What?" Slim prompted, sitting upright. 

Leo swallowed, then admitted, "Once unconsciousness sets in, if a cure isn't administered, the patient will be dead within five to seven standard days." 

Sulu dropped the fragments of graham cracker in his fingers, his face draining of what little color had returned to it. "So Pavel only has a week left?" he half-whispered. 

"Not exactly." Leo forced himself not to look away; Sulu deserved Leo's eye contact while he delivered the news. "Chekov has a mutation known as Rigelian-Kassaba fever. It's more serious and attacks the nervous system more aggressively--that's why he was losing his eyesight, and also why he was in so much pain. But..." He reached over and covered Sulu's hand with his own. "Sulu, it's a _lot_ more dangerous. Now that he's gone unconscious...if we can't find ryetalyn within thirty-six hours, he's not going to make it." 

"Oh, my God," Sulu whispered. "No...God, _no..."_

"Sulu, I'm sorry. I'm so damn sorry." 

_"No,"_ Sulu said again, and then he began crying silently, burying his face in his hands.

Leo pushed aside his pie and got out of his chair. "God, Sulu, I'm sorry," he murmured, wrapping his arms around the helmsman. Sulu buried his face in Leo's shoulder and clutched his shirt tightly; Leo closed his eyes and rocked back and forth slightly, the way he would comfort Addie or Slim. He knew with piercing clarity exactly what Sulu was going through. He'd spent enough nights pleading with the universe for Jim's life...and the two weeks he'd been recovering from death by radiation poisoning had almost killed Leo as well. 

"I can't lose him," Sulu sobbed. "I can't." 

"I know," Leo murmured. 

"We should've had longer...God, why was I such an idiot?" 

Leo tightened his arms around Sulu. He knew _that_ feeling, too. "How long has it been?" 

"Seventy-two days," Sulu whispered. "It's not enough." 

"It's never enough," Leo said heavily. "Jim and I have been together for ten years, and if I lose him, it won't have been enough. Pike and Boyce were together for almost thirty years and Boyce said it _still_ wasn't enough." 

Sulu looked up at Leo, his face streaked with tears. "What can I do?" 

Leo let go of Sulu. "Just be there for him, Sulu. He needs you right now. But--and this is important--he needs you at your best. Sleep if you need to. Make sure you're eating something. I will not hesitate to hypo your ass and tie it to a bed if you don't get some sleep. You hear me?" 

"Yes, sir." Sulu wiped his eyes, grabbed a graham cracker, and practically ran out of the mess hall. 

Leo turned to Slim. "All right, son. Come on, let's get you--" he began, but was interrupted by the chirp of his communicator. Quickly, he flipped it out. "McCoy." 

"Doc, this is Gage." 

"I know, Gage, nobody else addresses me as 'Doc.'" Leo rolled his eyes for Slim's benefit, eliciting a small smile. "What is it?" 

"Uh, out of thirty-one patients, ten have fallen asleep, including the captain. The rest...well, they're unconscious." Gage hesitated. "Including Addie." 

Slim leaped to his feet, almost knocking the chair back. Leo swallowed hard. "Thanks, Gage. I--" _Oh, hell._ "Tell M'Benga I'll be back in ten minutes. McCoy out." He flipped the communicator closed and turned to Slim. "There's a cot in my office. You can sleep there tonight. And you _will_ get some sleep, or else. We'll stop by quarters and you can grab what you need for the night." 

Slim knew better than to argue with Leo when he used that tone. "Yes, sir." He pushed the chair back in and followed Leo out the door.

Nine minutes later they walked back into Med Bay. M'Benga made a wry attempt at a smile. "I figured when I told Gage to comm you that you'd be back on duty tonight." 

"The only two I'd expect to be unconscious by now are Solari and Chekov," Leo said. "What the hell is going on here?" 

M'Benga shook his head. "I don't know, Leonard. But I called up what the ship has on file for this disease. Solari's case is textbook Rigelian. Chekov's is textbook Rigelian-Kassaba. Everyone else seems to have something somewhere in between, and I can't figure out why." 

"Hold that thought." Leo took Slim into his office and set up the cot. "I'll be back to check on you later, okay? And I promise, if anything happens to your dad or Addie, I'll wake you up." 

Slim nodded. "Okay, Pa." 

Leo let the office door close behind him and rejoined M'Benga. "Let me see those numbers." 

As M'Benga was calling them up, the door slid open and Weaver, the lead doctor on Gamma shift, entered the room, leaning heavily on her crutch. "Dr. McCoy, I didn't expect you to still be here." 

"I came back," Leo said. "Come here and take a look at this." 

Weaver joined the other two doctors. M'Benga pointed as he explained, "This is Ensign Shelton's information, but the others are identical. You'll note that it's more elevated than standard Rigelian fever--compare it to Lieutenant Solari's--" He called up a second set of numbers, then a third. "Yet it's not as elevated as standard Rigelian-Kassaba. There's no question that the same bacteria is present, but for some reason, it's not acting along standard lines." 

"Is there any way of telling how long they've been infected?" Weaver asked, leaning closer. 

"Unfortunately, no. The best we can do is go by when symptoms presented themselves. Solari noticed the marks four days ago; everyone else seems not to have presented symptoms until this morning. Disease progression is far more rapid than would be expected." 

Leo frowned. "Geoff, Beta's technically over. Are you going off-duty or staying on?" 

"Staying, if you don't mind," M'Benga added, looking over at Weaver. 

"I can use all the help I can get. Fevers aren't my specialty." Weaver was a gifted orthopedic surgeon, and she of course could do GP work, but her lowest scores at Starfleet Medical had been in xenopathology. 

"All right." Leo rubbed his jaw. "Kerry, get a vial of blood off of Solari. Geoff, draw a vial off of--" he hesitated--"Shelton. I'll take one from Chekov. I want to put them under the microscope and see if there are visible differences in the bacteria." 

"Got it." Weaver headed for the supply cabinet.

Leo followed his doctors into the room. Sulu had resumed his seat by Chekov's biobed, hands laced together, stroking the younger man's hair and face tenderly. He looked up as Leo came towards him. "I thought you weren't going to be back on tonight," he whispered. 

"There are only ten patients sleeping rather than unconscious," Leo whispered back. "That's not normal. I'm going to take a blood sample from Chekov--he's in so much pain that even if he were still conscious, he probably wouldn't notice. When I tell you, squeeze his hand as hard as you can, okay?" 

"Okay." Sulu sounded apprehensive. 

Leo pushed up Chekov's sleeve and located a vein that looked promising, then positioned the needle over it. "All right-- _squeeze."_

Sulu gripped Chekov's hand tightly. Leo pushed in the needle, drew the appropriate amount of blood, and pulled out. "Okay. You can let go now." 

"What was that for?" Sulu asked. 

"Makes the vein more visible and improves the blood flow, so I can get the sample quicker." Leo didn't actually need Sulu to squeeze Chekov's hand to get the sample, but he knew that the man needed to feel like he was doing something useful. He glanced up at the K3 indicator--still registering eighty percent, which wasn't particularly surprising in this case. "All right, Sulu. If there's a problem, I'll let you know." 

"Thank you." Sulu's gaze returned to Chekov's face. Leo clapped his shoulder briefly before moving away. 

He stopped to look at Addie, just watched her for a long minute--more specifically, watched the rise and fall of her small chest. The memory of Joanna in her crib, silent and still and faintly blue, never really left him, but it was even more present now, threatening to choke him, to cause him to panic. He had to force himself to calm down, to look up at the screen on the biobed, which was fortunately registering properly. Addie was alive, she was breathing, her heart was beating...there was the fever, and a faint rasp to her breathing, but nothing unexpected. It all indicated she was alive. 

The only real concern, to the doctor in him at least--all of it concerned the father in him--was the K3 indicator, which was reading at sixty-eight percent. 

He glanced at Jim's readings, which were all the same...except for the K3 indicator, which was at two percent. Leo straightened, looking from Jim's to Addie's and then to Chekov's. Was that a hint? 

Weaver and M'Benga were both out of the room. Leo hurried to get out. The shift was just changing over, and he grabbed two of the incoming nurses at random. "Lockhart, Chen, I want you to go into the secondary med bay and write down the K3 readings. Abby, you do the ones for the patients who are unconscious--Deb, you take the ones who are sleeping." 

"Yes, sir." Thankfully, neither nurse questioned him. They grabbed a PADD each and hurried off. 

"What was that all about?" M'Benga asked as Leo joined him and Weaver at the microscopes. 

"Jim's K3 reading is two percent, which is about normal. But Addie's was at sixty-eight percent. Chekov's is eighty." Leo began preparing a slide. "Addie's is too low to be Rigelian-Kassaba fever, but too high to be regular Rigelian fever. There's something odd there." 

Weaver frowned. "Why were their K3 indicators on, anyway? That's not standard, is it?" 

"No, but remember, Kerry, Addie is only sixteen months old," M'Benga pointed out. "She can't articulate symptoms properly yet, especially pain. And the captain whines a lot about minor aches and pains, but when he's in serious pain, he keeps his mouth shut. The K3 indicator is the only accurate assessment of his pain." 

"I didn't know that." Weaver looked abashed. 

Leo gave her a half-smile. "You've never treated him. There's no reason why you should know that." He set the slide on the microscope. "All right, let's see what we've got here."

M'Benga and Weaver set down their slides as well. Leo set it to the highest magnification he could. "Nice-sized bacteria--makes this easier. Geoff, can you call up what the bacteria are supposed to look like?" 

M'Benga grabbed a PADD and called up two side-by-side images. "The one on the left is the Rigelian fever. The right is the Rigelian-Kassaba mutation." 

Leo pointed to the top sample. "Chekov's is classic Rigelian-Kassaba. And--that's Solari's on the bottom, right?" 

"Right," Weaver confirmed. "Classic Rigelian. But look, Leonard--the middle sample, the one from Shelton. It's not like either of them." 

"It's obviously the same bacteria," M'Benga agreed, "but it's got anomalies I've never seen before." 

"Nor have I." Leo studied the image, then removed the outer two slides, centering Shelton's sample. "Computer, run comparison of bacteria in this blood sample against all known bacteria." 

"Computing," the computer said in its pleasant female voice. 

Leo rubbed his jaw, watching as the computer began processing images faster than he could blink. Before the computer had finished, he felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to see Lockhart, who silently handed him her PADD. 

"Thank you, Nurse Lockhart." Leo studied the PADD. Lockhart had added Chen's data as well. "Look at this--all ten of the conscious patients, plus Lieutenant Solari, have K3 readings in the single digits, below five percent. And all of the unconscious patients have K3 readings between sixty-five and seventy percent, except Lieutenant Chekov's, which is much higher." 

"What does it mean?" Weaver asked. 

Before Leo could answer, the computer beeped. "Comparison complete." 

"Does the bacteria in this blood sample match any known bacteria?" Leo asked. 

"Negative. Bacteria is similar to Rigelian fever bacteria, but dissimilar on several points." 

"Thank you." Leo turned to M'Benga and Weaver. "They do have Rigelian fever, but it's a new variant--a new mutation. The ones who are still conscious have classic Rigelian fever, I would estimate, whereas the ones who are unconscious have a mutation similar to Rigelian-Kassaba, but not as painful or aggressive." 

"A new mutation?" M'Benga looked slightly excited. "This is amazing! Rigelian fever hasn't seen a new mutation since it left the Rigel system--I wonder what caused it? Was it the confined starship environment, or something else? It would help if we knew which patient was the first to come down with the variant. Best guess would be Shelton, since he was the first to go unconscious, but that may not mean anything. He may just have been more susceptible to the variant." 

Weaver, on the other hand, was frowning. "Leonard--what does that mean for our unconscious patients? I know with Rigelian fever the outlook after unconsciousness is about a standard week, while with Rigelian-Kassaba fever it's--thirty-six hours, right? What's the prognosis for this new mutation?" 

M'Benga's face fell. Leo shook his head worriedly. "I don't know, Kerry. My guess--and it's no more than a guess at this point--would be that they have more than thirty-six hours but fewer than one hundred sixty-eight." 

"One sixty-eight? That's an awfully specific number." 

"There are one hundred sixty-eight hours in a standard week." 

"How do you know that?" 

"I counted them once," Leo said grimly, remembering the longest week of the longest summer of his life. 

Weaver started to say something when the intercom suddenly came to life. "Bridge to Medical." 

Leo felt a spark of hope as he crossed over to the intercom. "McCoy here." 

Spock didn't question hearing Leo's voice, which was gratifying. "Doctor, we have located a potential source of ryetalyn. Projections indicate that we will arrive within twenty-four standard hours." 

Leo breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank God. Because we've got twenty-one unconscious patients here...including Addie. And I can't be certain how long any of them have." 

"I will keep you posted. Spock out." 

Switching off the intercom, Leo turned to M'Benga and Weaver. "Twenty-four hours. Let's see if we can keep our patients alive that long."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The quoted lines are from _Jurassic Park_ and _The Lost World_ by Michael Crichton.
> 
> Ensign Shelton takes his name from Blake Shelton, the country singer (because I was listening to "Boys 'Round Here" when the character came up and needed a name).
> 
> Nurse (Rory) Williams is from _Doctor Who._
> 
> Dr. Kelly Brackett, Dr. Joe Early, Nurse Dixie McCall, Nurse Hank Stanley, Orderly (Roy) DeSoto, and Orderly Johnny Gage (he was a lot of fun to write, by the way) are from _Emergency!_
> 
> Dr. Kerry Weaver, Nurse Abby Lockhart, and Nurse Deborah Chen are from _ER._


	33. Requiem for Methuselah

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is based (loosely) on the episode of the same name by Jerome Bixby. 
> 
> Slim's requiem is taken from _Hamlet._

Slim woke up with a crick in his neck. The cot was little more than a canvas stretched across a metal frame, the basic design that had been in use for centuries; it was a place to catch a quick nap when the CMO had been pulling long shifts and couldn't or wouldn't take himself off-duty, but hardly meant for a good night's sleep. 

He rubbed at the muscles, trying to loosen them up, and sat up, looking around his stepfather's office. It was neat and spartan, everything in its place, in stark contrast to his father's office, which was, not to put too fine a point on it, controlled chaos. But Leo had put up a couple of decorations. His diploma from Ole Miss was framed on one wall, just below his Starfleet commission, and there was a framed picture on a counter. Slim got up to examine it--a younger Leo and Jim, wearing dark red uniforms, their arms around one another's shoulders. Jim was beaming, his smile almost blinding; Leo was attempting to scowl, but there was a smile fighting for dominance. 

"First day at the Academy," said a voice from behind him. 

Slim jumped and turned to find Leo standing by the door, holding a tray and staring at the picture as though wishing he could disappear into it. "Uhura took the picture--she was the only other cadet either of us knew at that point. She might not have liked your dad much back then, but when I asked, too, she agreed. I put that up before I even put up the paperwork." 

"How come you don't have anything on your desk?" Slim asked. Most of the other officers kept PADDs or paperwork trays or even writing supplies on their desks, but Leo's was completely clear; things that would normally have been on it were tucked away elsewhere. 

Leo looked at Slim, and the ghost of a smile flitted across his face. "I think you're a little young to hear the answer to that question, Slim." 

Slim felt his face turn bright red. "Sorry I asked."

"I brought you breakfast," Leo told him, holding up the tray. "Hope you like grits and orange juice." 

"Sounds perfect." Slim didn't think he could stomach anything more solid than that anyway. "Mind if I get dressed first?" 

"Go ahead." Leo turned around, which Slim wasn't expecting. He was grateful, though. Even though Leo and Jim were both men, Slim was a little shy about his body and didn't even wander around their quarters without a shirt. 

He changed quickly from his pajamas to the clothes he'd been wearing the day before, then cleared his throat. "Okay, I'm ready." 

Leo turned back around and set the tray on the desk. "Have a seat," he said, pointing to the corner. He himself sat in his chair, picking up a bowl and a glass. 

Slim perched on the corner. For a few minutes, they ate in silence. Finally, Slim set aside the bowl. "Pa...how is everyone?" 

Leo sighed, pushing away his glass. "Your dad's fine--he's still asleep, but not unconscious. Addie's unconscious still, but she's...stable. Chekov's in a lot of pain, and I'm really starting to get worried, but...Spock found a planet with what looks like enough ryetalyn. We should be there in approximately three hours--he ordered an increase in speed to Warp Three." 

"And the rest of the people who're sick?" Slim asked. 

"They'll--what do you know about them?" Leo didn't meet Slim's eyes. 

Slim stared at Leo, somewhat astonished. No, he wasn't the captain, but as many engineers as were sick, did he really think Slim wouldn't know any of them? "Lieutenant Eladia Solari transferred from the _Constitution_ two months ago, usually works Gamma shift but meets Ensign Watanabe when he goes on his break during Alpha. Ensign Allyn Simril also joined the ship two months ago, but she's fresh out of the Academy--came with her twin brother Porter--she and Aud--Ensign Cayne are friends. Ensign Lewis McDaniels doesn't say much, but he's a hard worker. Roger Pattinson ain't an officer, he's enlisted, but there ain't many people who know dilithium crystals like he does. Ensign Dmitri Rakhmanov is on his second tour with the _Enterprise_ , an' he'd have been promoted by now if he wasn't an insomniac--he does good work, but he doesn't get enough sleep an' that tells. Ensign Jacinto Croyle is kind of a religious nut, an' it's a weird religion, but if you can keep his mind off his god, he ain't too bad. Ensign Veronica Sarratt is married to Lieutenant Alaine Bayett in Security, an' they're plannin' to have their first baby once this mission is over. Ensign Trevor Lavigne--" 

"I get the picture, Slim," Leo interrupted. "I'm sorry. I just--I was hoping you didn't really _know_ any of them."

"I know all of them. 'Cept maybe the security officers." Slim's stomach twisted. "Is it that bad?" 

Leo sighed heavily. "Crewman Patterson died about six hours ago. And just before I came to wake you up, I found out that Ensign Rakhmanov died." 

"I thought you said they had up to a week!" Slim blurted. 

"I thought they did." Leo ran his hand through his hair. "But...we've apparently discovered a new mutation of Rigelian fever. It's definitely Rigelian fever, but it behaves in ways we're not used to. That's why Spock ordered us up to Warp Three. As soon as I told him that I couldn't guarantee how long any of them would last..." 

Slim slid off the desk. "Maybe I should head down to Engineerin'. Uncle Scotty might need a hand to--" 

"No," Leo interrupted. "You're staying up here. I'm sorry, Slim, I know your dad lets you help out from time to time, and I know they're shorthanded, but--for my personal peace of mind, I need you to stay where I can see you for a while, okay?" 

Slim looked at Leo in surprise--and then understood. The dark circles under his eyes weren't just from lack of sleep. He was strained, tired, and scared. Any one of the patients could die at any time--not just Chekov, but Jim or Addie. Not that losing _any_ patient was good. He was discouraged at having lost the two he had, even though there was literally nothing he could have done without the ryetalyn. Leo probably felt like he was losing control of the situation. He needed to hold on to whatever he could, and right now, that included Slim. 

"All right, Pa," Slim said. "I'm sorry." 

"Don't be." Leo stood up. "C'mon, let's go check on everyone else, and then you can sit with your dad and Addie for a while."

Slim nodded, grabbed his PADD, and followed Leo out of his office. The mood in Med Bay was subdued, even more so than it had been the day before. People were going about their usual tasks, but without any real enthusiasm. And when they entered the secondary medical bay, there was an empty biobed and another that had been switched off, the sheet drawn up over its occupant. Slim paused at the foot of it, guessing that this was Ensign Rakhmanov. He dredged through his memory for something, _anything_ , appropriate, and finally came up with a couple lines of Shakespeare. "'Good night, sweet prince...And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest...'" 

Leo bowed his head, briefly, before continuing on his way. Slim trailed after him, wishing he understood medicine like he understood machines. The numbers on the biobed screens meant nothing to him. He supposed if he really wanted to, he could ask the biobed and it would tell him what the numbers meant, but that was something he'd never tried before and he wasn't sure he wanted to. No sense in overstraining himself, or overcomplicating things. 

Sulu still sat at Chekov's side, holding his hand and stroking his forehead. Leo stopped and put a hand on his shoulder. "Sulu," he said quietly. "Do you think you're up for being on duty, or do you need me to call you off this shift?" 

Sulu started. "God, is it Alpha already?" he murmured. "I--I should probably go up to the bridge. I can handle it." 

"If you can't, say something to Spock," Leo told him. "And I'll comm you if there's any change." 

"Thank you," Sulu said. He stood up, gave Slim a weak smile, and left the room, looking like a man four times his age. 

"Is he gonna be okay?" Slim asked, looking up at Leo. 

"Which one are you talking about?" Leo asked absently without taking his eyes off of Chekov. 

"I don't reckon it matters."

Jim stirred, muttering, and Slim turned his attentions to his father. "Hey, Dad." 

Jim's blue eyes fluttered open. "Mmm...Slim? What time is it?" he mumbled. 

Slim looked at the chronometer inset on the biobed screen. "0748." 

"Damn...gonna be late for shift," Jim said, trying to sit up. 

"Lie down, Jim," Leo said sharply, appearing at Slim's side. "You're in no condition to go anywhere." 

"Dammit, Bones--" Jim began, then stopped as he noticed his surroundings. He exhaled and flopped back. "Right. Med Bay. Rigelian fever." 

Leo laid his hand on Jim's forehead. "How're you feeling?" 

"Now that I think about it, like crap." Jim coughed. 

"Pain?" Leo looked up at the screen as he spoke. 

Jim shook his head. "Just...achy. Nothing serious...Bones, how are the others?" 

"Can't you just focus on being a damned patient?" Leo groused. 

"No," Jim answered. "I'm the captain, sick or not. I have a responsibility to the crew. And to our family." 

"Let me worry about the other patients, would you? Get better and then you can start worrying." 

Jim turned his head to Slim, his expression serious. "Slim," he said quietly. "What isn't he telling me?" 

Slim hesitated, looking at Leo again. Technically, it wasn't his place to say anything. "Addie's...stable," he said cautiously. "She ain't gettin' better, but she ain't gettin' much worse, either." 

"Not you, too," Jim groaned. "Bones, I swear to you, I _will_ get out of this bed, so help me--" 

"We've lost two," Leo said, so softly Slim could barely hear him. "And I can't guarantee most of them will last much longer. You're one of only eight patients who haven't fallen unconscious." 

Jim stared at Leo, speechless. Leo didn't look at him. "Chekov's the worst off, but both Rakhmanov and Patterson died without warning, so I can't judge who, if anyone, will be next. Spock's found a planet with a ryetalyn deposit, we should reach it sometime this shift. I'm just trying to keep everyone alive until we get there. You wanted the facts and you got them. Now try and get some damned rest. I'll keep checking up on you, but for once, you're not the most serious patient I've got." He moved away up the rows of biobeds.

Slim sat down on the chair next to his father's bed. "He's scared," he said softly. "Not that I blame him." 

"Me, either," Jim said, just as quietly. "Slim, I'll understand if you can't answer, but--who are the other seven?" 

It took Slim a second to realize what Jim was asking. "Oh, the ones who don't have the new mutation? I ain't sure. I know Addie ain't one of 'em." 

Jim looked at the biobed next to him. Slim followed his gaze. Someone had removed Addie's sleeper, so she lay in nothing but a diaper, sprawled on her back, the fingers of her left hand locked tightly in the fur of her stuffed tribble. If it weren't for the fact that she rasped faintly as she breathed, Slim might not have known she was doing it at all. 

"'Disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence,'" Jim murmured. 

Slim started and looked back at Jim. The words sounded like a quotation. "What was that, Dad?" 

"It's something Bones said once--one of the first things he ever said to me, actually, on the shuttle to the Academy," Jim said, his eyes still on Addie. "'Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence.' I never realized just how _much_ disease and danger was out here until I had you and Addie to worry about." 

"Life is dangerous," Slim said slowly. "You ever think 'bout how many crazy random coincidences got you to this point? How many chances you had to die, but didn't? I ain't talkin' 'bout since you joined Starfleet. I'm talkin' 'bout before that. I got stepped on by a horse once, when I was livin' with the Minifees. Broke my collarbone, but it coulda been a lot worse. I almost fell down the well when I was with the Kittredges. An' the way the Dubrowskis treated me, I coulda gotten hurt a lot more badly 'n I did. I guess what I'm sayin', Dad, is that I don't regret comin' up here with y'all. I'm glad I got the chance. An' I ain't sure I'd be any safer on Earth." 

Jim sighed, shaking his head slowly. "I guess every parent feels this way. Or most do. We want to protect our kids, keep them safe from the whole world...but it doesn't work that way. Can't teach a bird to fly if you're standing on its wings."

They sat in silence for a moment, listening to the beeping of the biobeds around them. Finally, Slim cleared his throat and held up the PADD. "Want me to keep reading?" 

"I'd like that," Jim said. "Let me think. When you left off last night, they were burning the carcass that we're pretty sure was one of the dinos from Isla Nublar, right?" 

"Right." Slim activated the PADD, found the bookmark, and began to read. "'Levine sat in the bar of the San José airport, waiting for his flight back to the States...'" 

As Slim continued, Jim craned his neck to look. Slim shifted the chair until it was right next to the rail of the biobed, then leaned into it. Jim leaned towards him, sliding an arm around Slim's shoulders. Slim kept reading without missing a word, but he wished the rail wasn't between them. For one thing, it pressed into his ribcage, but for another, it kept him separate from his father. They'd gotten into the habit, when they read, of sitting on Slim's bed, pressing together, so Slim could feel his father's heartbeat against his ear. He may have been fourteen, and mature for his age, but he'd missed out on having a daddy when he was little, and maybe he was making up for lost time. 

He tried to push the thoughts out of his head as he continued. "'"Furthermore, the lateral femur was cut in a deep gash. This is deeply disturbing."'" 

"You can say that again." 

Slim jumped, banging his elbow on the rail of the biobed hard enough to make him wince. Jim winced in sympathy. "Jeez, Bones, give us some warning next time, would you?" 

"Sorry." Leo added something to Addie's IV line. "How're you feeling, Jim?" 

Jim shrugged. "About the same. How's everyone else?" 

"About the same," Leo said, rubbing his temples. He turned towards Chekov's bed, then paused and looked back at Slim. "You know, if your dad doesn't mind, you can sit up there with him. I know that rail's a pain." 

Slim looked up in surprise. He hadn't expected to actually be given permission to do that. But Jim was already scooting over to the other side of the biobed. "Hop up, kiddo." 

"Sure." Slim sat on the edge of the biobed, hesitated, and then toed out of his shoes before swinging his legs up onto the bed. Jim put an arm around Slim's shoulders again and Slim leaned against his father's shoulder. He could feel the heat radiating off of Jim's body, but his heartbeat was regular and steady, and that was comforting. He glanced briefly across the aisle to where Leo was now tending to Chekov, then brought up the PADD and resumed reading.

The story was an absorbing one, and without the constant reminder of the railing in his ribs, Slim forgot he was in Med Bay until, at a particularly dramatic juncture in the narrative, one of the beds down the way began beeping alarmingly. Jim and Slim both started--setting off one of the alarms on Jim's own bed, which silenced itself quickly--and looked down the row of beds. Nurses and orderlies came running towards one of the biobeds, and one of them called, "Dr. McCoy!" 

"What's going on?" Slim whispered. 

Jim shook his head. "I don't know." 

Book forgotten, they watched, tense, as the staff worked. The alarms kept going, and there was a confusion of voices, out of which random words filtered. "Hold it--" "--ten cc's of--" "--dropping quickly--" "--where's the--" 

And then the alarm turned to a steady tone, the voices died out, and Leo's spoke flatly. "Dix, call it." 

Nurse McCall spoke soberly. "Time of death, 0905." 

Jim made a faint noise in the back of his throat. Slim gripped Jim's hand tightly, vague feelings of guilt attacking him. He looked up at Jim. "Dad?" he whispered. "Is it bad to feel relieved that--whoever it is--it ain't Chekov?" 

Jim's arm tightened around Slim's shoulders. "No," he said quietly. "It's okay, Slim. I know what you mean."

Slim glanced anxiously over at Addie's biobed, reassuring himself that she was still breathing, that the biobed would have sounded an alert if there was any change in her status. He remembered the conversation he and Jim had had when he'd been sick, when Jim had told him that he'd had a brother who died. 

_I can't imagine losin' Addie._

_I hope you never have to._

And now she was suffering with a disease, a disease that was one hundred percent fatal if not cured quickly, and nobody knew how much time she had because she had a mutation that could kill in hours or linger for days. It had sent her fever skyrocketing, it probably had her in a lot of pain, and she was so little that even if she was conscious, she wouldn't have been able to articulate her symptoms and suffering. She was probably dying. And Slim was helpless to protect her. 

"Was it like this?" he asked, unexpectedly. 

Jim looked justifiably startled as he looked at Slim. "Was what like this?" 

"When your brother died. Was it..." Slim swallowed, looking over at Addie again. "Like this?" 

Jim was silent for a moment. His arm tightened around Slim's shoulders. "No," he whispered at last. "It was quick. He didn't suffer." 

Slim didn't know what possessed him to ask questions, but he suddenly wanted to know more. "Was he older or younger 'n you?" 

"Older. Five years older. He was fifteen and I was almost ten." There was bitter pain in Jim's voice as he leaned back against his pillow. 

"Sorry," Slim said, feeling another twinge of guilt. It was obvious his father didn't want to talk about it. 

Jim shook his head, wordlessly pulling Slim closer to him. Slim burrowed against his father, book forgotten for the moment. For the moment, he needed comfort. He was suddenly afraid.

After a few minutes, Leo came down the aisle, walking slowly. Jim didn't sit up, but called hoarsely, "Bones." 

Leo looked up, and there were tears in his eyes--Slim thought they were a combination of frustration and sorrow. "We just lost Simril," he said. 

Slim closed his eyes briefly. Jim took a deep breath. "Allyn or Porter?" 

"Allyn," Slim and Leo said in unison. Porter wasn't sick. 

"Damn," Jim exhaled. "Bones, _please_ tell me we're close to getting the ryetalyn we need." 

"I don't know, Jim. I just don't know. I haven't heard from Spock yet." Leo rubbed his eyes. "I don't want to lose anyone else any more than you do, you know." 

"I know." Jim stretched out a hand towards Leo. 

Leo reached over and took it, squeezing tightly. Slim sat up, and Leo put a hand on his shoulder, too. They stayed that way for a minute, silently drawing strength from one another. At last, Leo pulled back. "I've got to finish up some paperwork. Will you two be okay?" 

"Yeah," Jim said softly. "Still working on that book, right, Slim?" 

"Right." Slim fumbled for the PADD and activated it again. "Uh, where were we?" 

Jim leaned his head on Slim's shoulder as Slim continued reading. They were probably going to finish the book before shift was up, unless Jim fell asleep, but that didn't seem likely. Not that Slim minded. He was enjoying the story--and there was a part of him that felt guilty about enjoying anything while Addie and Chekov and the others were so sick, but he tried to fight that back--and he didn't mind spending the extra time with his dad. He was just thankful Jim wasn't unconscious. Slim would probably have read him the book anyway, just in case he could hear, but it wouldn't have been much fun without Jim's occasional comments.

Ninety minutes later, Slim cleared his throat, which was getting a little hoarse. "Second Configuration," he began. 

Before he got any further, however, Leo was there, looking serious but not as weary as before. "Slim," he said. "I hate to interrupt, but you're needed on the bridge." 

"What?" Jim blinked in obvious confusion. 

Slim was already setting aside the PADD as Leo explained, "We've reached that planet--the one with the ryetalyn deposits. Spock and I are going down there to get it. Scotty's staying in charge of the _Enterprise_ , and he's asked for Slim's assistance on the bridge." 

"I'll be back, Dad," Slim said, sitting on the edge of the biobed and putting his shoes back on. That accomplished, he stood up, adjusting his shirt and wishing he'd worn one of the mock-uniform shirts Chekov had given him for his birthday last year, which he still hadn't outgrown (irritatingly enough). "I'm ready." 

Jim reached out, brushing Leo's hand. "Bones...you be careful down there, all right?" 

Leo stopped, bent over, and kissed Jim tenderly. "I will be, Jim. See you when I get back."

Slim followed Leo into the corridor. As they reached the lift, Leo turned to him and said, "I told Spock I'd meet him on the bridge, so I'll go up there with you." 

"Thanks," Slim said. As they began to ascend, he added, "Pa--how long will it take you to get the ryetalyn?" 

"Not long, I hope," Leo said fervently. "Every second counts." 

They stepped onto the bridge together. Spock and Scotty stood together, studying the viewscreen. Slim saw a fairly typical Class M planet, although its atmosphere gave it a reddish-purple cast, with two moons. He slipped over to the Engineering panel as Leo joined Spock. "Spock, what do we have?" 

"Doctor." Spock nodded in greeting. "Planet Holberg 917-G. An uninhabited planet, but one with vast natural quantities of ryetalyn. Between the three of us, we should be able to gather sufficient quantities within four hours." 

"The three of us?" Leo repeated sharply, looking at Scotty, who quickly held up both hands. 

"Yes, Mr. Sulu will be accompanying us," Spock said. He turned towards the helm and added, "When you're ready, Mr. Sulu." 

Sulu stood. He looked pale but determined. Slim caught his eye and gave him an encouraging smile; he nodded in reply as he followed Spock and Leo off the bridge. 

Slim turned back to his console, and after a moment, saw the reassuring flash. "They're away, Mr. Scott." 

"Good lad." Scotty sighed, coming over to Slim's side. "I've not had time to stop by Med Bay. How is--everything?" 

Slim looked up. "We've lost three, sir. Crewman Roger Patterson died around 0100 hours this morning, Ensign Dmitri Rakhmanov died around 0730, and Ensign Allyn Simril died at 0905. Lieutenant Chekov only has--" he hesitated, doing the math--"twenty-four hours at the outside. Eight of the others are still conscious. The rest could go at any time." He swallowed, hard. "Including Addie." 

Scotty's face fell. He looked at the viewscreen. "Let's hope this pans out, then."

"What do you mean?" Slim felt the twist of fear again. "I thought ryetalyn--" 

"Oh, aye, but...nothing's ever easy with this ship," Scotty said. "It may take them longer than we'd like to gather the ryetalyn. They may run into trouble. They may--" 

"Spock to _Enterprise."_

"You see?" Scotty rolled his eyes and crossed over to the chair. "Scott here." 

"Mr. Scott, lock phasers onto our present coordinates," Spock said, his voice clear and precise. "If any harm comes to the landing party, you have full authorization to use them." 

Scotty froze for a moment, then nodded at the helmsman. "Aye, sir, locking on." 

"Stand by, Mr. Scott. Spock out." 

"What trouble could they have run into, sir?" asked the navigator, looking over his shoulder. Slim remembered his name--Kevin Riley, the young lieutenant his father had known as a kid. "I thought the planet was barren." 

"It is," insisted the relief helmsman, whose name escaped Slim. "Sensors indicate no life-form readings whatsoever." 

"It should indicate three," Scotty said sharply. "The landing party is down there, after all." 

"Uh..." The helmsman hesitated, looking at the sensors. "Wait, yes, there they are, sir. Uh--there are _four_ life-forms registering now. Probably some native animal..." 

"Great." Scotty sighed. "Keep those phasers locked on the coordinates, Lieutenant Leslie." 

"Aye, sir."

Slim felt himself tensing as the minutes ticked by. Evidently the whole bridge crew was tense, because he wasn't the only one who jumped when Spock's voice came through again. "Spock to _Enterprise."_

"Scott here," Scotty said, the only one who hadn't been startled. 

"Power down the phasers, Mr. Scott. We have obtained permission to gather the necessary ryetalyn, with a two-hour time limit. I will contact you once we have passed that stage." 

Scotty sighed with relief. "Good to hear, Mr. Spock. The _Enterprise_ will be standin' by. Scott out." 

"I reckon that fourth life-form is sentient," Slim said, glancing at Leslie out of the corner of his eye. "Must be who gave 'em permission." 

"Must be," Uhura agreed. "Which is a relief." 

Slim nodded. The presence of an additional life-form meant that they weren't facing down homicidal computer programs or robots with fixed ideas. Sentient beings could choose right or wrong, and if Spock was willing to have the _Enterprise's_ weapons stand down, that must mean that whoever was down there posed no logical threat. 

The minutes ticked by. Slim monitored his board, wishing that Sulu or Chekov were on the bridge; at least one of them would have _said_ something. He understood why Spock had chosen Sulu for the landing party, though. Part of him wished he could have gone down, too--after all, his father _and_ his sister were sick, to say nothing of his friend--but Spock wouldn't have seen any logical reason to circumvent Jim's orders that Slim stay on the ship. And, truthfully, Slim couldn't see any logical reason for him to be part of the landing party, either. He didn't know what ryetalyn looked like, had no idea how to gather it, and would only have been a hinderance rather than a help. The best thing was for him to stay on the bridge. 

Not that he was necessarily being useful there, either, but at least he was _less_ useless than he would have been planetside.

Finally, the intercom crackled to life. "Spock to _Enterprise."_

Scotty lunged for the chair. "Scott here. You're late, Mr. Spock." 

Slim glanced at the chronometer. Sure enough, it was half an hour beyond the time initially given. Spock's voice was implacable. "The initial deposits of ryetalyn were contaminated with irilium, in quantities sufficient to render the antidote useless. More is being processed. It should take only a short while longer. However, there are more pressing matters." 

Scotty's eyebrows shot up. "Oh?" 

"Lieutenant Uhura, please find any information available on a man named Flint, or on his ward, Rayna Kapec." 

Uhura raised her eyebrows, but said only, "Stand by, Mr. Spock." 

Scotty killed the connection, then turned, frowning, to Leslie. "I thought ye said there were only _four_ life-forms registering down there." 

Leslie looked torn between perplexion and annoyance. "There are, I swear." 

"Slim, see what ye can learn about that planet," Scotty said, turning to the Engineering panel. "There may be something..." 

Slim nodded. He stepped away from the Engineering console long enough to access the ship's library and began scanning for reference to Holberg 917-G. When he did finally find something, he read it twice to make sure he understood it before turning. "Mr. Scott, the planet's privately owned." 

"The whole _planet?"_ Scotty said incredulously. "By who? This Flint person?" 

"No, a man named--" Slim double-checked the name--"Brack. A private investor, apparently, and very wealthy. He bought it outright thirty standard years ago." 

Uhura turned around, too. "I can't find anything on a Rayna Kapec, sir. And 'Flint' is too unspecific. It's not a common surname, but it's not uncommon, either." 

Scotty nodded. "Get me Spock."

Uhura turned back to her console. After a moment, Spock's voice came through. "Spock here." 

"Mr. Spock, there's no record of a Rayna Kapec, and Lieutenant Uhura can't find anything on a Flint without a first name," Scotty said, leaning against the chair. "But Slim did a wee bit of digging, too, and the planet is owned by an investor named Brack. He may be down there, too, or he may be letting this Flint live there." 

There was a short pause. "Thank you, Mr. Scott. We will continue to keep you posted. Spock out." 

Slim returned to the Engineering console. The indicators were all normal, power levels showing that everything was fine, but he still had a sense of unease that he couldn't explain. Maybe it was something in Spock's voice, maybe it was something else. Maybe he was just worried about Addie and Chekov. He didn't even know if it was mechanical or situational. 

He glanced over his shoulder. No one was looking at him; Scotty was talking to Uhura, and Leslie and Riley were focused on their jobs. Slim turned back to his panel, took a deep breath, and rested his hands lightly on a part of the console that had no buttons, knobs, touch-sensors, or other interface with the computer. He closed his eyes briefly and concentrated. _Is everything all right?_

The subtle vibrations came up through his fingers, reassuring him that everything was fine...but was that a note of apprehension? He shook his head, pulling his hands back. Now he was projecting his own feelings onto the ship. Machines didn't have emotions. Well-known fact. 

A small static shock leapt from the console to his hand. It stung and made him jump slightly. 

"Are ye all right, Slim?" Scotty asked, moving towards him. 

Slim rubbed his hand. "Fine, sir. Just a static shock." _It's just a coincidence that it happened right after I talked to the ship,_ he told himself. _Probably my gift gave me a bit of a charge, that's all._

Yet in the back of his mind, he couldn't shake the suspicion that the ship had been chastising him for thinking she didn't have feelings.

The intercom crackled, sparing him further explanations. "Medical to Bridge." 

Slim tensed as Scotty crossed the bridge to answer. "Scott here." 

"Mr. Scott, this is Dr. M'Benga." M'Benga's voice had a portentious ring to it. "Lieutenant Chekov's fever and pain have both risen abruptly to dangerous levels. We're doing everything we can for him, but you might want to ask the landing party to hurry." 

Scotty froze briefly, then managed, "Acknowledged, Dr. M'Benga. Scott out." He stabbed at the button and turned to Uhura. "Lieutenant, get them, _fast."_

"Aye, sir." Uhura turned back to her panel. 

Slim toyed briefly with the idea of asking the _Enterprise_ to do something for Chekov when Spock's voice suddenly filled the bridge. "Spock to _Enterprise_. Beam us aboard immediately and prepare to leave orbit!" 

"Aye, sir!" Scotty sounded relieved. He toggled a switch. "Transporter Room, beam up the landing party!" 

As he turned back towards the console, Slim suddenly got a massive headache--not as bad as he'd had while watching the _Constellation_ die, but bad enough--and a cry of pain echoed in his mind. Then, suddenly, everything went black. 

A moment later, Slim returned to consciousness--he presumed--with a gasp as air filled his lungs again. Anxiously, he looked over his shoulder at Scotty, who was gripping the arm of the captain's chair and looking dizzy. "Mr. Scott, what happened?" he blurted. 

"I've no idea," Scotty said faintly. "Everything went black for a moment--" 

"Did something happen when we tried to beam the landing party aboard?" Uhura asked anxiously. 

"Slim, give me a mechanical status," Scotty instructed. 

Slim turned back to his panel. "Everything appears to be functioning normally, sir," he said slowly. Part of him wanted to ask the _Enterprise_ what had happened, and why she had screamed--because undoubtedly it had been her cry that had echoed in his mind--but he didn't want to risk it, not now.

"Still four life-form readings on the planet's surface, sir," Leslie said, frowning at the sensors in front of him. "Whatever happened, we didn't beam the landing party up, nor lose them." 

"How long were we out?" Riley asked, sounding a little dizzy. "It didn't feel like very long, but--" 

Slim looked at the chronometer and did a double-take. "According to this, nearly ten standard minutes." 

"What?" Scotty blurted. He stabbed at a button. "Bridge to Medical!" 

After a second, a voice answered. "Uh, Gage here." 

Scotty frowned. "Who?" 

"One of the orderlies," Slim said, still looking at the chronometer. Ten minutes... 

Scotty shook his head. "Gage, what is the status on Mr. Chekov?" 

"We're still fighting his fever, Bridge. Funny thing, chronometer indicates that we blacked out for almost ten minutes, and in that span of time he didn't draw a single breath, but there's absolutely no change in his health status..." 

"Thank you, Gage. Scott out." Scotty snapped off the intercom and looked perplexed. "What the devil is going on here?"

A moment later, the ship's communication system came to life again. "McCoy to _Enterprise."_

Uhura spun around so fast her ponytail almost got tangled on her panel, her face pale. Slim couldn't blame her. There was no real logical reason for Spock not to be contacting them. Scotty, too, looked worried as he answered, "Scott here." 

"We've got the ryetalyn, Scotty." Leo sounded somewhere between exhausted and exhilarated. "Beam us up and let's get the hell out of here." 

"Beaming ye up now, Doctor. Scott out." Scotty cut the communication and relayed the order to the Transporter Room. 

Slim watched the surge of energy on his panel go to the transporters. The energy subsided, and then Uhura turned. "Transporter Room reports the landing party arrived onboard, safe and sound, with their ryetalyn." 

Scotty breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness for small mercies." 

"Wait--" Uhura put a hand to her ear, then added, "Mr. Spock requests that both you and Slim join him in Med Bay."

Slim was out of his seat in an instant. Scotty put a hand on his shoulder and steered him towards the lift. They descended in relative silence, until Scotty asked, "Laddie, why did ye say that everything on the ship _appeared_ normal?" 

Slim was so busy worrying about Chekov, Addie, and Jim that he answered without thinking. "Because I didn't have time to ask the ship if there was anything going on that the instruments couldn't explain." 

"What?" Scotty sounded confused. 

"I--" Slim blushed as he realized what he'd said. _Great. Now what?_ "Um. What I mean is--you know, remember when--sometimes stuff doesn't show up on the instruments and--" 

"Aye, that's true." Mercifully, the lift doors opened then and Scotty left it at that. Slim made a mental note to watch what he said as he jogged along the corridor towards Med Bay. 

Sulu and Spock stood in the middle of the room. Spock's face was blank and impassive as ever; Sulu was pacing anxiously. Slim went towards them. "Uncle Spock?" 

"Thomas...Mr. Scott," Spock said quietly. "Dr. McCoy is administering the cure now." 

"Were we in time?" Scotty asked. 

Slim noticed that Scotty had said _we_. There was never any question in his mind that if it failed, it wasn't the fault of the landing party--they had worked together with the ship. Success or failure rested on the entire crew. Spock didn't blink. "I cannot say, Mr. Scott. I can only say that all patients who were alive when we left remained so when we arrived, although Lieutenant Chekov is in very critical condition."

Sulu made a choked noise. Slim crossed over to him and put a hand on his shoulder, wishing there was more he could do. Sulu covered the hand with his own and sank onto the edge of an exam table. Scotty rubbed his bald spot. "We had a wee bit of a scare. Apparently the entire ship's crew blanked out for a period of--how long was it, Slim?" 

Slim tried to recall the exact numbers on the chronometer. "Nine minutes, thirty-two seconds." 

"Nine minutes, thirty-two seconds," Scotty echoed. "Chekov apparently didn't draw breath that entire time, but he didn't suffer any ill effects. I've no explanation." 

"The ship was in suspension," Spock said evenly, "along with the crew. It was also miniaturized, to no more than a meter in length." 

"Impossible!" Scotty blurted. "This ship is nearly three hundred times that size!" 

"Two hundred and eighty-nine times, to be precise," Spock said. "I am aware. Nevertheless, the man calling himself Flint was able to do that." He was silent for a moment, then added, "Were there any other incidents?" 

"Nay," Scotty answered. "Quiet as a churchmouse."

The door to the secondary sickbay slid open and Leo came out. Sulu leaped to his feet and Slim tensed until he saw the faint smile on Leo's face. "We were in time," he said, the relief in his voice evident. "Even for Chekov, although that was a close call. Everyone's going to pull through. Most of 'em will be discharged before end of shift, although they'll need to stay on bedrest for at least another day. May be a little longer before I can release Chekov, but he'll live." 

Sulu's knees buckled; Slim caught him, grunting slightly under the sudden weight. "Can I see him?" the helmsman asked pleadingly. 

"Go ahead, Sulu. He's still asleep, but you can go see him." Leo looked directly at Spock as Sulu slipped past him. "I assume you'll be wanting to talk to Jim." 

"Indeed," Spock said. Was it Slim's imagination, or did he look uncomfortable? "I believe you and Mr. Scott should be present for this conversation as well." 

Slim wondered why Spock had asked him to come down to Med Bay until Leo turned to him and said, "Slim, you come, too. Addie's gonna be waking up soon, anyway." 

"Yessir." Slim adjusted his shirt again and followed the three officers.

The room was much more peaceful than it had been the last time Slim had been there-- _had_ it only been three hours? The patients breathed easier, and several of them were sitting up, talking to orderlies and nurses. Jim, at the end of the row, sat upright, looking pale but grinning. "Mr. Spock, good to see you again," he said. He _sounded_ much better, too. 

"It is gratifying to see you as well, Captain," Spock said. 

Slim slipped to the chair next to Addie's biobed. Jim indicated the chair next to his own bed. "Since Bones won't let me get up yet, why don't you sit down and tell me what happened?" 

"I prefer to stand," Spock said. "Where would you like me to begin?" 

Jim rolled his eyes for Slim's benefit. "Were there any problems on the planet's surface?" 

Spock hesitated. "Yes, Captain. When we beamed down initially, we were attacked by a sentry robot. An elderly gentleman stopped its attack, then introduced himself as Flint and told us to leave immediately. I asked him to reconsider, and he would not. It was not until Dr. McCoy described the fever gripping the _Enterprise,_ comparing it to the bubonic plague, that Flint agreed to allow us two hours to collect the ryetalyn, and even offered us the services of his robot." 

"Which you accepted, of course," Jim said. 

"Naturally. However, the ryetalyn the robot returned with contained quantities of irilium, sufficient to render the antidote useless, and it was sent to gather more. It was then that we were introduced to a woman called Rayna Kapec, whom Flint referred to as his ward." 

"People still have wards?" Jim's eyebrows shot up. 

Slim had honestly wondered about that himself. Leo spoke up then. "We found out later that the lady wasn't quite what she appeared to be, Jim. She was an android." 

"An android!" Jim exclaimed. "What the hell was this Flint doing with an android?" 

"Apparently," Spock said in a careful tone of voice, "he was attempting to create the perfect woman--a woman who would never die." 

"No one wants to outlive his--or her--spouse, Mr. Spock. Surely Flint would have known that." 

"He did," Leo agreed, putting a hand on Jim's shoulder. "That was Flint's other secret. He was over six thousand years old, Jim."

Jim's jaw dropped. _"What?"_

Slim looked at Spock in astonishment. Slowly, Spock nodded. "He was a soldier in ancient Mesopotamia. He has assumed numerous identities, including Merlin, Brahms, Da Vinci, Solomon, Alexander the Great, Lazarus, Methuselah, and Abramson." 

"Abramson!" Slim and Scotty said together, eyes wide. It was a fairly common surname, but if the man calling himself Flint had listed it as though it meant something, there was only one man it could have been: Hesham Abramson, the engineer who had designed most of the components that made up the modern starship, a man second only to Zefram Cochrane in the annals of engineering history. He was one of Slim's idols. 

"Well, that explains how he had the know-how to create an android," Scotty mused. "At least the basic principles." 

"So you left an immortal man and an android on that planet." Jim raised an eyebrow. 

"Flint's not immortal," Leo said. "I took tricorder readings. He's very, very old, but it was something on Earth's atmosphere that prolonged his life. Outside of that, he's aging at a normal rate. I'd estimate he won't last more than another thirty or forty years." 

Jim shook his head. "So his android is pointless." 

"Also useless," Leo said. "Her emotions awoke--but they were too much for her." 

"The joys of love made her human," Spock said softly. "And the agonies of love destroyed her." 

Slim looked up at Spock. Something in his voice indicated that he, himself, was feeling an emotion of some kind. Jim, too, looked at his first officer. "Mr. Spock?" 

Spock hesitated, looking at Leo. Quietly, Leo said, "There was--an altercation, between two men--one who loved her, and one whom she loved. She couldn't decide between the two of them, and it destroyed her in the end. She--shorted out, or something." 

"I see," Jim said softly. "I see." He reached out and touched Spock's arm; Spock flinched, and Jim withdrew his hand before continuing. "The important thing is that, once again, Spock, you appear to have saved the day." 

"I did very little, Captain. I believe in this instance, as in the last, it is Dr. McCoy who deserves the credit." 

Jim smiled at Leo. "Thanks, Bones." 

Leo bent over and kissed Jim's forehead. "Couldn't just leave you there looking all pathetic."

Jim laughed. Slim grinned, glad to see his father back to normal and his stepfather relaxing. He'd been scared--no point in denying it--and even though it had only been about twenty-four hours since the first signs of illness, they'd been twenty-four very long hours. He honestly hadn't been sure anyone would survive it. And finding out that three patients had died... 

Addie suddenly stirred, let out a soft whimper, and opened her eyes. "'Lim?" she mumbled. 

Slim reached over to touch his sister's head. "I'm right here, Addie." 

Addie blinked a few times, looked into Slim's eyes, and smiled, stretching out her arms. "'Lim," she said again. "Up!" 

Slim glanced at Leo, who shook his head. "Not right now, Addie," Slim said, wrapping his hand around hers. "But soon. Let Pa check an' see how you're feeling, okay?" 

"Papa," Addie said happily, turning to look at Leo. 

Leo smiled, coming around the biobed and taking Addie's other hand. "Good to see those pretty blue eyes of yours again," he murmured. "Mighty good indeed." 

Slim sat back to watch Leo examine Addie. Thoughts of near-immortal men, androids that fell in love, shipwide blackouts, and even deadly fevers left his head as he gave thanks to whatever deity was out there that his family was safe and well once more.


	34. He Never Knew

Jim was sound asleep, comfortable in a cloud of fuzzy warmth, when he felt gentle, feather-light lips brush across his and heard a voice murmur in his ear, "Mornin', darlin'." 

He'd been discharged from Med Bay by the end of Alpha shift the day before. Bones had brought Addie back to quarters around the same time, but Jim hadn't seen her; she'd been fretful and fussy, and he'd put her down almost immediately. Jim had dozed for a bit until Slim came back from a fencing lesson with Sulu--they'd both decided they needed the exercise and the stress relief--and they'd read two more chapters of _The Lost World_ before Slim went to bed. Bones had crawled into bed and wordlessly wrapped him in a hug, and they'd fallen asleep in one another's arms. 

He hummed contentedly, returning the kiss before fluttering his eyes open and smiling up at the hazel eyes over him. "Morning." 

"How're you feeling?" Bones asked, returning the smile, although there was something worried in his expression. 

"Just fine, Bones," Jim reassured him. He was still a little achy, but he didn't feel like he had a fever anymore, there was no more headache, and he wasn't coughing. And above all, he felt _safe,_ with his head on Bones' chest, comforted by his heartbeat and the steady rise and fall of his breathing and his arms still holding him close. 

Jim hated being sick. It wasn't so much the symptoms he didn't like, although they weren't any fun. It was the helplessness, the weakness. He'd felt powerless enough with Frank as a kid, and Tarsus IV had only made those feelings worse, but he'd been able to fight back, up to a point. Powerless as he'd been, he had still been the strong one more often than not, the one who fought to keep the other kids safe, the one who took the blows and battled the authority figures long enough for the others to escape. It was a hard mentality to shake, that he had to be the strong one. When he was sick, he was helpless, and as bad as that was for him, it was worse for the people he had to protect. 

But Bones...Bones was always there for him when he was sick, his rock, his strength, his shield. Bones kept him safe until he was strong and well again, and if he thought Jim was weak, he never let on. And he never let _Jim_ believe that, either. As often as Jim had to be the strong one, it was nice to have someone he could lean on, too.

"You look a lot better," Bones murmured. He brushed Jim's hair back from his forehead and planted another light kiss on it. "You _sound_ a lot better." 

"I _am_ a lot better," Jim said. 

"Who's the doctor here?" Bones huffed, but Jim knew it was mostly for show. "I'll say this for Rigelian fever, its cure is as dramatic as its onset. The only one showing any lasting aftereffects is Chekov." 

"How is he?" Jim asked anxiously. The navigator had still been unconscious when he'd left Med Bay the day before. 

"I only just woke up, too," Bones reminded him. "But if he was in any danger, M'Benga would have commed me by now. When I left, he was still unconscious, but that's to be expected. Rigelian-Kassaba fever takes a lot out of a person. He was in a lot of pain, and his body's got to recover from that." 

Jim was silent for a minute. He especially hated being sick, or incapacitated, when members of his crew were sick or incapacitated. He was responsible for them, after all, and nothing made him feel more helpless than not being able to do anything while their lives were in danger. And he was inclined to be somewhat protective of Chekov, who was like a little brother to him. 

At last, he said quietly, "How bad was it, Bones?" 

"About what Spock felt when that critter was embedded in his nervous system," Bones said, his voice equally quiet. "Except Chekov isn't part-Vulcan. He's all human. Poor kid almost couldn't handle it. That, more 'n anything, is what made him pass out." 

"God," Jim whispered, tears pricking his eyes. Unconsciously, he clung to Bones a little tighter.

Bones held him a moment longer, then slowly, reluctantly, withdrew his arms. "I gotta get ready for my shift, Jim," he said hoarsely. 

"Guess that means I do, too," Jim said with a sigh, rolling off of Bones and sitting up. 

"Guess again." Bones put a hand to Jim's sternum, pressing him back onto the bed. "You're not going on duty today. Twenty-four hours of bedrest. No, don't argue," he added, holding up his hand as Jim opened his mouth to protest. "You may not have had it as bad as Chekov or some of the others did, but you're still recovering from a pretty serious illness. You need rest." 

"Bones, come on," Jim complained. "I've done nothing but rest for the last two days." 

"One more won't kill you," Bones said, unrepentant. "If you behave, I'll let you get up after Alpha, and you'll be back on the bridge tomorrow, but for now, you're staying right there." 

"What if I have to use the head?" Jim said impishly. 

Bones scowled. "You can get up to take a piss, but other than that, I don't want you stirring out of that bed unless it's actively on fire, you got that?" 

"Actively on fire. As opposed to passively on fire?" 

"Stop it," Bones growled. "I'm serious, Jim. Chekov's still in serious condition, even if he's--probably--out of danger now. I'm gonna be worried enough about him. I don't need to worry about you, too." 

Jim softened. Teasing Bones was fun--usually--but he knew when to draw the line, and he was coming close to overstepping it. "All right, Bones. I'll stay put. I promise." He hesitated. "Could you at least give me some paperwork or something? _Anything_ to entertain myself?" 

Bones stood, a mischievous smirk on his face. "Be right back."

He walked out, leaving Jim mystified and slightly worried. A few moments later he returned, carrying Addie in his arms. Their daughter was bundled up in her pale yellow sleeper and looked tired but content and much, _much_ better than she had twenty-four hours previously. Slim was behind him, carrying an armful of PADDs and a box under one arm. 

"Morning, Slim," Jim said to his son before turning his attentions to Addie. "Hi, baby girl. Feeling better?" 

Addie nodded, holding out her arms. "Daddy." 

Bones turned back the covers and plopped Addie down on the mattress next to Jim, surrounding her with every pillow except the one Jim had been using. He then tucked them both in deftly. "There you go, Addie-bug," he cooed. "You can be a big girl and sit with Daddy all day, how's that?" 

Addie's eyes widened, and she held her arms up over her head. "Big!" she exclaimed happily. 

Slim set the box and the PADDs on Jim's nightstand table. "I brought you her puzzle box," he explained. "Most of the PADDs are hers, too--there's the Dr. Seuss books, the Curious George books, the Captain Galaxy books, the Marcus Pfizer books, an' the Little Golden Books--but the one on the bottom is for you--y'know, in case she falls asleep an' you're still awake an' bored." 

"What is it?" Jim asked, frowning at it. He wasn't really in the mood for technical journals, and he knew that Scotty and Slim--and Ensign Cayne--had been sharing them pretty frequently of late. And of course Slim wouldn't have given him _The Lost World_ \--that was their book, the one they were reading together. 

"The Oz books," Slim said, blushing slightly. "I just--I know when I'm sick, I don't want to read somethin' new, I want somethin' old an' comfortin'. An' you told me you'd read _The Wizard of Oz..."_

Jim brightened. "Thanks, Slim! I didn't realize there were more books in the series--how many are there?" 

"Twenty-one that were written by L. Frank Baum," Slim answered. "His wife wrote a few more, but they ain't on there--they ain't the same. An' in the early twenty-first century, there was a man who wrote a coupla continuations, but they're for adults, an' they're a lot darker. Anyway, they ain't on there, either." 

"I'll read them some other time. This ought to get me through the day, anyway." Jim didn't figure he'd end up napping again. He didn't feel tired enough for that. 

Bones smirked. "Think this will be enough to entertain the two of you for the next eight or nine hours?" 

Jim hesitated. "One more thing--could you put my guitar where I can reach it? Just in case." 

"Sure." Bones walked over to the closet and retrieved the battered black case, leaning it against the wall between the nightstand and the bed. "Happy?" 

"For now," Jim conceded.

Bones leaned over and kissed the top of Jim's head, then did the same for Addie before turning to Slim. "Let me get dressed and I'll meet you in the living room." 

"Sure thing," Slim said agreeably. He grinned and winked at Jim. "See you later, Dad." 

"See you, Slim," Jim called after his son's retreating back. 

Bones rummaged in his drawers until he found his clothes for the day. Jim sat back, unabashedly enjoying the view as Bones stripped down. "How hard would I have to beg to get you to take the day off and stay here like that?" 

"Pretty damned hard," Bones said, pulling on his black Starfleet-issue briefs, then his trousers. He paused, glanced over his shoulder, and added, "But I'd still refuse." 

"Spoilsport," Jim teased, but without any real heat. He knew Bones felt he was needed in Med Bay. Jim agreed--there was no one he wanted in charge of Chekov's recovery more than his Chief Medical Officer, to say nothing of his miracle-worker. 

Bones pulled on his shirt, then crossed to the bed and kissed Jim, slowly and languidly. "If you're a good boy today, maybe I'll give you a reward when I get back," he said in Jim's ear. 

Jim shivered as a thrill of anticipation ran down his spine. "Fuck, Bones." 

"That's the idea, darlin'." Bones kissed him again, then smiled as he straightened. "See you in a few hours." 

"Bastard," Jim muttered under his breath as Bones left. He was going to be thinking about that all day.

Addie leaned against him and smiled, deep dimples popping into her cheeks. Well, at least it wouldn't be a completely lousy day. Their daughter's resemblance to Bones got more and more pronounced every day, although she definitely had Jim's personality in addition to his eyes. She was adorable and affectionate and cuddly, and they hadn't had nearly as much time to bond as Jim would have liked. Today was a whole day just for the two of them. 

"Well, Addie-bug, what do you want to do first?" he asked her, smiling. "We could read a book, or play puzzles..." 

"Git-taw," Addie said, pointing at the black case on Jim's other side. 

Jim laughed. "Or we could do that." 

He pulled up the guitar, opened it, and tuned it quickly, then tried to come up with songs that would entertain a sixteen-month-old baby. In theory, he knew that Addie was too little to really care; she would like anything he played. But in practice, she was picking up words and tunes pretty quickly, so he wanted to go with something she would enjoy. She loved Slim's cowboy tunes that he played on the harmonica, but since Jim didn't know any of them, he couldn't play or sing them. 

In the end, he launched into a medley of silly songs and folk songs that had Addie clapping and giggling. Jim especially liked "Leatherwing Bat," which was in the minor key and could go on for ages, as long as one could keep coming up with avian species and rhymes for them. The original song was limited to English woodland birds (plus the titular bat), but Jim pulled out the names of every alien birdlike or batlike species he could remember. Addie's favorite seemed to be "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly," which Jim sang with accompanying facial gestures that sent her into tucks of laughter. 

Eventually he set the guitar aside and convinced Addie to play with the puzzle box. Spock had made it himself for Addie's birthday--where he found the time for woodcarving, never mind the resources, Jim didn't know and hadn't asked. It was an ingenious design, smooth and polished, with several levels of puzzles that somehow all used the same pieces. Addie could solve the simplest ones on her own, given time and willingness to concentrate, but the higher levels of puzzles would be a challenge even for Jim. It was a gift that would grow with her as well as helping her grow.

Because she was still at a stage where anything smaller than her fist tended to go straight into her mouth, she wasn't allowed to play with the puzzle unsupervised. But today, for a wonder, it actually held her interest for almost a full hour. She at last managed to solve the puzzle and held up the completed box for Jim's inspection, beaming happily. "Look!" 

"Yaaaaay, Addie!" Jim cheered. 

Addie's grin intensified, and she clapped her hands. "Yaaaaay!" 

Jim glanced at the chronometer and bit back a sigh. It was only 0945. More than five hours to go. He was already bored stiff with sitting still. And, he realized, he was hungry. He hadn't had breakfast and Bones hadn't left either him or Addie anything. Briefly, he toyed with the thought of getting up and going to the Rec Room for _something_ , but he had promised Bones he would stay put and be a "good boy." He flushed slightly at the thought. While their sex life was fairly tame these days, compared to how it had been the first months and years of their relationship, both he and Bones had a few kinks that they occasionally indulged in. Jim's biggest was a praise kink. Usually Bones limited himself to telling Jim how beautiful he was, and that was plenty satisfying, but Jim had once warned Bones that when he called him _good boy_ , he wasn't responsible for his behavior. 

Oh, hell. He'd just made the next five hours _very_ uncomfortable.

Deciding that the best way of distracting himself would be to get lost in a fantasy world that had _absolutely nothing to do with sex whatsoever_ , he smiled down at his daughter. "Want to read a book?" 

"Book," Addie nodded, pointing at the PADDs on the nightstand. She knew the names of almost everything in their quarters by now, even though she couldn't pronounce half of them properly; she was going through what Bones assured him was only the first of several questioning stages. This one mostly involved her pointing at things and saying, "Dat?" until someone told her the name of it. She'd asked "Dat?" while being read a story, pointing at the screen of the PADD, and Bones had told her it was a book without thinking, so now she thought that every PADD was a book. They were trying to re-teach her, but it was uphill work. She had inherited every ounce of stubbornness both her parents possessed. 

Jim reached for the topmost PADD--and paused. He wondered if sixteen months was too young to introduce to the Land of Oz. 

"How about a new book?" he suggested, carefully shifting the PADDs aside and pulling out the bottom one. "There aren't any pictures--you'll have to imagine them yourself." 

Addie made noises that sounded enough like agreement to satisfy Jim. He scooped Addie up, settling her on his lap, and activated the PADD. "This is a very special book," he explained. "Grandma used to read it with Daddy when _he_ was a little boy." 

Addie snuggled down in Jim's lap. She leaned back against him as he began, " _The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,_ by L. Frank Baum. Chapter One: The Cyclone..."

It was one of his few precious childhood memories. He'd had the chicken pox when he was five and been absolutely miserable, especially since Sam, who'd never had the disease and hadn't been vaccinated yet, had been barred from his room. But his mother had been home when she'd discovered the first spots, and she'd actually called the brass at her next assignment and told them she'd be two weeks late, then spent the entire time Jim was itchy and sick taking care of him. In the last couple days when he was feeling better but not allowed to get up yet-- _kind of like now_ \--she'd started reading _The Wizard of Oz_ to put him to sleep, but he'd loved the adventure and colorful descriptions so much that he'd stayed awake much longer than she'd anticipated, only dropping off when she finally closed the book halfway through and told him to get some rest and they'd read more the next day. 

_"Read it again, Mommy."_ He'd started begging immediately after she read the last line, and he must have looked pretty pathetic, because she had, and that time she'd let him stay awake the whole time. 

After Tarsus, after the _Lexington_ arrived back on Earth with her malnourished and traumatized cargo, after the dams broke and Jim forgave Winona and Winona forgave herself for sending her boys up there, one to die and one to break into a thousand pieces, they'd held one another on Jim's bed, Jim curled into her chest and clutching her shirt and Winona rocking him like a baby. He'd called her _Mommy_ for the first time since the chicken pox incident, and she'd called him _my little lion_ with a catch in her voice, and he'd mumbled something about wanting the kind of courage that kept one from feeling afraid, and she'd remembered and found her copy of the book and read it to him again. 

After that it was their go-to book when one of them was feeling sad or sick or scared. She'd read it to him when she got home after his thirteenth birthday, when he'd lost his virginity to a random biker he'd met in the next town over who'd left him bruised and raw; he'd read it to her when he was fifteen, on what would have been her twenty-first wedding anniversary, when she could have said she'd spent half her life with the man she loved. She'd read it to him when he was seventeen and she'd actually been able to bail him out of jail in person; he'd read it to her when he was nineteen and she'd somehow come home with a broken leg. They'd taken turns reading it to one another on his twenty-second birthday, when they both realized that he was the same age his father was when Sam was born. 

The last time he'd read the book, or more accurately _been_ read the book, had been four years later, when he'd been convalescing in his and Bones' apartment in San Francisco after having died and been brought back thanks to the man who loved him more than life itself. His mom had come to visit--they'd seen each other for the first time since before he'd left for Starfleet Academy--and she'd chided him gently for not telling her about Bones and teased him about reading the PADD full of poetry his father had once given her, and it had all been awkward as hell until she sat down on the sofa next to him, half-pulled him onto her lap, tangled her hand in his hair, and pulled out the book. She'd read it to him, the whole thing, cover to cover, on a rainy San Francisco night while Bones sat in a nearby armchair and watched.

Winona always read it with the same inflections and the same voices, even twenty-one years after she'd read it for the first time, and Jim always read it the same way. It just wasn't _The Wizard of Oz_ if Dorothy didn't have a high-pitched lisp and the Cowardly Lion's voice wasn't as deep as he could get it and the Wicked Witch of the West didn't talk through her nose. Addie appreciated the voices, apparently; certainly she listened raptly, looking from the PADD to Jim and back. 

She stayed awake for the entire book, which was another marvel, as it took Jim almost three hours to read it. On the last chapter--which was no more than three paragraphs long--he choked up. Suddenly he remembered the night after he'd returned from Tarsus. Winona had started reading about Dorothy and Aunt Em's reunion and had started crying again. Jim, who'd been pretty emotionally fragile himself at the time, had almost started panicking, thinking something was wrong, thinking that he'd done something, and Winona had wrapped her arms tighter around him and whispered in his ear _My darling child_. And Jim had started crying and clutched his mother's arm and sobbed out the final line of the book: _I'm so glad to be at home again._

Addie fell asleep as Jim read that line, a smile of contentment on her face. Jim set the PADD aside and leaned back against the pillows, stroking Addie's hair. Iowa had never really been _home_ , but he'd felt at home that night, and he hadn't understood why. He hadn't really understood why the _Enterprise_ was home, either, but at first--actually, until they'd left Earth more than a year ago--he'd assumed it was just that he belonged in space. That was where he was born, where his father's ashes were scattered, where he was always destined to be someday. 

Now he knew. Home wasn't a place, or a physical location. Home, for Jim Kirk, had always been where he was loved--where the people who loved him best in the world were. The broken ten-year-old who'd left most of his family staining the dirt of a planet he would never set eyes on again had found his home in the Riverside farmhouse because that was where his mother was, his mother who had divorced Frank for him, who had taken a whole summer off of work that she couldn't really afford in order to help him heal. And the _Enterprise_ was home because of the crew. Because of his children. 

Because of Bones.

For the first time in ages, Jim wished his mother could have been assigned to the _Enterprise_. But she was a commodore--she outranked him--and her specialized knowledge was better served elsewhere. Jim wasn't even sure what ship she was assigned to, or if she was even _on_ a ship at all. The subspace communication they'd had, the day he'd found out about Addie, had been heavily encrypted so that neither one of them knew where the other was. She'd sent a package that contained a lot of clothes--including the sleeper Addie was wearing now--and the stuffed tribble, but they had come directly from the store. Her work, and his, kept them separated. 

He was startled to hear the chime of the door. "Enter," he called, hoping his voice was loud enough to carry and wondering who the hell would be coming to their quarters in the middle of Alpha shift--who wouldn't have an access code, that was. 

A few moments later, Uhura appeared in the doorway, carrying a tray and looking somewhere between serious and downcast. She stopped and looked at Jim's face. "Are you okay, Captain?" 

Jim debated with himself for a second, then admitted, "Just missing my mother." He wiped his eyes, then added, "Not that I'm unhappy to see you, but--what are you doing here?" 

"You know that forty-five minute break everyone's supposed to get when working a shift that nobody on the senior command ever takes?" 

"Yeah..." 

"Well, I'm taking it today. Dr. McCoy suddenly remembered that you hadn't eaten since you were discharged yesterday, so...I brought you lunch." Uhura held up the tray.

Jim carefully shifted Addie to one side and lay her down in the pillows. She gave a small sigh and went back to her nap. "Ah, thanks. Was this your idea?" 

"Not exactly," Uhura admitted. "It was Leo's suggestion, but Spock said it sounded like a great idea." 

Something in her voice raised, if not red flags, at the very least yellow ones in Jim's brain. "Are you two fighting again?" 

"No." Uhura plunked the tray down on Jim's lap. "Yes. I don't know." 

Jim could see that there was two of everything on the tray, as well as a sippy cup of juice for Addie if she ever woke up. "Why don't you pull up a chair and join me, and we can talk?" 

Uhura pulled the chair away from the wall and sat down, tucking her legs gracefully to one side. Jim popped a grape into his mouth and said, "So you don't know if you're actually fighting or not." 

"It's not as clear-cut as usual," Uhura said, prodding at the sandwich nearest her disconsolately. "Usually when we're fighting, he's done something logical and I'm mad at him and I know it's stupid but I can't help it. He doesn't understand why I'm angry and tries to talk me around and I get madder and then we make up." 

"I know." It had been the pattern since their first fight, after Nibiru and Spock's near-death experience with the volcano. "So what's different this time?"

Uhura sighed. "It's not so much that we're... _fighting_. He's just avoiding me. He won't look me in the eye, he won't talk to me except in the most formal of tones, and when I tried to talk to him yesterday, he just...walked away." 

Jim stared at Uhura. That didn't sound like Spock. "Maybe he assumed you were going to yell at him," he ventured. 

"For _what?_ Why would I yell at him?" 

"Uh..." Jim hesitated. Spock hadn't actually _said_ anything, but Jim had read between the lines and was pretty sure he knew what had happened. "Did he...tell you what happened on Holberg 917-G?" 

Uhura frowned--and then her brow cleared. "Oh. You mean about Rayna? He told me all about her. He said he was pretty sure he 'returned her affections.'" 

"Yeah," Jim said cautiously. "He probably figured you'd be mad at him for that. After all..." He trailed off. 

"But he didn't give me a _chance,"_ Uhura protested. "I mean, come _on._ Spock might have been attracted to Rayna. But that doesn't mean he doesn't love me. We've been together for fifteen years. I _know_ him. I know how he feels about me, even when he doesn't. I can't believe he'd honestly think I'd be angry with him." 

"I suppose he thinks it's...logical...that you would be," Jim said, without even a trace of a smile.

"But _why_ would he think that?" Uhura said, spreading out her hands helplessly. "Seriously, Jim, I'm totally at sea here. I can't think of a single reason for him to believe I'd be angry with him." 

"Remember the last big fight Bones and I had?" Jim asked. 

Uhura frowned. "Yeah. About--what, four years ago? You didn't talk for three days--not until Chekov got you to play that old song on your guitar and we brought Leo up in time to hear it." 

"You remember what it was about?" 

"I don't think we ever knew in the first place." 

"Remember the Guardian of Forever?" Jim said softly. "There was a woman there...Edith Keeler..." 

"That I do remember," Uhura said. "Her death was the event that changed history--when Leo went back, he'd saved her life, which meant Germany won World War II and we never made contact with the Vulcans. Something like that." She frowned. "Does that have something to do with your fight?" 

Jim nodded. "I--fell in love with her. I didn't mean to, but I did. And Bones did, too, just a little, but he was only there a day--I'd known her for weeks. Bones was angry with me for stopping him from saving her life, but he was hurt and betrayed that I'd fallen in love, even though we were married. I really thought I'd lost him that time." He glanced down at Addie, then looked back up at Uhura. "Spock's the only one who knew about that."

Understanding dawned on Uhura's face. "You mean he thinks I'm going to react the same way Leo did." 

"Like I said, he probably thinks it's only logical." Jim smiled slightly. "You and Bones are a lot alike. If I'd been the one on that planet who fell like a ton of bricks for an android, Bones would have disemboweled me with a rusty soup spoon. And usually, the things you get mad at Spock for _are_ things that make sense to him. Like him being willing to sacrifice himself rather than violate the prime directive, or siding with a pompous, overblown official to have me removed from command due to rapid and inexplicable aging. He's usually right." 

"Usually," Uhura admitted. "Not that I'd ever tell him that." 

"So think about it from his perspective, Nyota," Jim said, using her first name to make sure she paid attention. Even in private, he rarely referred to her by anything but her surname. "This time he really _did_ screw up. He basically cheated on you, even if he didn't actually _do_ anything other than fall in love. Of course he thinks you're going to be furious. He probably thinks he's lost you for good--the way I did when Bones and I were fighting." He paused, then added, "I know exactly how he feels. I felt guilty as hell for loving Edith. It was nothing-- _nothing_ \--like how I feel about Bones, but..." 

Uhura bit her lip, staring at the sandwich. "But you didn't. Lose him, I mean." 

"And it took me three days to find that out. Three days, and an intervention." Jim tilted his head. "Want me to talk to him for you? Since I know where he's coming from, I might be able to get him to at least get your side of the story before he starts assuming." 

"I'd appreciate that," Uhura said gratefully. 

"Good. Then let's you and me have lunch, and I'll ask him for a meeting as soon as Bones springs me from bedrest." Jim grinned and picked up his chicken sandwich. 

Uhura smiled in response and lifted her own sandwich. Playfully, she tapped it against his before taking a bite. Jim realized yet again how absolutely starving he was, and he polished off his sandwich in about ten seconds. Not that Uhura was that far behind him.

"When's the last time _you_ ate?" he demanded. 

"Yesterday," Uhura admitted. "Before Alpha. I wasn't hungry afterwards, and I was so worried about Spock that I didn't eat this morning. So maybe it wasn't such a bad thing that they asked me to bring you lunch." 

"Uhura," Jim said, upset. 

"I'm fine, honest. It won't hurt me to skip a meal or two." 

Jim's stomach twisted. "Nyota. Please. Promise me you won't do that again." 

Uhura stared at him, opened her mouth, and then closed it again. Slowly, she nodded. "I promise." 

Jim relaxed. "Sorry. It's just...if there's anything I absolutely can't handle, it's seeing people go hungry." 

"It's okay." Uhura hesitated. "Tarsus?" 

"Yeah." In theory, there had been sufficient food for all the survivors of the massacre, but the guards in charge of rations had decided that the most effective way to punish the survivors of the Children's Rebellion was to only give them food once a day. Jim had gone hungry for two days so that he could give his meager ration of food to some of the younger children--including Kevin Riley. 

Uhura reached over and touched Jim's hand lightly. "I'm sorry, Jim. I didn't mean to...I won't skip meals again." 

"Thanks," Jim said softly. He glanced at the chronometer beside his bed. "You've got twenty minutes before you have to go back on shift. Want to play a quick game of cards? There's a deck in the top drawer of the nightstand." 

"Gin or Egyptian Ratscrew?" Uhura asked, pulling open the drawer. 

Jim burst out laughing. "God, do you know how long it's been before I heard anyone actually call it that?" 

"It's more fun to say than 'Slapjack,'" Uhura retorted. 

"Let's just play Gin. It's easier to end." 

Uhura nodded and shuffled the cards. Jim stacked their now-empty plates and set them to one side, then moved the glasses while Uhura dealt.

Three rounds and fifteen minutes later, Uhura collected dishes and tray, leaving the apple juice for Addie and Jim's glass of orange juice, and headed out. Jim picked up the PADD with the Oz books on it, activated it, and leaned back against his headboard, sipping absently as he began reading _The Marvelous Land of Oz._

When Addie stirred next to him, he reluctantly marked his place and set aside the PADD before smiling down at her. "Did you have a nice nap, baby?" he cooed. 

Addie yawned, stretched, and smiled up at Jim. "Daddy." 

Jim scooped Addie onto his lap and offered her the apple juice. She grabbed it eagerly and drank for a moment before pointing at the PADDs on the nightstand. "Book?" 

"Of course." Instead of restarting the Oz book, Jim chose another PADD at random and activated it. It happened to be the Dr. Seuss books, which were in chronological order of publication. Jim figured the best way to go about it would be to start at the beginning. "Okay, here we go. _And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street."_

When the door hissed open three hours later, Jim and Addie had both finished their drinks and Addie was giggling madly as Jim recited, "'But she didn't do it. And now it's too late.'" 

"'Too Many Daves?'" Bones said from the doorway, smirking. 

Jim looked up and grinned. "Hey, Bones. Have a good shift?" 

"Papa!" Addie bounced on Jim's lap and pointed at the PADD. "Book!" 

"Yes, Addie, I heard." Bones kissed the top of Addie's head before leaning over to kiss Jim. "How're you feeling?" 

Jim tilted his head back to capture Bones' lips for a moment. "Rested. Thank you for sending Uhura in with lunch."

"Sorry I forgot about breakfast. I'm so used to eating with you two I didn't think about it." 

"Don't worry about it. How's Chekov?" 

"Awake, aware, and on the road to recovery." Bones' smile faded. "We--he lost his vision. _But,"_ he added, as Jim opened his mouth in horror, "the internal regrowth injection took. It's painful as hell--not as bad as the Rigelian-Kassaba was, but bad enough--but by this time tomorrow, he'll have perfect vision again." 

"You're sure?" Jim asked anxiously. 

"Positive." Bones picked up Addie and felt her forehead. "Fever's gone, that's good. But she still needs a bath." He gave Jim a lopsided smile. "You can get up if you want to. Or you can stay there. 'S up to you." 

Jim turned back the covers. "I've got to talk to Spock--I promised Uhura. But I'll be back." 

"Good." Bones kissed Jim again, then carried Addie to the bathroom. 

Jim dressed and left their quarters, heading up to the rec room he and Spock both preferred. Sure enough, his first officer was there, staring absently at the chessboard. He looked up when Jim entered. "Captain. I trust you are in better health?" 

"In the pink, Spock." Jim sat down opposite the half-Vulcan. "Can we talk?" 

Sixty minutes later, Spock strode out of the room at a remarkably fast clip, bent on finding Uhura. Jim sighed in relief before returning to his quarters. He'd laid out everything in front of Spock--including one or two suggestions--and Spock seemed to have taken him to heart. He'd be willing to bet that by the time they came on-shift the next day, both Spock and Uhura would be relaxed and much, _much_ happier.

Bones was coming out of Addie's room when Jim came in. He smiled. "Hey. Everything all right with Spock?" 

"Everything's fine," Jim reassured him. "Or it will be. How's Addie?" 

"Just fine. I got her cleaned up--she liked that--took her up and got her dinner, and put her in her crib. Left her playing with Gottlieb. My guess is she'll be asleep in about twenty minutes." 

"Little early, isn't it?" Jim frowned. Addie's usual bedtime was 2000 hours, give or take a few minutes. 

Bones shrugged. "She's still recovering from her first illness. She's gonna sleep a lot." 

Jim sighed. "You're the doctor." 

"So I am." Bones' eyes narrowed. He stepped closer and slid his hands onto Jim's hips. "I asked Addie if you stayed in bed today, but I want to hear it from you. Did you listen to the doctor's orders?" 

"Yes, I did," Jim said, his breath hitching slightly as Bones' thumb slipped into the gap between his shirt and pants, brushing the bare skin. "I didn't get up all day. Even when Uhura came in." 

Bones smiled lazily, bringing one hand up to stroke Jim's jawline. He dropped his voice and murmured, "That's my good boy." 

Jim whimpered as Bones' lips clamped over his, and rational thought fled for a while.


	35. Wiped the Teardrops From His Eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this is late, guys! I participate in NaNoWriMo and Camp NaNoWriMo every year, and yesterday was the last day of the first Camp session. I went into it 11k behind (I'd set my goal at 100k) and was pushing pretty hard to finish...by the time I did, I was too exhausted to even THINK about posting this chapter!
> 
> But here it is. Chekov quotes _The Princess Bride_ again in this chapter, and there is one quote (properly attributed in context) from _Treasure Planet._

"I find the premise of this film illogical." 

"You didn't find _Beauty and the Beast_ 'illogical.' And that had singing furniture." 

"It is not illogical to contemplate that there exists, somewhere in the universe, a race with the power to alter its shape, or the shapes of others, so that they resemble candelabras and silverware. However, it is illogical to presume that technology--especially Earth technology of the twenty-second century--could last for even _one_ century, let alone seven. Moreover, not even Vulcan technology has managed to create a fully-automated starship." 

Leo snorted. "You're not supposed to critique the science, Spock. This film was created at the dawn of the twenty-first century--they had no idea what they would and wouldn't be capable of in a hundred years' time. The _message_ of the film is the point." 

"I must admit, all of the choices in this marathon had excellent messages," Spock said. 

They had finally managed to get together for the movie marathon Jim had suggested half-jokingly. After the scare with Rigelian fever, everyone realized that they needed some bonding time--something normal and peaceful. So Leo and Sulu and Jim had put together a list of two films each that they thought needed to be seen--Scotty, to their surprise, had added a seventh--and they'd picked a day where everyone could justifiably be off. The day they'd selected, initially arbitrarily, had turned out to be a double celebration. The day before, Chekov's test results had finally come back one hundred percent normal, and Leo, with great relief, had certified him to return to duty the next morning.

Leo looked around their quarters. There weren't a lot of seats in their living room, but they'd done their best. Spock sat stiffly on the couch, Uhura next to him; Leo sat on the other end of the couch, with Jim half-on his lap. Scotty had the armchair, and would have had it to himself, except Addie was on his lap, clutching her stuffed tribble and watching with wide, eager eyes. Sulu and Chekov and Slim sat on the floor. Cayne was there, too, having finally accepted Slim's invitation. Initially she had been a little uncomfortable at being in the presence of the senior command _and_ in the captain's private quarters, but she'd relaxed about halfway through _Beauty and the Beast._

Jim gave an exaggerated pout. "I thought you'd _like_ that one, Spock." 

"I said that I found it illogical, Jim, not unenjoyable," Spock said calmly. 

"It was cute," Uhura said with a smile. "My favorite was definitely _Brave,_ though." 

"Aye, I knew ye'd like that one," Scotty said proudly. "Nothin' like a Scottish lass, that's what I always say." 

"Nothing like a girl who can stand up for herself," Uhura retorted. "In the early twenty-first century, that wasn't so common in films and literature." 

"Should I assume _Brave_ was your favorite, too, Scotty?" Leo asked, grinning. 

"Naturally." Scotty lifted his chin defiantly. "Wasn't it yours?" 

"No, there's still a special place in my heart for _Pete's Dragon."_

"You surprise me, Doctor," Spock said. 

Leo raised an eyebrow. "Why is that?" He'd been singing along with the music, under his breath to be sure, but Spock had very sensitive hearing. 

Spock, too, lifted an eyebrow, as if surprised Leo should ask. "I would have expected it to be far too logical for you to enjoy." 

_"Logical?_ There was a bloody great dragon!" Scotty blurted. 

"There is no reason to presume that dragons do not exist, on some planet," Spock pointed out. "The film made no pretense at magic, no attempts to convince the audience that the impossible is possible. There was no inaccurate technology or miraculous rescues. The characters behaved in a logical, believable fashion, particularly the schoolteacher, reprehensible though she may have been. And the underlying messages were sound. Indeed, the only illogical part of the entire premise was that of giving the town a nearly unpronounceable name." 

"The Passamaquoddy were a real Native American tribe," Slim said, twisting around to look at Spock. "A lot of towns in North America were named after Native American tribes, or Native American words. There's not really a town called Passamaquoddy, but there might've been." 

Spock's other eyebrow joined the first. "Then I withdraw my objections. And I, too, will place my vote for _Pete's Dragon_ as favorite." 

Leo grinned. "Never thought I'd see the day when we'd agree on something and it didn't make me nervous, Spock."

"What about the rest of you?" Uhura asked, looking around. 

"Mine's _Treasure Planet,"_ Jim said instantly. 

Uhura snorted. "It would be." 

"If you call me Doppler, you're sleeping on the couch," Leo told him. Actually, Jim might be sleeping on the couch anyway. He'd laughed so hard when Doppler declared _Dang it, Jim, I'm an astrophysicist, not a doctor_ that he almost fell off of Leo's lap. 

Jim snickered. "Spoilsport." 

"You keep using that word," Chekov said, affecting an accent Leo couldn't quite place. "I do not think it means what you think it means." 

Sulu and Slim both burst into giggles, which led Leo to believe it was one of those swashbuckling movies the three of them watched on occasion. Certainly no one else in the room seemed to know what he was talking about. "All right, Chekov, your turn--which one was your favorite?" 

Chekov blushed slightly, but admitted, _"Beauty and ze Beast."_

"Mine, too," Sulu said, squeezing Chekov's hand. 

"That's cheating," Jim said good-humoredly. 

Sulu blushed a deeper shade of red than Chekov. "No, seriously. It's always been my favorite--'s part of the reason I suggested it. I actually dressed up as Cogsworth for Halloween one year." 

"How old were you?" Leo asked, trying to envision a little Sulu dressed as an old-fashioned table clock. 

Sulu blushed even more deeply. "Um. About that. I, uh, I was seventeen." 

Uhura and Jim looked at each other and burst into simultaneous laughter. Leo couldn't help but join in. Chekov covered his mouth with his hand, but his eyes were dancing. Scotty snorted, and even Spock looked faintly amused. Slim looked like he was about to ask a question, but bit his lip and shook his head. 

Cayne was frowning slightly. "'Scuse me, sir, but--what's Halloween?"

The laughter died instantly. Jim stared at Cayne in astonishment. "You never celebrated Halloween, Ensign Cayne?" he demanded. 

Cayne ducked her head in embarrassment. "Nossir," she mumbled. 

Leo wondered if she'd grown up in a super-religious household. They were rare but not unheard of. Before he could say anything, however, Slim spoke up quietly. "I've never heard of it, either." 

"Halloween, or All Hallows' Eve, is a celebration that takes place in many Terran countries on the three hundred and fifth day of the year," Spock said with the tilt of his head he usually gave when launching a lecture. "It was once said to be the night on which the spirits of the dead walked among the living. The history of the holiday is complex and varied, but the more modern celebrations involve children dressing in costumes, either of things considered frightening or of characters from popular culture, and going from door to door with a greeting of 'trick or treat,' at which time they are given small pieces of candy. Adolescents and adults prefer to wear costumes and attend parties that tend to involve alcoholic beverages." 

Slim rubbed the back of his neck and looked at Cayne. "Reckon that's why we ain't heard of it." 

"Reckon so," Cayne agreed. 

"What do you mean?" Scotty asked from his chair. 

Slim shrugged, glancing over his shoulder. "It don't sound like the kinda holiday most foster families would bother makin' sure their fosters celebrated." 

"That certainly explains why you wouldn't have heard of it," Jim said with a slight frown. "But what about you, Ensign?" 

Cayne flushed pink, biting her lower lip. "I--I was in foster care, too, sir," she admitted in a low voice. "'Fore I joined the Academy." 

Jim stared at her. Leo noticed for the second time that she had the same accent as Slim and asked, "Where?" 

"Oklahoma County." 

"Isn't zat where you were?" Chekov asked Slim. 

Slim nodded. "Sure was." 

"Any overlap in your fosters?" Jim spoke lightly, but Leo felt the way his husband tensed. 

Cayne and Slim looked at one another. After a moment, Slim said, "I went to the Dubrowskis right after she left 'em for the Academy." 

Jim tensed even further. Leo dredged his memory, but he only knew a couple of Slim's fosters and the Dubrowskis didn't register. From the way Jim was sitting, however, he guessed they hadn't been one of the better ones.

Trying to diffuse the mood that was quickly starting to settle on the group, Leo said, "Back on the original subject. Which movie was your favorite?" 

It worked. Slim relaxed and said, "I still like _Pete's Dragon_ best." 

"It is a good one," Jim agreed. "And by the way, Bones, you were right about Pike being Elliot." 

Spock raised an eyebrow, but said quietly, "I agree. I can see several points of comparison." 

"What about you, Cayne?" Scotty asked. 

_"Tangled,"_ Cayne answered immediately. 

Chekov raised his eyebrows. "Why is zat?" 

For an answer, Cayne reached around to the back of her head and pulled at the pins securing her hair in a tight braided coil. It fell down in a single dark blonde rope that reached almost to her waist. 

Uhura's eyebrows shot up. "Have you ever had a haircut in your _life?"_ she blurted. 

Cayne blushed again, playing with the curved end of the plait. "No, ma'am. Just a trim here and there." 

"Amazing," Uhura muttered.

Slim craned his head over his shoulder and smiled at his sister. "Which one's your favorite, Addie?" 

Addie shrugged. She'd been fascinated by the pictures, obviously, and she got excited whenever there was music, but the dialogue didn't seem to interest her. Leo wasn't even sure she'd followed the stories. Scotty looked down at her. "I'm surprised she didn't go to sleep. You realize we've been doing this for nigh on twelve hours?" 

Surprised, Leo glanced at the chronometer. "I'll be damned," he muttered. They'd started around the beginning of Alpha shift, Jim and Leo having spent the previous hour getting an array of food. It was now at least four hours into Beta, the food was gone, and they'd all had a good time--even Spock. 

"Hell," Jim said under his breath. He got up, wincing as he stretched, and carefully stepped over the four people on the floor as he crossed to the armchair. "It's time for someone to go to bed, I think," he cooed, reaching for Addie. 

"No!" Addie screamed, twisting away from Jim and clutching Scotty's shirt tightly. 

Jim drew back like he'd been physically assaulted. Leo was shocked. "Addie!" he scolded. 

"No bed," Addie said stubbornly, glaring up at Jim. 

"Addie--" Jim began. 

"No bed! No!" 

"Perhaps some music would help?" Spock suggested. 

Leo was about to say something when he noticed Cayne lean over and whisper something to Slim. He listened for a minute, then nodded and turned to Leo. "Pa, c'n I see the remote real quick?" 

"Sure." Leo handed it over. The screen had gone back to the default library as soon as the credits wrapped up for _WALL-E_ , which was the last in the playlist they'd set up.

Slim scrolled rapidly up the list, so fast Leo didn't see how he could have known what he was looking for, then slowed down and finally stopped. He paused and muttered something to Cayne, who frowned, shrugged, and answered. Slim selected a film and looked up at Jim. "This one might put her to sleep," he told his father. "It ain't anythin' but music." 

Slowly, Jim returned to the sofa. This time there was no half-assing about it; he sat firmly and squarely on Leo's lap, curling into him, obviously needing to be cuddled. Leo put his arms around Jim as the title sequence began--and frowned slightly. "What the hell is this?" 

_"Fantasia 2000,"_ Cayne and Slim said together. 

"Never heard of it," Sulu said. 

"It's classical music pieces interpreted in animation," Slim explained. 

The opening bars of Beethoven's fifth symphony thundered into the room. Addie sat bolt upright, turning in Scotty's lap to watch as brightly-colored shapes flitted across the screen. After a few minutes, she relaxed back against Scotty. By the end of the sequence, her thumb had crept into her mouth. 

Leo relaxed as well and turned to the film. The music was clearly the more important part; the animation was just to give you something to look at while it was playing, a visual representation of the pictures in your head while you were listening to a concert. The second sequence was a truly beautiful depiction of whales frolicking, and although Spock's eyebrows shot up when the whales began flying, he said nothing. 

Towards the end of the fourth sequence, a piece by a Russian composer that had gotten Chekov extremely excited (and earned him some good-natured teasing from Sulu and Slim), Leo glanced over to see Scotty smirking and Addie sound asleep on his lap. Leo raised his eyebrows and jerked his head towards the smaller bedroom. Scotty nodded, stood carefully, and patted Addie's back as he carried her into the back room. 

When he returned, the younger four were helpless with laughter as a flamingo tormented its flockmates with a yo-yo. Leo smiled fondly at them, then caught Scotty's eye and mouthed _Thank you_. Scotty gave him the OK sign and sat back down. Leo readjusted his arms around Jim and went back to watching the movie.

"I feel like the original one was longer," Slim mused as the credits finally began, following a rousing rendition of Stravinsky's _Firebird_ suite, which had held all the listeners spellbound. 

Cayne glanced at the chronometer. "It was. _Fantasia_ was a hundred an' twenty-four minutes long. This one was only seventy-five." 

"In other words, the original was more like an actual concert," Uhura said dryly. 

"Pretty much." 

Chekov glanced over. "What songs were in zat one?" 

Slim and Cayne looked at one another. "Uh, _Toccata and Fugue in D Minor,_ then the _Nutcracker_ suite..." 

"The _Sorcerer's Apprentice_ , same sequence as was in this one, actually..." 

"Then was _The Rite of Spring_ , 'cept I think they changed some stuff around for it..." 

"Then an intermission, then Beethoven's _Pastorale_ symphony, his sixth..." 

" _Dance of the Hours_ came after that..." 

"An' then it finished up with a kind of medley of _Night on Bald Mountain_ and Schubert's _Ave Maria."_

Scotty's eyebrows shot up. "That's only seven songs. And that took two hours?" 

"The _Pastorale_ segment was almost twenty minutes long, sir," Cayne informed her boss. "An' I read somewhere that they only actually played half of the symphony." 

"They cut ten minutes out of the _Rite of Spring_ , too," Slim put in, "but it was still the longest segment. I think it was near half an hour long."

Before anyone else could say a word, Sulu's stomach gave a loud growl. He put a hand over it. "Uh, I think I'm going to get something to eat...anyone coming with?" 

Chekov stood immediately. Slim pushed himself up. "I'm in." He glanced at Cayne, biting his lip. 

The ensign turned slightly pink, but looked up at Sulu and said, "Uh, if you don't mind me coming, sir..." 

"If you're going to eat with us, stop calling me 'sir,'" Sulu told her firmly, but with a twinkle in his eye. "'Sulu' is just fine." 

Cayne managed a smile as she got to her feet. Leo glanced at Jim and said quietly, "I think we'll pass tonight. But y'all go ahead." 

Spock stood and nodded. "Goodnight, Doctor. Goodnight, Captain." 

Jim didn't respond; Leo could tell he was about half asleep, if not completely out. Instead, Leo nodded. "'Night, Spock."

Within a couple of minutes, they were alone. Leo stayed where he was for a few minutes more, then murmured in Jim's ear, "Jim." 

Jim's only response was to coil more tightly against Leo's chest. Leo sighed, adjusted his grip on Jim, and managed to get to his feet with difficulty. "Jesus, you're heavy," he grunted as he staggered into their bedroom and let go of Jim, intending to drop him unceremoniously on the bed. Instead, he nearly got strangled as Jim's weight fell but his arms stayed locked around Leo's neck. With a startled growl, he overbalanced and fell on top of Jim. 

Jim pressed against Leo again, latching on like a Jorian swamp leech. Leo was seriously concerned now. "Jim? Jim, what's wrong?" 

For a minute, Jim didn't answer. Just as Leo was about to repeat the question, louder and with more profanity, Jim whispered, "She hates me." 

Leo's mind did a stutter step, trying to maintain its mental footing. "What--who hates you?" 

"Addie." 

"Addie?" Leo said incredulously. "Jim, Addie doesn't hate you." 

Jim buried his face in Leo's shirt. "She's never told me no before."

"Is that what this is all about?" Leo sighed, wrapping his arms around his husband and rubbing his back in soft, soothing circles. "She didn't say no because she hates _you_. She said no because she didn't want to go to bed." 

"But she's never told me no before," Jim repeated. "She's never told _anyone_ no before, not that I've heard. And she didn't just say no. She _screamed_ it. My baby girl didn't want me to pick her up." 

"Your baby girl didn't want you to put her to bed," Leo corrected him. "If you hadn't said _bed_ before you reached for her, she'd've gone to you willingly enough." 

"You don't know that," Jim said pitifully. 

"Yes, I do," Leo said stubbornly. "Addie's a year and a half now, just about. And she's precocious, we've always known that. She's getting into what they call the 'terrible twos.' It's nothing personal against you. She's just getting a mind of her own. She'll probably start saying _no_ a lot, just because she can. And, Jim, if you let her think that when she says it you'll give her anything she wants because it hurts you so much, she'll never _stop."_

"It _does_ hurt, Bones," Jim mumbled. 

Leo rubbed Jim's back. "I know. I'm probably gonna feel the same way the first time she tells me no, too," he admitted. "But we can't give in to her, Jim. We've gotta show her that _we're_ the grown-ups and _she's_ the child, and she doesn't get to make the decisions yet." 

Jim was silent for a moment. At last, he said in a low voice, "I just...I can't help but think of those movies. About _Brave_. I don't want to push Addie until we end up having a strained relationship like Merida and Elinor had." 

"You won't," Leo promised him. "You don't with Slim, do you?" 

"That's different," Jim said. "Slim's older. It's more like Pete and Lampie." 

"Just because you didn't raise him from scratch doesn't mean you aren't raising him now. He's not grown up yet. And remember, Merida and Elinor got along fine when she was little--it was when she was closer to Slim's age than Addie's that they started having trouble." 

Jim stilled under Leo's hands. Leo cursed silently to himself; he'd said exactly the wrong thing. "Shit, Jim, I didn't mean--it's not like that. You and Slim get along just fine, and that's not going to change. And Addie adores you." 

"She hates me," Jim said, for the third time, but with slightly less conviction than before. 

"She _doesn't hate you,"_ Leo said firmly. He pulled Jim closer and buried his face in his hair. "Jim, you don't want Addie growing up spoiled, do you?" 

"N-no," Jim said. "But--"

"But nothing. Listen to me, okay? Addie had a temper tantrum. That's all. A minor one, as tantrums go, but still a temper tantrum. And she's only gonna have more of 'em. We got lucky with Slim--he's a good kid, doesn't argue back, doesn't cause any problems." Leo paused. "Although I'm pretty sure that's only partly because of his personality and partly because he's had a lot of the starch knocked out of him. But Addie--she's _us_ , Jim. We're both stubborn, and we both have tempers. Addie's gonna have a temper, too. And it's not gonna be pleasant when she lets it loose on us. But it doesn't mean she doesn't love us." 

"It doesn't?" 

"When I yell at you for being an idiot, do you think I hate you?" Leo demanded, pulling back slightly. 

"N-no..." 

"Then why would you think our daughter's temper means she doesn't love you?" Leo pinched Jim's ass; Jim jumped, then cuddled closer to Leo. "Even when she says she hates you--and I have it on good authority that most little girls say that to their daddies at some point--she won't mean it. Didn't you ever tell your mom you hated her when you didn't mean it?" 

Again, Jim went perfectly still. "Yeah," he whispered at last. "When she was putting me on the shuttle for Tarsus."

"Oh, Jim," Leo murmured, feeling tears well up in his eyes. He hated bringing up bad memories, especially with Jim, who seemed to have far too many. He stroked Jim's hair with one hand and rubbed his back with the other, pulling him close. "Your mom knew you didn't mean it. She knew you loved her. She _still_ knows that. That's why she was there after Khan...why she sent those things for Addie. And you knew you still loved her. People say things they don't mean when they're angry or scared. If Addie ever tells you she hates you, she won't mean it any more than you did." 

"You're sure she doesn't hate me?" Jim whispered. 

"I'm positive." Leo tilted Jim's head back and kissed him deeply. "Get some sleep, darlin'. I'll be right here." 

"I love you, Bones," Jim murmured. 

"I love you, too, Jim." 

There was nothing more from Jim; an instant later he was sound asleep. Leo knew he was going to be sore in the morning, but he couldn't bring himself to move Jim off of himself. Whenever Jim had nights like this, it was almost guaranteed that he'd have nightmares. And when Jim had nightmares, he needed Leo to be close. 

Leo hated this. He hated when Jim was hurt and Leo couldn't fix it. He'd done his rotation in psychiatry like everyone else, but that didn't mean he could fix the wounds, only that he could identify them. Jim was easier. They'd known each other for almost twenty years. They had secrets, sure, but they were few and far between. Leo may not always have known what caused Jim's nightmares, but he knew that Jim often calmed down when Leo held him and murmured soothingly in his ear. 

Sighing, Leo readjusted his grip, ordered the lights down, and leaned his cheek against the top of Jim's head. His last thought, as he drifted off to sleep, was that this was a hell of a way to end what had been such a wonderful day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you're wondering what the movies were in the marathon:
> 
> Leo chose _Pete's Dragon_ and _Tangled._  
>  Sulu chose _Beauty and the Beast_ and _Treasure Planet._  
>  Jim chose _Hercules_ and _WALL-E._  
>  And Scotty, obviously, chose _Brave._


	36. The Naked Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is based on the episode of the same name by John D.F. Black, mostly on the novelization (fewer people got sick, is the big difference).
> 
> I'm not completely certain if the Russian translated correctly (I used an online translator, and I know those can be unreliable), so...

Slim clasped his hands behind his back, standing between the captain's chair and the science officer's station, his eyes fixed on the viewscreen. Officially, the planet below them was designated ULAPG42821DB, but Slim and Spock were probably the only two who had bothered to memorize that--Slim because it was considered part of his education, Spock because he was always very precise. A few of the junior officers had dubbed it "La Pig," and the name had stuck. 

Not that it really mattered what it was called. Because the planet was dying. That was the reason the _Enterprise_ was here; there had been an observation station with six people aboard who needed to be picked up, and then they had been ordered to stay and watch the planet's death. Apparently there were people back on Earth--Jim had derisively dubbed them the "sliderule brigade," and then subsequently had to explain to both Slim and Spock what a sliderule was--who wanted to crunch the numbers and see if there was a way to, in the future, make a planet break up at will. 

The thought made Slim ill. 

But he had to admit, watching the planet's death throes was fascinating. Huge cracks appeared on the surface; there would have been volcanic eruptions if the planet's core hadn't been shrinking steadily. The planet's atmosphere and magnetic field were in constant states of flux, requiring constant monitoring so that what was currently a stable parking orbit wouldn't suddenly turn the ship into a scattering of debris. Even before the breakup commenced, the planet had been barren, not a single plant or animal beyond the six people in the observation station, so it wasn't like they were watching the destruction of, for example, Vulcan. 

And it was definitely preferable to watching the death of a starship. Slim couldn't claim the ability to communicate with organic materials, so he ran no risk of hearing the planet's dying screams, the way he had with the _Constellation_ , or its cries of pain, the way he had when the _Enterprise_ had been shrunk and put into suspension. It was purely clinical, purely observational, purely detached.

"Observe, Thomas," Spock said, indicating the planet. "The magnetic field has stabilized--temporarily, at least." 

Slim saw what Spock was talking about. "I don't see any new cracks, either. And the ones that are there don't look like they're getting any bigger." 

"Well done," Spock said, a faint note of approval in his voice. 

"I think we're at stasis," Jim said, getting up. "At least for a few minutes. Mr. Spock, you have the conn...Sulu, Riley, keep an eye on things. I'm going to have that consult with Dr. McCoy that he asked for." 

"Very good, Captain," Spock said with a nod. He stood from his station. 

Slim tilted his head. "Want me to stay here, or should I go?" 

Jim hesitated. "Do me a favor and go check on Chekov, would you?" 

"Sure thing, Dad." Slim joined his father as they headed for the lift. 

Ordinarily, Chekov would have been at the helm station; he was senior navigator, after all, and the ship was on yellow alert. But he'd apparently strained his eyes, his first day back on duty. Subsequent tests had shown he still had leftover bacteria on his optic nerves, and he'd needed a shot of antibiotics followed by another injection of the internal regrowth formula. He would be on light duty until the next day, and right now he was--in theory--resting in his quarters. Lieutenant Kevin Riley was on duty instead.

"Did you know Tormolen?" Jim asked quietly as the lift descended. 

Slim nodded. Crewman Joe Tormolen had been the one to go to La Pig with Spock; they had discovered, once there, that all six members of the observation team were dead, frozen to death when the chief engineer, for no apparent reason, turned off life support. Slim had been in the mess hall the previous day when Sulu, engaged in a friendly debate about fencing with Riley, had attempted to involve Tormolen in the discussion, and Tormolen had gone on an impassioned rant before attacking himself with a steak knife. Four hours before, Jim had received a report that Tormolen had died of his injuries--twenty-four hours previously. 

"What was he like? I know he was a loner, pretty quiet, but you're in Engineering more than I am." 

Slim shrugged. "He's--he _was_ a hard worker. Conscientious. Knew his job. He was always willin' to take the time to explain to me what was going on. But he never talked about anythin' outside of work. Kept to himself, like you said. I wish I'd known him better." 

"I think that was the way he liked it," Jim said. "All right, Slim, I'll see you back on the bridge in an hour." 

"See you, Dad." Slim nodded, stepped off the lift, and headed for quarters.

It didn't take him long to find Chekov's room. He pressed the chime and was rewarded a moment later with a voice calling, "Enter." 

Slim stepped through the door to find Chekov sitting on the couch, one shoe on and one shoe in his hand. The navigator smiled warmly. "Hello, Slim. Has ze planet broken up yet?" 

"Not yet," Slim answered. "It's kind of in stasis right now. Dad asked me to come check on you." 

"I'm all right," Chekov answered. "My eyes feel much better. Ze doctor said if zey stopped hurting to go see him, so..." 

"Want me to walk up with you?" Slim offered. 

"Thank you. Zat would be nice." 

The two of them headed up to the appropriate deck and were talking quietly about nonsense as they walked down the hallway. Suddenly, someone charged past them, knocking into Chekov's shoulder and sending him off-balance. Slim caught him and glared after the other person--then did a double-take as the man rounded a corner. 

"Who was zat?" Chekov asked, straightening up and rubbing his shoulder. 

Slim shook his head in disbelief. "Sulu." 

"What?" Chekov whipped around to look in the direction Sulu had gone. "But he is supposed to be on ze bridge!" 

"I know. And it's not like him to--" Slim broke off, frowning. "I'm gonna go see what he's up to." 

"I'll come with you," Chekov said immediately.

Slim set off down the corridor, Chekov at his side. This way led to a lot of places that Sulu could potentially be heading, but there was only one that seemed likely. Sure enough, as he rounded another corner, Sulu emerged from the smaller gym and set off down the corridor opposite them, carrying something as he did so. 

Chekov started to call after him, but Slim put a hand on his friend's arm. "No, wait," he muttered, frowning. Sulu was walking...oddly. He had something of a swagger in his step. And it wasn't like him to be off his post at any time, let alone during an alert--especially one where he'd been told to monitor the situation. 

"What is he _doing?"_ Chekov asked, looking worried. 

"I don't know," Slim said quietly. "But Tormolen was actin' a lot like that yesterday, right 'fore he stabbed himself. An' now he's dead." 

_"What?"_ Chekov turned white. 

"Come on. I want to see something." Slim headed for the smaller gym. 

Instantly on stepping in, he knew there was something wrong. Sulu had definitely taken something out of here that he shouldn't have. And Slim had a nasty feeling he knew exactly what it was. 

Slowly, Slim turned to look at the sword rack. One look confirmed his worst fears. "Chekov. Look." 

Chekov's eyes widened as he followed Slim's finger. _"Bozhe moy!"_

There was an empty spot on the rack; Sulu had taken one of the rapiers. Presumably because it was the closest to hand and the easiest to handle. But why had he taken it out? And what would he be doing with it? 

"Why would he take a sword out of here?" Chekov demanded. "He never does zat." 

Slim shook his head. "He ain't himself. There's somethin' goin' on here. First Tormolen, now Sulu--" He paused. "Chekov. Did you an' Sulu spend last night together?" 

Chekov blushed, but admitted, "Yes. We usually do." 

Slim bit his lip. "Maybe you should go up to Med Bay," he said quietly. "Get Pa to look at you. If whatever this is is contagious..." 

"You're right." Chekov turned to the door, then paused and looked back at Slim. "But where is Sulu?" 

"I don't know," Slim admitted. "But I'll try an' find him." 

"Be careful," Chekov murmured. "And...try not to hurt him." 

"I promise."

Chekov left. Slim waited a minute, then crossed over to the door. He laid his hands on the door controls and concentrated. He had no idea if this would work, but he had to try. "Help me out here, girl," he whispered. "Where's Lieutenant Sulu?" 

The panel hummed beneath his fingers. Slim closed his eyes, then drew back in alarm as the answer came to him. Sulu had taken the lift up to the bridge. He was armed, with a weapon that would make it difficult to get close enough to disarm him, without using a phaser--which couldn't be safely used on the bridge--or another sword. 

And Slim was the only person on the ship who knew how to use one. 

_Never take your sword out of the gym unless it's an emergency,_ Sulu had told him. Well, Sulu taking _his_ sword out of the gym definitely qualified. Slim snatched up his rapier and rushed for the bridge. 

He could hear the shouting before the lift even reached the correct level. As the doors slid open, he heard Spock's voice. "Captain, I cannot get near him while he has that blade!" 

"Admit it, you work for _him_ , do you not?" Sulu cried. His blade flashed, reflecting the light off the nearest instrument panel. 

"Sulu, it's us!" Jim shouted, holding up both hands and taking a half-pace back. "Control yourself, man!" 

Sulu got his feet into the correct position. "For honor, Queen and France!"

Slim gave himself no further time to think. He sprang in front of his father and friend, landing in the _en garde_ position, and declaimed in a theatrical voice, "Stand back, Musketeers! He shall sample _my_ blade!" 

"Slim," Jim gasped. 

"You dare address the Musketeers in such a familiar fashion?" Sulu said haughtily. "What master do _you_ serve, boy?" 

"I serve my captain," Slim replied, trying to match Sulu's tone as best he could. "As you once did. _En garde, monsigneur!"_

Sulu lunged forward, but it was one of his standard opening moves. Slim parried it with ease, and the fight was on. Slim made no move to attack, not at first, merely parrying the blows. He let Sulu fall into a rhythm of chops, thrusts, and sweeps. He wasn't sure if this would work or not. Sulu knew the dangers of letting himself fall into a pattern. After all, he'd used it on Slim once or twice. Slim was taking a chance, but it was the only one he had at the moment.

Sulu grinned, but it wasn't the usual friendly grin he gave while they were practicing--it was a lion grinning at a wildebeest, a shark grinning at a minnow, a Klingon grinning at, well, anyone else. "No stomach for a fight, boy?" 

"What fight would that be?" Slim retorted. The response was as automatic as the parrying, maybe not as witty as he'd like, but nonetheless part of the banter Sulu had so often told him was essential to good fencing. 

"Are you yellow-livered?" 

"No, but give me a moment and we'll see the color of _your_ insides." 

"You? Ha!" Sulu swung another overhand chop, which Slim parried, inwardly delighted--his trick was working, so far. "You fight like a dairy farmer!" 

"How appropriate! You fight like a cow!" Suddenly, Slim lunged forward with a series of beats and thrusts. Sulu was momentarily caught off-guard, but managed to defend himself in the nick of time, then went back on the offensive. 

Slim tried to attack as well as defend, but Sulu was slightly taller than he was, a bit heavier, and a great deal more experienced. He was in trouble and he knew it. Adding to his problems was that he had to try and keep the fight away from the other people on the bridge. He didn't want anyone else to get caught in the crossfire, so to speak. Sulu apparently had no such reservations.

"Damn it, _both_ of them?" Jim shouted, looking frustrated and borderline terrified. 

Slim didn't want to shout to his father what he was doing--Sulu may have been mad, but he wasn't stupid. He blocked an overhead chop, pushed Sulu back a half-pace, and glanced towards Spock's station, where he and Jim stood. He smiled slightly and gave a small, quick nod to reassure his father that he was fully in his right mind. In that moment, Sulu lunged past his guard with a thrust. Startled, Slim tried to parry, but he was too late. He succeeded only in deflecting the blade enough that it caught the side of his right shoulder rather than his chest. Fire exploded along the arm and blood bloomed on his sleeve. 

In that instant, Slim realized just what he'd gotten himself into. He'd forgotten that the rapier didn't have _any_ safety features. It was keenly pointed and razor-sharp. And in his madness, Sulu either didn't realize that or didn't care. He was out to win against "Richelieu's men," and that meant hurting him--possibly even killing him. 

Sulu gave a short laugh of triumph. "First blood to me!" 

"Aye, but not last!" Slim declared. His blade flashed out in a series of ripostes. Okay. Now he remembered what he was up against. This wasn't a training exercise. This was the real deal. One misstep could get him--or someone else--killed. At the same time, he couldn't bring himself to do any actual damage to Sulu...or could he?

Uhura gave a stifled shriek as Sulu drove Slim past her station, one of the blades coming perilously close to her. Sulu threw her a careless smile. "Fear not, fair maiden!" 

"Sorry, neither," Uhura said, dodging behind her chair. 

Slim used the opportunity afforded by Sulu's momentary destraction to steal a pace back and turn towards Spock. Their eyes met briefly. Thank God, Spock seemed to understand what Slim had in mind. He glanced towards the helm, currently unmanned. Slim had time for a brief nod before Sulu was back on him. 

Again, Slim let Sulu fall into a rhythm, like a well-timed dance. Sulu laughed again. "Think you to fool me again, boy, to chance another blow? You cannot trick the greatest of the Musketeers!" 

"Porthos is here?" Slim said, parrying another blow. He was keeping his eyes on Sulu's rhythm, just in case the man changed it on him, but as he let himself be driven back, he inched towards the console. 

He held the pattern until they were just past the captain's chair. Slim stopped retreating, managing to hold his ground. Sulu went for a thrust towards the heart. Slim beat the blade aside, then brought the flat of his sword down as hard and fast as he could on Sulu's wrist, just barely managing to get around the guard. Sulu yelped and dropped the sword. Slim quickly planted a foot on the fallen blade, then pointed his own at a startled Sulu's throat. 

"Surrender, sir!" he cried. 

In that instant, Spock loomed up behind him and applied pressure to a spot below Sulu's neck with his thumb and forefinger. The erstwhile fencer crumpled soundlessly to the ground. 

"I've gotta get you to show me how to do that sometime," Jim muttered.

Spock looked down at the helmsman. "Someone had best take D'Artagnan here to sickbay." 

"Security's on their way," Jim said, running back to his station. "Slim, go with them when they get here." 

"Yes, sir," Slim said, dropping the sword next to Sulu's. 

Two security guards came up and gathered Sulu. Slim followed the processional down to Med Bay. Leo looked up as they came in, but from the fact that he didn't seem surprised, it was obvious Jim (or someone) had already commed him. Calmly, he pointed the security guards at a bed and said to an orderly, "Heavy sedation. I'll be there to look in a minute." To Slim, he said, "On the table. Shirt off." 

Slim hesitated as he sat down. "Is it okay if I just roll my sleeve up?" he asked, hoping he didn't sound too panicked. "It ain't that far up..." 

Leo looked at him for a moment, but only said, "That's fine."

Slim rolled up his sleeve, trying not to wince as he brushed the tender edges. Leo studied the cut. "How's it feel?" 

Slim bit his lip, feeling a little ashamed, then answered, "Stings like the blazes." 

"Mmm, I'm not surprised. Lucky for you it's not too deep." Leo began cleaning the cut, which was still bleeding a bit. After a while, he said quietly, "Slim, what were you thinking up there?" 

"What do you mean?" Slim asked. 

"Uhura told me what happened on the bridge. You got into a swordfight with a man who, in the grip of some kind of illness-related insanity, believed himself to be a fifteenth-century swordsman." 

"Seventeenth," Slim corrected his stepfather. "Cardinal Richelieu was born in 1606." 

"Whatever." Leo looked up at him briefly before returning to his work. "Sulu's taller than you, heavier than you, and knows how to handle a sword better than you. You know that. He's your _teacher_ , for cryin' out loud. What made you think you could defeat him?" 

"I didn't," Slim said honestly. 

Leo stopped and looked up again, this time holding his stepson's gaze. "Then why the hell did you fight him?" 

Slim shrugged his left shoulder. "Because I'm the only one who could. Nobody else onboard knows how to fence. I didn't want anyone to get hurt. I thought, maybe, if I could keep him busy long enough for someone to grab him..." He trailed off helplessly. 

Leo stared for a moment longer, then sighed and resumed cleaning the cut. "I hate to admit it, but you were right to do what you did. Anyone else who tried getting close would've been a lot more seriously injured."

"Pa," Slim said softly. "What's goin' on?" 

"I don't know, kid." Leo's voice was full of regret and worry. "I can tell you this much, though. Whatever it is, it's dangerous." 

Slim turned his head to see Chekov lying quietly on a biobed, his blue eyes fixed worriedly on Sulu. "Is he okay?" 

"For now," Leo said, following Slim's gaze. "Quick thinking on your part, sending him up here." 

"I don't know what lurks in his subconscious, but I ain't sure I want it loose on the ship, either," Slim pointed out. 

"Good point." Leo hesitated. "Slim, I want you to stay here until I'm sure of what's going on here, is that clear?" 

"Yes, sir." Slim didn't particularly want to know what was lurking in _his_ subconscious, either. With his luck, he'd end up being a cowboy or something.

Leo moved over to Sulu, muttering, "All right, let's see what we have here..." 

Slim stayed still, watching as Leo ran tests, frowning as he did so. A few moments later, he exclaimed and ran for the intercom. "Med Bay to Bridge!" 

"Go ahead, Medical." Uhura's voice, not Jim's, but Slim knew that if Jim was busy with something else his father wouldn't answer. 

"Uhura, Sulu's heavily sedated, but he's no worse. I think I--" 

Leo was abruptly cut off by the ship-wide intercom system, a musical tenor with an Irish lilt. "Now hear this, cooks. This is your captain and I'll be wantin' double portions of ice cream for the crew tonight. Captain's compliments, in honor of St. Kevin's Day." 

"What in the Sam Hill--?" Slim sat up quickly, staring at the intercom. The voice was definitely not Jim's. 

"What's St. Kevin's Day?" Chekov asked, rising up on his elbows. 

Scowling, Leo stabbed at the intercom button again. "Medical to Bridge! Come in, Bridge!" 

The voice on the shipwide system began singing. Whoever owned it was so horribly out of tune that it took Slim almost a full minute to recognize it as "I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen." Chekov winced and covered his ears with his hands.

"Dammit!" Leo shouted, turning away from the intercom. He swayed slightly, clutching at the biobed, then straightened. 

"Pa, are you okay?" Slim asked anxiously. 

"Fine," Leo muttered. "Let's hope I have enough time..." He crossed over to a lab station, then stopped, whirled around, and pointed a finger at Slim. "You listen to me, boy, and you listen good. If I start acting unusual, you get yourself back in that office and you _stay there._ Understood?" 

"Yes, sir." Slim would probably have done that anyway, but it was reassuring to have the order. 

Chekov whimpered, curling himself into the fetal position, his hands pressed tightly to his ears, as the song continued. Slim was worried. That wasn't like Chekov, not at all. Whatever disease this was, he was pretty sure both his friends had it. And since Slim spent most of his free time with them, he feared he was next. 

All he could be thankful for was that he hadn't seen Audra in a day or two. He wasn't sure he could have stood it if he thought she was infected, especially since she was on duty.

The alert sounded, drowning out the singing. Chekov let out a scream and fell off the biobed, crouching under it with his arms flung over his head, sobbing. Slim was off his own table in an instant. "Chekov!" 

"Slim, don't touch him!" Leo shouted, whirling from his station. Slim froze, knowing not to argue when his stepfather used that tone of voice. 

The alert stopped, leaving them in silence. Chekov uncurled himself and looked up at Slim with huge eyes filled with tears. _"Imejut bomb ne rabotaet?"_ he whispered in a childish voice. 

Slim looked helplessly at Leo. "What did he say?" 

"I don't know," Leo said shortly. "Something Russian. Dammit! He's infected, too. Slim, stay on that table, that's an order." 

"Yes, sir," Slim said quietly. He tucked his knees under his chin and watched Chekov helplessly. 

"Attention, crew," came the Irish lilt over the intercom again. "There will be a formal dance in the ship's bowling alley at 1900 hours. All personnel will have a ball." 

Chekov whimpered and threw his arms over his head, curling into a ball again under the biobed. _"Ya khochu, chtoby moya mat',"_ he wailed.

Slim tried to ignore both the voice's increasingly strange instructions regarding perfume and makeup and Chekov's cries. Leo, too, worked furiously, but Slim could see the tension in his shoulders. He was actually kind of relieved by that. If Leo got calm during a situation like this, it was a sure sign he was infected by whatever disease this was. 

Sulu blinked, turned his head, and saw Slim. "Aha, insolent boy!" he croaked. "Foul monster, you have conspired with Richelieu to bind me here--" 

_"Across the oceans wide and deep..."_ Whoever was in control of the intercom system was back to singing again. 

Slim was starting to get a headache. Leo suddenly whirled around from his lab, looking tired but mildly triumphant. "This might be it," he said, holding up an odd device. "Mind you, I only said maybe." 

"You weren't sure 'bout the cure on Miri's homeworld, either," Slim urged his stepfather. "An' you were right. Anythin' to stop this racket. _Please_ , Pa..." 

Leo hesitated. "I can't be sure what its effect will be on you, Slim. You're not infected." 

"Yet," Slim pointed out. 

Leo took a deep breath. "All right. Here goes." He turned--and swayed, catching himself on the table. 

"Pa?" Slim tensed but didn't get off the table. 

Leo put a hand to his stomach. "Slim," he croaked. "Slim, you're gonna have to do it--I can't--" 

That was uncharacteristic of Leo, all right, but Slim knew that his stepfather had been all right up to that point. Again, he heard the elder Spock's voice in the back of his mind. _Trust your instincts._ He'd been right in dealing with the fake distress signal and he was pretty sure he was right now. 

In one movement, he leaped off the table, grabbed the device Leo had been holding, and pressed the trigger.

A faint purple gas filled the bay. Leo, Chekov, and Sulu all began coughing. Slim tried to hold his breath, but eventually had to take one. He, too, started coughing, but he didn't feel at all bad. It was like inhaling water vapor. 

After a moment, the gas cleared as the filters sucked it up. Sulu stopped straining at his bonds and flopped back; Chekov slowly uncurled from his ball. A second later, Sulu spoke hoarsely. "Where am I?" 

Leo exhaled, looking relieved. "Medical. Just rest, Sulu." 

"I am tired, sir," Sulu whispered. 

Chekov slowly emerged from under the biobed. "What--what was I doing zere?" he stammered. 

Slim shook his head wordlessly. Leo ran a hand throuh his hair. "I don't know, Mr. Chekov. I don't speak Russian." 

Chekov winced, looking up at the sound system as the song continued. "Do we have to listen to zis?" 

"Unfortunately," Leo said grimly, crossing to the intercom and pressing the buttons a few times. "Until I can figure out how to get in touch with the bridge. I can--"

Slim suddenly tilted his head. He could hear a faint banging on the hull just above them. "What's that?" 

Leo frowned, looking up. "It sounds like--" he began, but before he could finish his sentence, a length of cable with a strange device on one end dropped down. A grin split his face. "It's an eavesdropper. And the banging would be someone communicating in prison code--hold on." He picked up the device. "Who's there?" 

Slim held his tongue, listening to the pattern of bangs but not understanding any of them. Over his shoulder, Leo told Slim, "It's Uhura. Wants to know how I'm doing." Turning back to the device, he said, "Uhura, it's McCoy. I've got a partial solution, I think, but I'll need permission to use it." 

There was a wait before the banging started. Again, Slim didn't understand what was being said, but Leo did. "I've got a gas here--it'd take too long to explain, but I can disperse it into the ventilation system from here. It worked on Sulu--he's back to normal--and it doesn't seem to affect healthy crew members, but I can't vouch for that." 

Slim grinned--that was typical caution on the part of his stepfather. After a moment, there were more bangs. Leo smiled slightly. "Tell Jim I'm all right--and so is Slim. I felt pretty sick a few minutes ago, but the antidote worked on me, too, so if whatever this is is what I had, it's cured. And Slim's showing no ill effects whatsoever." 

Another pause, then more banging. This time Leo frowned. "Sulu's exhausted. I know what Jim's worried about, but under the discretion granted my commission, I'm not going to wake him." 

The pause was longer this time, the response shorter, but Leo nodded crisply. "Copy, Lieutenant Uhura. Over and out."

The device disappeared upwards. Leo grabbed the gas canister and moved towards the vent. "Better keep your fingers crossed, kiddo," he muttered, pumping the entirety of the device into the ventilation system. 

Slim backed up until he was standing next to Chekov, crossing his fingers, and his toes for good measure. Whoever had the intercom was still singing. And then he faltered, dropping words. He tried to sing a few nonsense syllables, but that, too, died. 

And then there was silence. 

"Is it over?" Chekov half-whispered. 

Leo exhaled, crossing from his station to put one hand on Chekov's shoulder and the other on Slim's. "It's over," he agreed. "For now." 

Suddenly, the alarm began blaring. Jim's voice filled the ship. "All officers to the bridge! Crash emergency in six minutes! Mark and move!" 

"Slim, go!" Leo barked. "Your dad's gonna need you on that engineering panel! Chekov, sit your ass down, you're still on light duty and you're not going _anywhere."_

Slim ran for the door without looking back. He made it up to the bridge at the same time as the rest of the crew currently on duty and jumped for the panel. The second he was seated, he called over his shoulder, "Engines at full power, sir." 

"Harris, get us stable!" Jim barked. "Keep her head up or we're all dead!" 

"Aye, sir!" 

It was a very tense twenty minutes. Slim monitored the power levels, noting when needles dipped and when they surged too high. At last, however, Harris said, "Orbit established, sir. We're out of range of the planetary breakup." 

Jim exhaled, dropping into his chair. "I have an idea, crew," he said. "Let's not _ever_ have another day like this." 

"Agreed," Uhura and Slim said in unison. 

The door to the bridge slid open. Slim turned to see his stepfather, looking absolutely wiped out but smiling slightly. "Riley's in Med Bay, just for observation, but he'll be ready for his regular shift tomorrow. So will Sulu." 

"Bones!" Jim was out of his seat in an instant. He came around and hugged Leo tightly. Leo looked surprised, but hugged him back. "I was worried," he admitted in a low tone of voice. "I was afraid you were sick, too...that I might..." He choked. 

"I'm all right, Jim," Leo said softly, kissing Jim's forehead lightly. "It was close, but it wasn't that close."

Jim leaned against Leo for a moment more, then took a deep breath and pulled back. "What happened, anyway? What was it?" 

"It's a principle called bound water," Leo explained. "It was in that liquid sample Spock brought back--a catalyst that caused water-binding. If there was nothing else around, it would bind even to itself. Once in the bloodstream, it started causing problems. First it made it more difficult to extract nutrients from the blood, including blood sugar--hence the psychiatric symptoms. Then it made the blood too thick to pump efficiently, especially through the smaller capillaries, thereby causing Tormolen's death due to circulatory collapse." 

"How did it spread?" Jim asked. 

"Contact with bodily fluids--perspiration, blood, probably other kinds of fluids as well." 

Which made sense, Slim realized. Leo had said that Riley was the one caterwauling over the intercom--he and Sulu had gotten covered in Tormolen's blood trying to disarm him. And Sulu and Chekov had spent the night together; they'd probably kissed, at the very least, if not done more. Which was why Chekov had been cowering under the biobed like he was in a war zone--he'd been infected, too. Leo had probably gotten the infection from doing the tests. Slim realized he was lucky not to have been infected, too--or had he been, and just not shown symptoms yet? 

Jim shook his head. "Good thing that gas of yours worked." 

Leo nodded. "I almost couldn't find the right poison in time--that was what I had to do, poison the catalysis. And as I told Uhura through the wall, I wasn't sure what the effect would be on a healthy person. Luckily, none."

"Damn." Jim clapped a hand to his forehead. "That reminds me. Spock invalided himself off duty just before the tail end of the crisis and he's not back yet. Uhura, call Spock's quarters." 

"Yes, sir." Uhura turned to her board. 

There was a _click_ , and then through the intercom came a peculiar howl. It was obviously Spock's voice, and he was definitely singing along to an instrument, but Slim had no idea what the words were--though he guessed them to be Vulcan--nor what the instrument was. Jim winced. "I can't tell if he's all right or not--only another Vulcan could. But since he's not on duty during an alert, maybe your antidote did something to him it didn't do to the rest of us. Better go check on him." 

"Just let me get my earplugs." Leo kissed Jim lightly, then turned and headed off the bridge. 

Jim signaled to Uhura to turn off the intercom, then smiled at Slim and jerked his head in a come-here gesture. Slim, knowing his part at the board was done, came over to stand next to Jim's chair as his father sat down. He looked out at the planet--little more than a dust cloud now, pulsing gently as parts of it collapsed and other parts blew out. 

"Looks a little bit like a brain scan," he said softly. 

"Not quite," Jim said, reaching over and taking Slim's hand. "Brains can be repaired." He paused, then added, "Usually." 

Slim shook his head. "I don't know why anyone would want to be able to do this to a livin' planet," he murmured. 

"There will always be those who seek to destroy," Jim said, sounding a little defeated. "I suppose they think it'd be a good weapon to have, just in case." 

"Sounds too much like twentieth-century science fiction to me," Slim said. "I'd rather learn how to save planets than how to destroy 'em." 

Jim didn't respond, but he squeezed Slim's hand tightly. That told him, more than any words could have, that he'd said exactly the right thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obviously, I couldn't eliminate the "Sorry, neither" line from the original episode!
> 
> Slim's opening line in his duel with Sulu ("Stand back, Musketeers! They shall sample _my_ blade!") is from the Looney Toons cartoon "Duck Amok," which I highly recommend looking up if you've never seen it.
> 
> The one bit of banter I didn't write ("You fight like a dairy farmer!" / "How appropriate! You fight like a cow!") is from the Monkey Island video games. Thanks to my good friend [threepwillow](http://threepwillow.tumblr.com) for introducing me to those games, and that line!
> 
> And yeah, I threw in a little Star Wars reference at the end there. Couldn't help myself.


	37. About the Boy

Jim really, really wished the universe would slow down for a minute and let him catch his breath. 

If it were just the stresses of being a captain, or just the stresses of being a father to two children with a thirteen-year gap in age between them, he might have been all right. But doing both, he was surprised his hair wasn't already snow-white. 

Things had more or less gone back to normal after the breakup of La Pig. Jim hadn't reprimanded either Sulu or Riley for their actions; they'd been certifiably ill and not in control of themselves when they'd wandered off post, so there were no disciplinary measures necessary. Bones' cure had worked on Spock as well, but he'd also had lingering aftereffects that had resulted in him needing to be taken off-duty for forty-eight hours before Bones and M'Benga were satisfied that he was fit to return to duty. They had transmitted the data collected to Starfleet and received acknowledgement. In theory, everything was just fine. 

But in practice, it was a different story. 

Sulu had bounced back pretty quickly. He'd endured some good-natured teasing over having called Uhura "fair maiden," but nobody had really been surprised that he fancied himself a Musketeer. Riley, however, was avoiding everybody and seemed completely mortified at what he'd done. Jim wasn't sure if it was because he'd tried to take over the ship, because of what he'd said about the female personnel, or because it had exposed his deepest dreams and desires to the scrutiny of four hundred and thirty other people. Spock had managed to escape the general population before his deeply-hidden personality surfaced, if it ever had, and Bones had managed to cure himself before he could do more than feel sick, apparently. 

Chekov, on the other hand, had been somewhat emotionally fragile since then. He did his job as efficiently and well as ever, but off-duty he was quiet, slightly skittish. He had always spent most of his free time with Sulu and Slim, but Jim had noticed that in the last two weeks, he'd never been more than a few steps away from Sulu at any given time, and off-duty he tended to sit very close to him, leaning against him. There was something wrong, but he wouldn't respond to Bones' gentle probing. It was worrying, to say the least, especially as sick as he'd been just a month previously. 

On top of that, they had received orders to proceed to the planet Gideon, which had finally given in to repeated requests to consider membership in the Federation. Jim didn't mind being diplomatic with first-contact societies, but he really hated the diplomatic missions. The fact that the last three diplomatic missions the ship had been assigned to had ended in him nearly getting killed on the planet while his ship was nearly destroyed in space didn't help matters. But the request had come personally from Admiral Matthew Hackett, a man for whom Jim felt a great deal of respect. Hackett had been in charge of the cadets on the command track at the Academy when Jim was there; after Jim took over the  _Enterprise_ , he'd left the Academy for a more hands-on position. He'd been the first to go to bat for Jim after the  _Kobayashi Maru_  incident and he'd gone overboard on Bones' behalf when he was threatened with loss of his medical licence, or the  _Enterprise_ , after bringing Jim back to life. He was a good man and a good admiral, and if he wanted Jim to bring another new planet into the Federation, well, it was the least Jim could do for him. 

That didn't mean he had to like it.

And  _then_  there were the personal issues. True, Slim was no trouble, for the most part. He was conscientious about his studies, good at taking care of his sister when Jim or Bones asked him to (the initial stipulation that he be the one to care for Addie when their parents were on shift had gone out the window in the first month, when Carol had volunteered to be her primary caregiver), and Scotty was full of praise for the way he conducted himself in the engine room. But he'd been unusually irritable for a couple of days. He'd gone to bed early the night before and responded with muffled protests and a pillow over his head when Jim tried to get him up that morning. Jim had asked Bones to make sure he wasn't sick, but Bones had taken one look at Slim and told Jim to leave him alone.  _He'll sleep for a couple of days and then he'll be fine. Trust me._

Jim did trust Bones--after all, he'd been right about Addie. She was definitely hitting the "terrible twos." Her favorite word was  _no_ , and she used it frequently. It took every ounce of willpower Jim possessed not to cave to her demands every time she stuck out her lower lip, crossed her arms, and glared at him. Bones was a much more effective disciplinarian than Jim was; the night before, tired of her arguing, he had simply picked her up, ignoring the fact that she then started screaming at the top of her lungs, and carried her into her room, then left her. Jim had been in agony, listening to his little girl carrying on, but Bones hadn't let him go in to her, had simply taken him into their room and held him. Sure enough, she'd screamed herself out within twenty minutes, and when Jim went to check on her, she was sound asleep. 

Jim had no idea how to raise a toddler, or a girl. After all, he'd never had a sister, or a younger sibling. Bones had--Suzanna was sixteen years younger than he was--and did much better with Addie than Jim did. Which wasn't to say that he wasn't trying, just that he wasn't succeeding particularly well. It left a bad taste in his mouth. 

  He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with two fingers. He didn't need to have his brain starved for nutrients to know what lurked in the deepest part of his subconscious. The insecurities of James Tiberius Kirk could probably have filled the  _Enterprise_  stem to stern. He worried that he wasn't a good enough captain, a good enough friend, a good enough father, a good enough son, a good enough husband. He worried about that most of all. Bones had been divorced once; he'd sworn the day eight years prior when he'd put the ring on Jim's finger that he wouldn't walk away from another marriage, that he would love Jim until the day they died, but Jim always had the private insecurity, the secret conviction that someday Bones would leave him, if he couldn't be good enough.  _And let's face it,_  he thought grimly, looking at his wedding band,  _I'll never be good enough for Bones. He deserves so much better._

At the sound of his door chime, he looked up. He'd asked for meetings with three different personnel today, and he knew damned well he wasn't going to get all three done this shift, but he wasn't sure who would have come first. "Enter," he called, sitting back in his chair and trying to look calm and in control. 

A yellow-shirted figure with downcast eyes shuffled through the door. "You wanted to see me, sir?" 

Jim checked himself from calling the lieutenant by his first name. He had to remind himself that they weren't children anymore, this wasn't Tarsus, and Kevin Riley probably didn't even remember him. "Lieutenant Riley, have a seat." 

Riley pulled out the chair and sat down, looking uneasy. Jim leaned forward. "You're not in trouble," he said reassuringly. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay." 

Riley looked surprised--and a little wary. "I'm fine, sir." 

"You've been avoiding everyone since the breakup of La Pig," Jim said. "I'm not saying it's a problem, but that's how Tormolen started."

"I'm not suicidal, sir," Riley said quickly. "At least, I don't _think_ I am." 

"I think we'd know if you were," Jim pointed out. 

Riley flushed. "I, uh...I _am_ sorry about that, sir." 

"Okay, first of all, you don't need to call me 'sir' every other breath." Jim couldn't help but smile slightly. He tried to project a more relaxed atmosphere. Most of the time people just called him "Captain" or just told him what they wanted to say. "Second of all, you don't need to apologize. To me, or to anyone else. You weren't in control of your actions at the time." 

"I should have been," Riley mumbled. 

Jim hesitated. "Riley...what's _really_ worrying you? Is it what you did--or what you said?" 

"Not exactly," Riley admitted. "It's that I did it at _all."_

"I don't follow."

Riley stared at his hands for a moment. At last, he said, "I--it's hard to explain. I was orphaned at a pretty young age--I barely remember my parents. I grew up with my aunt and uncle, and they had seven children of their own. It was...chaos, sir. I--I don't like not being in control." He was quiet a moment longer, then said softly, "Dr. McCoy told me that the--disease or whatever it was--brought up the deepest aspects of our personalities, our most deeply hidden secrets and desires. I don't want to take control of the _Enterprise_ from you--I just--" 

Jim's heart went out to the navigator. "You just want to be _in control_. You want to be the one making the decisions, not the one things are decided for. That's why you're a navigator, right? Coordinates are static. Stars don't move. If you program the ship for 74.09.99.44, you'll always end up--" 

"Seventy-seven thousand kilometers from Archanis IV, just inside the Klingon Neutral Zone," Riley replied immediately, then blushed. "Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you." 

"You're fine." Jim had forgotten how close Archanis IV was to those coordinates. "But that's my point. You crave being in control--understandable, given your background." _I remember how helpless you were on Tarsus--how helpless we_ both _were._ "And you lost control of yourself, causing you to take control of the ship. I can understand that. Everyone will. Nobody is going to blame you for that."

Riley squirmed slightly. "I feel...a little judged. Lieutenant Solari and Ensign Watanabe passed me in the corridor a few days ago and asked me whether I'd be attending the dance in the bowling alley. I don't even think the ship _has_ a bowling alley." 

Jim laughed--he couldn't help it. "It doesn't. If you ever want to dance, I suggest the tertiary gym. There are some excellent playlists of music to suit any dancing style." 

Riley turned bright red. "Two left feet, sir." 

Jim forced himself to stop laughing. The _sir_ told him that Riley was feeling self-conscious. "I'm not laughing at you, Lieutenant Riley. And I can assure you that nobody else on this ship is, either. Mr. Scott was actually rather impressed with the way you rerouted the controls through a single panel--were you trained in engineering?" 

"Yes, I did a double major at the Academy. Engineering and Navigation. I was in Engineering for my first two and a half assignments and got promoted to navigator halfway through my tour on the _Greyhound_." Riley managed a smile at that. "I worked really hard for it." 

"And you earned it." Jim smiled back. "Riley, listen to me, okay? If anyone on the crew gives you grief, come talk to me. And if you start feeling weird, talk to Dr. McCoy. But you've got nothing to feel ashamed of. Nothing at all."

"Thank you, Captain." Riley hesitated. "Captain...what you were saying about my background. Do you...know how I lost my parents? Is it in my file?" 

Jim hesitated as well. The urge to say yes was overwhelming--it would explain how he knew--but their files only said they had been on Tarsus, not what had happened there. "Your file doesn't say how you lost your parents," he said eventually. "But I do know how you lost them. You were on Tarsus. Your parents didn't survive the massacre." 

Riley nodded, looking puzzled. "If it's not in my file...how did you know?" 

"I was there, too, Riley," Jim said quietly. "I was ten years old. The only other member of my family to survive was my mother--because she wasn't there." 

"I'm sorry, sir," Riley said. 

"It's not your fault." Jim reached over and grabbed Riley's hand. "It was never your fault, you understand me?" 

Riley's eyes searched Jim's for a minute. Slowly, he nodded. "Yes, sir. I understand." 

Slowly, Jim let go of Riley's hand. "You can go, Lieutenant. Feel free to come back if you need to talk about anything." 

"Thank you, Captain," Riley said softly. He stood, hesitated, and then left the office.

Jim sat back, feeling slightly drained. Riley didn't remember him, that much was clear. But Jim still couldn't forget the feel of those arms clasped around his neck as they stared, horrified, at the man standing impassive over the expanse of bodies. He wondered if Riley had nightmares about that place, too. 

A few moments later, his door chimed again. _Ah, my second appointment of the day,_ he thought, glancing at the chronometer. Alpha shift would be ending in about fifteen minutes. "Enter!" 

The man who entered this time wore a red shirt. "You wanted to see me, Captain?" 

Amazing, Jim thought, how every single person who responded to a summons said more or less the same thing. "Have a seat, Lieutenant Blume. This shouldn't take too long. I just wanted to ask you a few questions." 

Blume sat down on the edge of the chair, his back straight. "I'll do my best to answer, sir." 

Jim opened his mouth and found he had no idea how to proceed with the questions. Lamely, he said, "I've been meaning to talk with you since you came aboard, but..." 

"I understand," Blume said, nodding. "Things have been...somewhat hectic." 

"How are you settling in Engineering?" 

"Just fine. Everyone's been most helpful. I was a little out of practice with working on active warp cores, but Mr. Scott says I'm up to scratch now." 

"Good to hear." Jim fidgeted slightly, not sure why he felt so awkward. Finally, he blurted, "I've gotta ask, Lieutenant. Why'd you leave Starbase Nine?" 

Blume's head dropped for a moment. "Permission to speak freely, sir?" 

"Granted," Jim said.

"Admiral Nylund is a difficult man to work with under ordinary circumstances, but after your visit six months ago, I put in a transfer request immediately." Blume swallowed. "I--I heard what he was saying to you, sir. He never cut the intercom circuit between his desk and the hallway." 

Jim went cold. Nylund's words had burned themselves into his memory. Blume continued. "That's why I bowed when you came out, sir. I was impressed--I've never heard anyone stand up to him baiting them like that. He called me into his office--I had a feeling I was in trouble, and I was right. He told me you weren't worth the courtesies I'd paid--which is completely untrue--and said I'd understand what he'd meant when word came back from Capella IV that the Federation had lost the topaline mining rights. So as I said, I immediately filled out a request for a transfer." 

Jim swallowed. "But you told me you came straight from Starbase Nine. That was three months later. No way it should have taken that long." 

"It shouldn't have," Blume agreed. "After eight weeks I checked the status of my request and found it had never been filed. The Admiral had intercepted it and dismissed it. I decided to play dumb--I sent a direct message to Admiral Hackett telling him that I assumed my transfer request was stagnating because no one needed an administrative assistant, but that I was willing to return to Engineering if anyone needed it. He told me he'd never received my paperwork--which I knew--and asked me to resubmit it to him. The first Admiral Nylund knew of it was when I received my orders."

"That explains a lot," Jim murmured. Hackett had been captain of the _Lexington_ ; he knew that Jim and Nylund had a history, even if he didn't know what Nylund had done on Tarsus. So when he saw that one of Nylund's former aides was requesting a transfer to Engineering, and also saw that the _Enterprise_ had requisitioned engineers, he would naturally have sent Blume to Jim. "He didn't treat you too badly, did he?" 

"No, sir, just to denigrate my abilities and competence," Blume answered, flushing slightly. "Frankly, I was glad to be rid of him anyway." 

Jim hesitated. "One last question, Blume, I promise. You're certain he said _when,_ not _if_ , I'd failed in the mission he'd set for me?" 

"Positive," Blume replied without hesitation. "He spoke as though you had no hope of success--as though it was doomed from the start. And the day we received confirmation that the regent for the High Chief had signed the contract, nobody dared go near him, he was so furious. I didn't understand it. We needed that topaline." 

"Nylund didn't want the _mission_ to fail," Jim said grimly. "He wanted _me_ to fail." 

The end-of-watch bells sounded. Blume stood. "I'd best go, sir. I'm on Beta shift this rotation." 

Jim stood as well. "Thank you, Lieutenant Blume. And if you have any problems or concerns, please feel free to come to me." 

"I will. Thank you, Captain." Blume saluted and left.

Jim debated for a minute on whether to stay in his office or not, on the off-chance the third person he'd requested an appointment with would drop by. But the more he thought about it, the more he realized that wasn't going to happen. In fact, he knew exactly where to find his third appointment of the day. 

He closed down his office and headed for the observation deck. 

Sure enough, on the otherwise empty deck, he found a single figure huddled in the corner, hugging legs to chest, face buried in the knees. Jim walked over and knelt down next to the figure. "Chekov?" he said gently. 

Chekov raised his face, looking startled. "Keptin," he mumbled. "I--I'm sorry for not coming to see you, but--" 

"It's all right." Jim sat down next to him and studied him for a minute. "Where's Sulu?" 

"Fencing practice." Chekov curled a little tighter. "I didn't want to watch right now." 

Jim held out his arms silently. Chekov looked at him for a moment, then whimpered slightly and clutched Jim's shirt, burying his face in his chest. Jim hugged him tightly. "Chekov. Talk to me, kid. What's wrong?" he asked gently. 

"D-did Dr. McCoy tell you what I did...when I had...whatever zat disease was?" 

Jim hesitated. "I pulled the tapes from Med Bay and saw it for myself." 

"Dr. McCoy doesn't speak Russian," Chekov said haltingly. 

"I do," Jim said gently. "You thought you were in a war zone, right?" 

"Chechnya," Chekov whispered. "Early twenty-first century Chechnya..."

Jim tried to think what the catalysis could have brought up in Chekov's mind. Tormolen had suffered from clinical depression that was theoretically under control; brain starvation had plunged him to the bottom of his cycle, and beyond, to the point that he'd committed suicide. Riley, as he'd said, had a deep-seated fear of losing control, so it had transformed him into a captain--a king, a monarch absolute. Sulu, at his core, was most confident of his ability to handle a blade, even more than his piloting skills, which were frankly legendary; therefore, he had regressed to a Musketeer. But what could have sent Chekov to a period in Earth's history when the Russians were constantly dropping bombs on their own people? 

"Is that where you're from?" he asked. 

Chekov shook his head. "I--I can't explain it, Keptin. I really believed zat I was in a house zat was being bombed, zat I was a little boy whose parents were missing." He curled closer to Jim's side; Jim could feel the tears begin to soak into his shirt. "I was afraid. I--I try so hard to be brave, but I was afraid..." 

And in that moment, Jim understood. Chekov had only been thirteen when he'd started at the Academy. He'd been a loner until he'd become part of the _Enterprise's_ crew. Jim didn't know much about Chekov's life before he'd joined Starfleet, but he guessed that he'd never really had anyone willing to look after him. Deep inside, he was nothing more than a scared little boy. Where Chechnya came into it, Jim had no idea, but it probably was the most relevant period of Russian history his brain could come up with.

"Chekov," Jim said softly, stroking the younger man's hair the way he had with Slim, back on Miri's planet. "It's okay to be afraid. You don't have to prove yourself to anyone." He paused, then added, "But if you _do_ get scared...I'm here. Sulu's here. We're _both_ here for you. You know that." 

Chekov looked up, his expression vulnerable. "Really?" 

"Really," Jim assured him. "I didn't ask to talk to you today as your captain. I asked as your friend. I've never had a little brother before, but if I did, I couldn't ask for a better one than you." 

Chekov swallowed. "I--I do have older brothers," he said. "But zey...zey weren't wery nice to me. I always wanted a brother like you." 

Something warm curled up in the pit of Jim's stomach. "Well, you've got one. And if you ever need me--for _anything_ , not just advice--you can always come to me. I've told you that. I mean it." He hesitated, then added, "Have you talked to Sulu about this?" 

"N-no," Chekov admitted. "I feel bad for taking adwantage of him, but I was just holding on extra tight at night." He looked up. _"Should_ I?" 

Jim nodded. "Remember what I told you a couple months back? Loving someone is trusting them with every part of you--your heart and soul. Sulu loves you." 

"And I love him." 

"So trust him, Chekov. Trust that he'll be there for you when you need him. After all, you were there when he needed you, weren't you?" Jim smiled. 

Slowly, Chekov smiled back. "Aye," he said softly. "Thank you, Keptin." 

"You're welcome, kid."

Jim half-expected Chekov to leave. He didn't. Instead, he slowly leaned back against Jim's shoulder, his eyes going back to the panorama of space. Jim relaxed, keeping his arm around the navigator as he, too, watched the stars go by. He started humming softly, then began singing. Chekov relaxed even further, turning into a boneless pile of jelly as the song washed over them both. 

He didn't even realize that he'd drifted off until he felt a gentle hand shaking his shoulder. "Jim." 

"Mmm?" Jim blinked back to consciousness. His back was stiff and his arm had gone numb; Chekov was still sound asleep at his side. He looked up and saw Bones standing over him with a soft smile on his face. "Oh...hey, Bones. How long was I out?" 

"I don't know, but it's a little more than two hours into Beta." Bones tilted his head. "Everything okay?" 

"I think so. We were talking and I guess we nodded off. Don't think he's been sleeping much." Jim smiled at the navigator, then back up at Bones. "You?" 

Bones nodded. "Just fine. Sulu took Addie to the mess hall while I came looking for you two--I remembered you said you were going to talk to Chekov today, so I figured you'd be together. When you weren't in your office, this seemed like the best bet."

"How's Slim?" Jim couldn't help but feel anxious. 

"Still asleep." 

"That's not good, is it?" 

"It's normal. Jim, he's going through a growth spurt, that's all. He'll be fine. Like I said this morning, he'll sleep for a couple of days and then he'll wake up and everything will be back to normal except for the fact that his pants don't fit. Lucky thing he's got a birthday in a week." 

"Lucky thing," Jim echoed. He felt a small pang of regret that his son wouldn't be quite so little anymore, but comforted himself with the knowledge that there was a foot of difference between Slim's biological parents. He might not get _much_ taller. 

"Better wake up Sleeping Beauty there," Bones said, raising an eyebrow. "You both probably need food." 

Jim half-smiled and nudged Chekov. "Mr. Chekov, wake up."

"Hmm?" Chekov rubbed his face on Jim's shoulder, then opened his eyes. Suddenly, he sat upright. _"Bozhe moy!"_

"It's all right," Jim said quickly. "It's only been a couple of hours. C'mon, you hungry?" 

"A little," Chekov said. His stomach chose to growl at that juncture. 

Bones laughed, holding out his hand to help Jim up. "Sulu's looking for you, kid. Come on." 

Jim scrambled to his feet, then pulled Chekov up. He smiled and gave the navigator a wink. Chekov smiled back--no, he positively _grinned_. And as they headed for the mess hall, Jim felt a _lot_ better than he had a few hours previously.


	38. He Cried

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter does not contain any sex (although it's not for lack of trying on Jim and Bones' part, at least at the beginning). However, it does contain mentions of past abuse.

Leo awoke to the sounds of crying over the baby monitor. Jim started up next to him, a look of sleepy panic on his face. “Addie!” 

“Settle down, Jim,” Leo said, pushing Jim back into the pillows. “’S my turn to get up with her. Go back to sleep.” 

Before he could do more than throw back the covers, however, Addie’s crying stopped. Leo and Jim looked at one another, but then they heard a soft voice murmuring to her and realized what was going on. 

“Didn’t realize she was that loud,” Jim murmured. 

“She’s your daughter, Jim, of course she’s got a big mouth,” Leo teased gently. “Since we don’t seem to be needed…” He leaned over and kissed Jim with searing passion. 

Jim made a muffled noise of surprise that turned into a moan as Leo deepened the kiss, running a hand sensuously down his ribs. They didn’t often get time for this sort of thing in the morning, but if it was early as Leo thought, they might have time for a little bit of pleasure before they had to go on shift. He nipped at Jim’s collarbone, sucking hard and getting a sharp cry of pleasure— 

And then their alarm went off.

“Dammit,” Leo growled, scowling at the chronometer. Reluctantly, he pushed himself up. 

Jim actually whimpered as Leo’s hands left him. “Bones,” he said breathlessly. “Can’t leave me like this—” 

“We don’t have a choice, darlin’.” Leo leaned back down to whisper this in Jim’s ear, which he knew was cruel even before Jim shivered. “We’ve got to go on shift in an hour. And it’s your son’s birthday.” 

Jim turned a half-reproachful expression on his husband. “Which means even longer before you can finish what you’ve started?” 

“Didn’t know how little time we had when I started,” Leo admitted. He captured Jim’s lips again before throwing back the covers and getting out of bed. “C’mon, rise an’ shine. I’ll make it up to you, Jim, I promise.” 

“You’d better,” Jim muttered, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. 

Leo stopped, crossed over to Jim, and caught his chin, tilting it up. “You know I hate it when you sulk,” he said in a low voice. 

“Now you’re just being mean,” Jim said accusingly, although the flush in his cheeks and raw desire in his eyes mitigated the sting. 

“What do you mean ‘now?’” Leo smirked, running his thumb slowly and delicately over Jim’s jawline. “Behave yourself today and I’ll be good to you tonight,” he promised, withdrawing his hand and straightening. 

Jim shivered as he stood. “Where the hell was this during the first year of this mission?” he demanded. “Did you pick up some kind of disease on that Kalandran outpost that revved your sex drive?” 

Leo paused. “If I had, Jim, I’m pretty sure you’d have picked it up by now, too.” 

“You _know_ what I mean, Bones. I don’t think we’ve had sex this often—or this amazing—since we were at the Academy.” 

“Considering I’m past forty, I’ll take that as a compliment.” Leo smiled. “But seriously, Jim. You told me you’d been feeling neglected—and you had a point. I hadn’t been giving you the attention you need. And when I thought about it, I realized that I hadn’t really been giving you that attention since we got married. You never complained, but…the whole not-having-sex-for-a-year thing didn’t just come up all of a sudden. We’d been tapering off for years. And that’s not fair to you. So…yeah, maybe I’ve been making up for lost time a little bit. I’ll ease up if that’s what you want.” 

“I didn’t say that,” Jim said quickly. 

Leo laughed and kissed Jim again, this time in the more normal way he did when they were around other people. “Have I told you lately how much I love you?” 

Jim smiled, almost shyly. “Not…in so many words, no.” 

“I love you, Jim,” Leo said softly. 

“Love you, too, Bones.” Jim kissed the corner of Leo’s mouth. “C’mon, let’s get dressed before Slim drops Addie down the garbage chute.” 

Leo laughed and headed for the bathroom.

Jim was half-dressed when he came out, but he scuttled in quickly. Leo had a feeling it wasn’t just an urgent need to pee that hastened his husband’s steps, and he couldn’t resist a low chuckle. He felt a small, malicious pang of satisfaction at Jim’s whimper as the door closed behind him. 

He was dressed and ready before Jim emerged. Since he could still hear noises over the baby monitor, he slipped out of the room and paused in the doorway of Addie’s little room, smiling at the sight. Slim held Addie on his hip, clad in only a diaper, chattering at her quietly as he rummaged in her drawers. “What do you think, Addie? You wanna wear pink, or yellow, or blue today?” 

Addie poked Slim’s shoulder. “Dat?” 

Slim was wearing one of the shirts Chekov had given him a year ago. Leo noticed that it was tight on him, especially across the chest. “What color is this? It’s red.” 

“Wed,” Addie repeated. “Want wed.” 

“You wanna wear red? Let’s see…” Slim rummaged in the drawer again. “Here we go. Here’s a lovely pink shirt.” 

“No,” Addie insisted. “Wed.” 

“This is the closest to red you’ve got, baby.” 

“Want wed!” Addie’s voice rose. 

“Shh,” Slim said, bouncing her a little. “Don’t wake up Daddy an’ Papa, remember? We’re gonna surprise ‘em.” 

“Pwise,” Addie said, a cheeky grin on her face. She pressed one finger to her lips. “Shh!” 

“That’s it. Now, let’s see what we have.” Slim put the shirt back in the drawer, rummaged for a moment, and then lifted out what Leo could see was the exact same shirt. “Look, here’s a red shirt for Addie!” 

“Wed!” Addie said happily.

Leo’s jaw fell open slightly. Slim set Addie down on the top of her dresser, which served as a changing table. He quickly pulled the shirt—which was a shade of dark pink that Uhura called “cerise”—over her head, then got her into a pair of black stretch pants with ruffles at the hems. “Okay, Addie, what’d you do with your shoes?” 

“No,” Addie told him. “No shoes.” 

“You have to wear shoes,” Slim told her. 

“No!” 

Slim put his hands on his hips and gave Addie an exaggerated version of Jim’s “captain scowl”—squinting one eye, raising an eyebrow, twisting his mouth. “Insubordination! Failure to wear proper uniform! I’ll have to put a warning in your file, Midshipman!” 

Leo put a hand over his mouth to stifle his snort of laughter. Addie giggled, then—for a wonder—held up a foot. “Shoes!” 

Slim dug out the little black Mary Janes and a pair of black socks. He got Addie’s feet into them, then clapped his hands. “Yay, Addie!” 

“Yay!” Addie clapped her hands. Then she caught sight of Leo and beamed, holding her arms out. “Papa!” 

Slim jumped, blushing a little as he turned. “Sorry, Pa, we were tryin’ not to wake you up.” 

“We were already up,” Leo assured him. “Woke up when she cried.” He crossed into the room and hugged Slim. “Mornin’, son. Happy birthday.” 

Slim hugged Leo back. “Thanks, Pa.”

“Papa,” Addie said insistently, thrusting her arms again. 

“Just a minute, Addie.” Leo deliberately spent another minute hugging Slim before letting him go, ruffling his hair, and turning to his daughter. “Good morning, sweetheart.” 

“Papa,” Addie said happily. 

Leo picked her up and gave her a hug and a kiss before setting her down. “Come on. Let’s go see if Daddy’s ready for breakfast yet.” 

He took Addie’s hand, leading her out of the room. Jim was just coming out of the bedroom. He smiled when he saw them. “Hey! Happy birthday, Slim.” 

“Thanks, Dad.” Slim smiled. 

Jim studied him. “You want to wear a different shirt today, maybe? That one looks a little small.” 

“It is a little,” Slim admitted. “I, uh, I can change if you want me to…” 

“No, no, that’s not what I meant,” Jim said quickly. “It’s just that you look like if you breathe the wrong way you’re going to bust a seam.” 

Slim smoothed the front, a little self-consciously. “It’s just…this is the one thing I couldn’t replace from ship’s stores. Reckon I wanted to hang onto it as long as I could.” 

“I can understand that.” Leo slung an arm around Slim’s shoulders. “Is anybody else hungry?” 

“Starving.” Slim’s stomach rumbled as he spoke. 

Jim poked it. “You don’t look like you’re missing too many meals there,” he teased. “We’re not gonna be able to call you ‘Slim’ much longer.” 

Slim blushed, but grinned and poked Jim’s stomach back. “You’re one to talk, Dad.” 

Addie giggled. Leo scooped her up and tickled her mercilessly. “And you’re the fattest of them all, you little porker.” 

Addie shrieked and giggled. “’Lim, help!” 

Slim pretended not to understand. “Oh, you want me to help Papa? Okay, I’ll help Papa.” He started tickling her, too. 

Addie’s shrieks grew louder. Suddenly, the giggling was gone. “No!” 

Slim and Leo both stopped immediately. Leo kissed the top of Addie’s head. “Sorry, baby. All done.” 

Jim looked a little concerned as Addie buried her face in Leo’s shoulder. “She okay?” 

“Yeah. I think we just hurt her a little.” Leo rubbed Addie’s back. “You know as well as I do, there’s a point where pleasure becomes pain.” 

Jim blushed and said quickly, “Let’s go get breakfast, shall we?” 

Leo blushed, too, as he realized what he’d said and what Jim was thinking. “Yeah, that—that sounds good.”

The four of them headed out together. After a little while, Jim fell into step with Slim. “You know, with everything going on, I forgot to ask you—what do you want to do for your birthday? Anything special?” 

Slim seemed surprised. “No, nothin’ special. Not this year. Maybe we could watch somethin’ together after dinner tonight? All four of us?” 

“Sure,” Jim agreed. “Did you have something in particular in mind?” 

“I’ll think about it and get back to you.” 

“Sounds great.” 

They reached the mess hall to find Chekov and Sulu waiting for them, both grinning. “Happy birthday!” the two chorused on seeing Slim. 

Slim blushed. “Thanks, y’all.” 

Chekov waited until they sat down before he handed Slim a flat white box. “Zis is not your only present,” he told him, “but I thought you should have it before Alpha shift.” 

“Oh…uh…thanks.” Slim blushed again. He opened the box, and a grin lit up his face. “Thanks, Chekov!” 

“I made three different sizes zis time,” Chekov explained. “Zat way you won’t outgrow zem all so quickly.” 

“Thanks.” Slim gave Chekov a quick hug.

Leo could see that the box contained more imitation uniform shirts. “Why don’t you go ahead and change before you eat?” he suggested. 

Slim’s smile disappeared. “Oh—uh—right here in the mess?” 

“It’s not like you’d be stripping,” Jim pointed out. “It’s just your shirt. Not like none of us have ever walked around the ship without a shirt on.” 

Slim bit his lip, hard. Leo began to feel distinctly uneasy. He realized now that, in the seventeen months he’d known Slim, he’d never yet seen him without a shirt on. He didn’t even wander around shirtless in their quarters, and on the rare occasions he showered while Leo and Jim were around, he always dressed in the bathroom. Leo had assumed that it was simply insecurity about his growing body, but now he wondered if there wasn’t more to it than that. 

After a moment’s hesitation, Slim pulled the shirt over his head and over the other shirt. He then pulled one arm back into the sleeve; there was a moment of movement beneath the fabric before his hand reappeared, and he repeated the process with the other arm. Finally, reached through the neck hole and pulled the smaller shirt through it and over his head, folded it, and placed it neatly in the box, then applied himself to his ham and eggs as though he had done nothing unusual. 

Leo opened his mouth to comment, but Jim caught his eye and shook his head once, quickly. Leo understood what his husband was saying: _Not now._ Slim obviously didn’t want to share right then. They would table that discussion for later.

Sulu spoke as though he hadn’t noticed anything. “Speaking of running around shirtless, Slim, you feel up to a fencing match this afternoon? I know it’s not our usual day for it, but…” 

“Yeah, that’d be great,” Slim said. Leo heard the grateful note in his voice. “I could use the exercise.” 

“This about me teasing you for being pudgy?” Jim asked, raising an eyebrow. 

“Maybe a little,” Slim admitted. 

“You’re about to hit another growth spurt, Slim,” Leo told him. _Hopefully one that won’t worry your father so much,_ he added silently. He’d slept for almost three days, and it had taken everything Leo had to keep Jim from panicking—especially since Addie was still being argumentative and stubborn. Then he’d woken up with all his shirts a little snugger in the chest and shoulders and all his pants clearing his ankles by a good inch. They’d had to take him to ship’s stores to re-clothe him. 

“This _does_ end, doesn’t it?” Slim asked. 

Leo couldn’t help but laugh. “Eventually. Most of your growth will be between now and your eighteenth birthday. By the time you get to the Academy, you’ll probably be more or less at your full adult height.”

“Thanks, Doctor.” Jim smiled and glanced at the chronometer. “Eat up, everyone. Duty calls.” He paused. “Oh, by the way, Slim, would you drop Addie off with Dr. Marcus on your way down to Engineering?” 

Slim looked up, startled. “Well, sure, but—I ain’t sure when that’ll be.” 

“Soon as you finish eating.” Jim’s eyes twinkled. “Didn’t I tell you?” 

“Tell me what?” 

“Mr. Scott and I put you on the schedule today. You’re working Alpha shift in Engineering.” 

Slim and Leo both dropped their forks, almost in unison. Sulu snorted. “Synchronized astonishment. Never seen that before.” 

“Dad, I—” Slim looked absolutely stunned. “You—you really mean it?” 

“I really do.” Jim smiled. “It’s just for today, mind you, but you’re fifteen. Chekov here did his term as a midshipman on the _Bradbury_ when he was fifteen. So there’s precedent. Admittedly, not _much_ precedent, but precedent nonetheless. So, for today _only_ , you’re an honorary crewman. Happy birthday.” 

Slim looked as though he’d swallowed a lit candle. “Thanks, Dad.” 

“Make sure you thank Mr. Scott, too,” Jim said with a grin. “Eat up, crewman.” 

“Yes, sir.” Slim returned the grin and applied himself to his food.

When they left a few minutes later, Leo let Slim and Addie go ahead of him before catching Jim’s arm. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” he murmured. 

“Yeah, actually,” Jim murmured back. “Slim’s been doing a lot around Engineering anyway, especially since Keenser died. And they’re shorthanded again. Really, all I’m doing today is officially sanctioning it. Unofficially, I sanctioned it ages ago.” 

Leo was a little uncomfortable with the whole idea, but he let it go. “See you after shift, Jim.” He gave his husband a kiss on the cheek, then headed for Medical. 

It was the rarest of days on the _Enterprise_ —an uneventful one. Nobody came with any injuries, major or minor; nobody was sick, and there was no away mission. Leo caught up on what little remained of his paperwork, straightened his office, and, with nothing else to do and two hours left in shift, he drifted up to the bridge. 

Jim smiled over his shoulder. “Hey, Bones. All quiet on the western front?” 

“If you’d ever actually read that book, you’d know that was a rather inappropriate question,” Leo retorted, having read it for an ancient history class in college. “But yeah, there’s absolutely nothing going on in Medical. How are things up here?” 

“About the same. At this rate of speed, we should be to Gideon in a week.” 

“More specifically, Captain, eight days,” Spock said from his station. 

Jim rolled his eyes. “Where would we be without your precision, Spock,” he said in a perfectly deadpan voice. 

Leo suppressed a chuckle.

At last, shift ended. Once Beta was in place, Jim stood and stretched. “So, Bones, what do you say we go collect Addie and watch the fencing practice?” 

“Sounds good to me,” Leo said with a smile. 

When they reached Carol’s quarters, the science officer looked frazzled and Addie had a hole in the knee of her pants. Leo raised an eyebrow. “How’d this happen?” he asked his daughter sternly. 

Addie smiled winningly. “Papa,” she said, holding up her arms. 

Leo crossed his own arms, fixing her with a stern stare. He hated being tough on her, and sometimes he had trouble with it—although not as much trouble as Jim did—but he was determined that she wouldn’t get spoiled. “Addie,” he said warningly. 

“What did she do?” Jim asked Carol. 

“Nothing unusual,” Carol said. “But when I took her up to the mess hall for lunch, she ran off. I was chasing her—she’s bloody fast, by the way—and she tripped.” 

Leo sighed, closing his eyes. “She okay?” 

“She’s fine. Didn’t even lose any skin, just tore the pants. But I wouldn’t let her walk after that, and I made her sit in my lap while she ate. She didn’t much care for that.” 

“Thanks, Carol.” Leo picked Addie up. 

She threw her arms around his neck and planted an open-mouthed kiss on his cheek. “Papa.” 

Leo rolled his eyes for Jim’s benefit. “Come on, Little Mischief, let’s get you changed, and then we’ll go see Slim.” 

“’Lim,” Addie repeated happily. 

Jim and Leo both took the opportunity to change into civilian clothes, too, before they headed towards the tertiary gym. Leo carried Addie; she squirmed to get down, but he ignored her.

The first thing Leo heard on reaching the gym was a deeply Scottish cry of “Well struck, laddie!” He raised his eyebrows at Jim, who shrugged, then opened the door. 

Chekov, Scotty, Uhura, and Cayne sat on a pile of mats off to one side, Spock standing behind them. Slim and Sulu were suited up, complete with face masks, and going at it hammer and tongs. Ordinarily, Leo could have guessed which was which because Slim fenced left-handed almost exclusively these days. However, the swords they were using were obviously designed to be held with two hands. The blades were much longer and broader than any of the other swords they usually fought with. 

Leo’s jaw dropped as he watched. He would have expected that the larger, heavier blades would result in lessened speed, but the two figures circled and swung almost as quickly as they did with the saber. The metal clashed and clanged as they struck and parried and battled back and forth. 

Jim quickly crossed over to stand next to Spock. “Which one is which?” 

“The only appreciable difference in the two of them is that Thomas’s sword has a green pommel stone, whereas Mr. Sulu’s is red,” Spock said calmly. “Additionally, Sulu lands his blows with greater frequency than Thomas does.” 

“Which makes sense,” Chekov said without taking his eyes from the combat. “Slim has never worked with ze claymore before.” 

“That’s a claymore?” Leo had never seen one before. He’d only seen the word in old books, none of which had pictures and all of which had been written at a time when contemporary audiences would have known what a claymore was immediately. 

“Aye,” Scotty said, grinning wolfishly. “A true Scottish weapon—yes, lad, _yes!”_ he cried as the figure nearest them managed to get under the other’s guard, striking his opponent on the shoulder. Leo noticed, however, that he had turned the blade first, whether accidentally or on purpose, so that he struck with the flat instead of the edge.

Leo sat down next to Cayne, putting Addie on his lap. He was too distracted by the blades and the footwork to notice the stones on the ends of the handles. Since both combatants were identically dressed, and roughly of the same size now that Slim had started growing, it was nearly impossible to tell them apart. After a few moments—and a couple more blows landed—he theorized that Slim was the one further away from the watchers. His footwork was a little sloppier, probably because he was getting to that awkward stage in his growth and still wasn’t quite sure where his legs ended and his feet began. Nor was he quite as decisive with his attacks. 

“Slim’s got a strong defense,” he observed idly. 

Chekov nodded. “He always does.” 

“He’s like that in hand-to-hand, too,” Jim said absently. “Took me ages to get him to actually throw a punch.” 

“Reckon that’s got a lot to do with his personality,” Cayne said, glancing briefly at Leo before looking back at the match. 

Leo looked at her, surprised. In doing so, he unconsciously loosened his grip on Addie. In that instant, the toddler slipped off his lap and ran forward. “’Lim!” 

“Addie, _no!”_ Leo shouted. Without thinking, he leapt to his feet, snatched Addie off her feet, and smacked her backside.

Addie looked up at him in astonishment, then set up a loud wail. Leo made himself ignore it, glaring sternly at his daughter. “Athena Dawn Kirk-McCoy, you _do not run away from Papa,_ do you hear me?” 

Addie kept wailing, but there were no tears in her eyes, and Leo knew well enough that her crying wasn’t genuine. “Stop that, you’re not hurt,” he said. “But you _could_ have been. Don’t run away from Papa, or Daddy, or Aunt Carol, _ever again._ Is that clear?” 

Addie stopped wailing, but looked at him with big blue eyes full of hurt and betrayal. Leo managed not to crack through long years of practice dealing with Jim. “Is that clear?” he said again, more quietly. 

Addie sniffed, then nodded. “Uh-huh.” 

“Good girl.” Leo settled Addie on his hip and turned to see six absolutely astonished faces staring at him. Jim’s face was chalk-white, his eyes even bigger than Addie’s. Even Spock’s eyebrows were raised in surprise. 

From behind him, he heard Slim’s voice, cracking slightly with anxiety. “I didn’t hit her, did I?” 

Leo turned, feeling the rest of the senior command’s eyes on the back of his neck. Slim and Sulu had both removed their face masks and looked more worried than surprised. “No, she didn’t get close enough.”

“’Lim,” Addie whimpered, holding out her arms to Slim. 

Slim shook his head firmly. “No, Addie. Stay with Papa.” 

“’Lim,” Addie repeated stubbornly, her lower lip jutting out. 

“No,” Slim repeated. 

Leo sighed. “I’m sorry, you two. I won’t bring her in here while you’re fencing again.” 

Sulu raised his eyebrows. “Well, not until she learns to stay with you, anyway.” He turned to Slim. “You want to call it a day?” 

“I think so,” Slim answered. He rolled his shoulders back. “Claymore’s a little heavier ‘n I expected.” 

“We’ll keep working with it. You’ll build up the strength.” Sulu snapped the sword back onto the rack. 

Slim hung up his own sword, then glanced at Jim. “Dad, is it okay if I go take a shower ‘fore we do anything else?” 

Jim nodded dumbly. Sulu fell into step with Slim. As they headed out, Leo heard him saying, “Remember, with a longer sword most of the power comes from your shoulders, not your wrists…”

Nobody else moved. Spock broke the silence at last. “Doctor, may I ask how you could be so certain that Athena was unhurt?” 

“She wasn’t really crying,” Leo explained, feeling inexplicably tired. “Just making a lot of noise, because she knows when she _does_ cry, everyone comes running and she gets her way. Besides, I know exactly how hard I popped her, and it wasn’t enough to hurt. She was more surprised than anything.” He turned his gaze to Jim. “I realize it’s at least partly my fault—I wasn’t holding her as tightly as I could’ve, and I shouldn’t have sat so close to the ground with her. But still…” 

Jim licked his lips, but said nothing. Uhura stood up. “I’m going to go get Slim’s present before dinner,” she said in a rather subdued voice. “Spock, are you coming?” 

Spock nodded. He and Uhura left rather quickly. Scotty mumbled an excuse and followed. Leo wondered what they thought was going to happen. 

Chekov stood and looked up at Leo. “Would you like me to take Addie to ze mess hall?” he asked carefully. 

Leo hesitated for a moment, then handed Addie over. Sternly, he said, “Addie, stay with Uncle Pavel, understand?” 

Addie nodded. She actually smiled a little at Leo. He relaxed and smiled back. Chekov settled her on his hip and headed out. Cayne, suddenly realizing she was the only one there, blushed brick red and scurried away, leaving Jim and Leo alone. They stood in silence for a full minute.

Finally, Leo said quietly, “Jim?” 

“You hit her.” Jim’s voice was hushed, but Leo could hear the horror—and the fear—and the betrayal. 

“I spanked her,” Leo said, gently correcting him. “Jim…” 

He reached out for his husband, but Jim drew back, panic in his eyes. “You _hit_ her,” he repeated. 

Leo felt his heart crumble into a thousand pieces. He knew what was going on. Jim’s stepfather had abused him for years. And even though Leo knew where the line between discipline and abuse was—and hadn’t gone anywhere near it—Jim was so afraid of crossing it that he wouldn’t dare so much as raise his hand to a child. He saw what Leo had done as the first step on a road that would lead to the kind of suffering he’d gone through as a boy. 

“Jim,” he said softly. “Addie ran away from me, even though she’s been told already today that she’s not allowed to run away from adults. And she ran towards a _swordfight_. Slim and Sulu had masks on—those restrict their vision—and even if they’d had full range of vision, they were focusing on one another. She could have gotten seriously hurt. She needed to understand that what she did was wrong. I didn’t hurt her. I didn’t use unnecessary force. It was only enough to surprise her—to get her attention. It’s no different than me slapping the back of your hand to stop you from stealing something off my plate. That doesn’t really hurt, does it?” 

“Not…physically,” Jim said in a low tone of voice, dropping his gaze. Unconsciously, he wrapped his arms around his midsection.

Leo inhaled sharply. “Dammit, Jim, I’m not a mind-reader,” he said. “You’ve got to _tell_ me these things.” 

“I guess I was afraid to,” Jim admitted without looking up. “I…I know you’d never…I know you’re not Frank. But…you know, no matter how old I get, no matter how far away from it I get…it’s still there, Bones. I’ll stand up for anyone I care about—for you, for Slim and Addie, for the crew—but I won’t stand up for myself. I guess there’s still that part of me that thinks if I try to fight back, I’ll just get hurt worse.” 

Leo held out his arms. “C’mere,” he said quietly. 

Jim looked up, biting his lip. Slowly, he moved forward into Leo’s embrace. Leo folded him close to his chest, holding him gently, as though he was made of glass. “I won’t smack your hand anymore,” he said softly. “And I’ll try not to spank Addie again.” 

“I know you didn’t hurt her,” Jim whispered. “I know you’re not like that. And you’re right. What she did was dangerous. It just…startled me.” 

“I’m sorry, Jim.” Leo pressed a light kiss to Jim’s temple. “I’m sorry.” 

Jim took a deep breath and looked up. “Don’t be. I’m sorry for not saying something sooner.” He kissed Leo lightly. “Come on. Let’s go get something to eat before we watch whatever movie it is Slim wants to see tonight.” 

Leo kept an arm around Jim as they left the tertiary gym.

Dinner went well. Addie had evidently forgiven Leo for disciplining her; at any rate, she smiled and reached out for him when he reached the officer’s mess. Slim seemed genuinely pleased with the gifts he received from the senior command. Afterwards, the family went back to their quarters together. Leo sat in the center seat of the sofa, Jim on one side, Slim on the other, Addie on her brother’s lap and a big bowl of popcorn with enough butter to float an elephant on Leo’s. 

The movie Slim had picked was a little newer than Leo had expected and had nothing to do with sword fighting. Entitled _Labyrinth_ , it involved goblins and other strange creatures, as well as a somewhat whiny fifteen-year-old girl and her baby brother—well, half-brother. In fact, Leo thought, Sarah and Toby were almost the inverse of Slim and Addie—the dark-haired girl and the blond boy, the teenager and the toddler. Addie giggled and clapped along with the bouncy song the goblins sang while playing with baby Toby. Jim gasped and hid his face in Leo’s shoulder when Sarah and Hoggle were chased through the oubliette by the “Cleaners.” And Slim quietly whispered along with Jareth and Sarah’s speeches during the final confrontation. 

As the credits rolled, Jim sat upright, stretching. “I’m gonna put someone to B-E-D and then change into my pajamas, if you two don’t mind.” 

“That’s fine, Jim.” Leo kissed Jim’s temple. 

Jim picked Addie up, cuddling her close. “Come on, sweetheart. Say goodnight.” 

“Night-night,” Addie said, waving over Jim’s shoulder to Slim and Leo as Jim carried her to her room. 

Slim stood up. “I’m gonna go put on my pajamas, too, Pa.” 

Leo nodded. He watched as Slim headed to his room. A moment after the door shut behind him, Jim came out of Addie’s room. “She went to sleep almost as soon as she hit the pillow.” 

“Good.” Leo smiled, then caught Jim’s arm. “Jim…I really am sorry about earlier.” 

Jim looked up at Leo and smiled. “Don’t be. You were right about her not hating me…so I guess you’re right about this, too.” 

“Your vote of confidence is overwhelming.” Leo kissed Jim again. “Go get changed.” 

“Yes, dear.” Jim smirked and headed for their room. 

Leo shook his head. He was about to follow his husband when he hesitated and turned for Slim’s room instead.

“Your dad said you were starting a new book tonight, so I thought—” he began as he opened the door, then stopped. 

Slim had whirled around, pressing against the wall and clutching his t-shirt to his chest, eyes wide, as soon as he became aware of Leo’s presence. But it was too late. Leo had already seen his stepson’s bare back. 

“Slim?” he said softly, coming into the room. 

“Sorry,” Slim said quickly. “You just—startled me, that’s all.” 

Leo stopped on the other side of the bed, sensing that the boy needed him to not get so close. “Slim,” he said again. “Turn around.” 

“It’s nothing,” Slim mumbled, dropping his gaze. 

“Slim, _please_. Just let me see.” 

Slowly, reluctantly, Slim moved away from the wall and sat on the edge of his bed, his head bowed, his back towards Leo. The sight was like a physical punch to Leo’s stomach. He sank onto the other side of the bed, staring.

Slim’s back was crisscrossed with scars. The perfectly straight silver-white marks were flat against his skin, but it was obvious where they had come from. At some point in his life, he’d been beaten, pretty badly. But worst of all, to Leo’s mind, was a round scar on the boy’s shoulder. 

“Cigarette?” he asked gently, touching the mark. 

Slim flinched, but nodded. “Mr. Lawson was a chain smoker. He was smokin’ while I was tryin’ to do the dishes an’ I…I coughed. I couldn’t help it. He yelled at me for makin’ a fuss an’…” He swallowed hard, twisting the t-shirt in his hands. 

“Slim, why didn’t you say anything before?” Leo was horrified. 

Slim pulled the t-shirt over his head, quickly, without looking up. “Didn’t see the point. They’d all long healed when I met y’all.” 

“Physically, maybe.” Leo got up and moved around the bed to sit next to Slim, putting an arm around his shoulders. “But we still need to _know_ about them, son. They’re a part of your past—a part of you.” 

“But y’all can’t do anything ‘bout it,” Slim said, looking up at last, his blue eyes haunted in the way Jim’s were when he thought about Frank or Tarsus IV.

“Can’t do anything about what?” 

Both Leo and Slim jumped at the voice from behind them. They turned to find Jim, wearing an outfit almost identical to Slim’s, standing in the doorway with a PADD in one hand. He looked puzzled, which obviously meant he hadn’t been standing there long. 

“N—” Slim began, then stopped, looking up at Leo. Leo said nothing, just gave his stepson an encouraging gaze. Slim bit his lip, then stood, lifted his t-shirt over his head again and turned around. 

Jim let out a ragged gasp, the color draining from his face. The PADD slipped from his fingers, but he ignored it. “Slim…” he whispered. 

Slim pulled the shirt back down, keeping his head bowed. Leo felt terrible—this was probably the worst way for the boy to spend his birthday. But at the same time, this was really something he and Jim should have known a year and a half ago. Quietly, he said, “Was it just once?” 

Slim bit his lip, then shook his head. “No. Most of ‘em are from Mr. Dubrowski, but they ain’t from all at once.” He looked up quickly. “And—I promise they ain’t all my fault. I covered for the other kids a few times…”

“Slim, _none_ of them are your fault,” Leo said firmly, standing up and pulling him into a hug. “There’s a line between punishment and abuse, and that? That was _way_ over the line.” 

Slim hugged Leo back, folding against him in the same way Jim did. Leo wondered if his body was just naturally meant to have a Kirk pressed into it, because even though Slim was still smaller than his father, he fit perfectly, as if he was a missing piece. Jim nodded. “He’s right, Slim. It’s a lesson I’m still learning. Obviously,” he added, half to himself. “But you didn’t deserve any of those scars. Nobody does.” 

“How can you be so sure?” Slim mumbled, although he didn’t pull away from Leo, which was definitely a positive sign. 

Wordlessly, Jim shucked his own shirt and turned. Slim’s gasp was almost identical to Jim’s as he saw the far more extensive network of scars on his father’s back. Leo felt a catch in his throat, too. After more than fifteen years of knowing and loving Jim, he knew those scars, knew where and when he had received each and every one of them, but they still hurt him every time he looked at them. It still weighed on him. 

“They’re not all from abuse.” Jim’s voice was incredibly quiet. “Missions don’t always go smoothly, and there was a survival course at the Academy that I almost didn’t come back from. But most of the older ones are.” 

“How come you didn’t tell anyone?” Slim asked hesitantly. 

Jim shrugged. “Same reason you didn’t, I suppose. I thought I deserved it. Wasn’t until I met Bones, actually, that I started thinking otherwise. And like I said, it’s a lesson I’m still learning.” He pulled the shirt back on and stooped to pick up the PADD before turning back around. “You never deserved to be hit.”

Slim bit his lip. “I’m sorry.” 

“No reason you should be.” Leo looked down at his stepson. “Nothing that happened to you is your fault.” Glancing up at Jim, he added, “It’s the fault of the people who abused you. And _only_ the fault of the people who abused you.” 

Slim took a deep breath, then pulled away slightly from Leo and looked at the PADD in Jim’s hand. “What book is that?” 

Leo let go of Slim, although he kept an arm around the boy’s shoulders. Jim managed a smile. “It’s called _Pup Tents of the Sasquatch Gods._ I have no idea what it’s about, but the title is intriguing.” 

Slim smiled back, looking up at Leo. “You wanna read it with us, Pa?” 

Leo smiled as well, touched. “I’d be delighted.”


	39. The Mark of Gideon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is based on the episode of the same name by George F. Slavin and Stanley Adams (yes, the guy who played Cyrano Jones in "The Trouble With Tribbles").
> 
> There were a LOT of plot holes in this episode. I've done my best to repair as many of them as I could, or at least come up with a plausible explanation for them...
> 
> And yes, Slim quotes "Labyrinth."

Slim stuck the end of his stylus absently in mouth as he studied the PADD in front of him. His talents lay more with mechanical engineering than with aerospace engineering, so he understood why Spock had set him to doing problems in astrophysics. But that didn’t make it any less frustrating. His dad had promised to help him out if he got stuck, but he was on shift right now, and Slim was determined to do it without help anyway. 

_The star Sol has an apparent magnitude m=-26.74,_ he read for the third time. _The power of Sol (in electromagnetic radiation) is—_

The intercom unit in the living room beeped, startling him and making him almost swallow the stylus. “Bridge to captain’s quarters.” 

Slim wiped the stylus on his shirt and stuck it behind his ear before pressing the correct button. “Slim here.” 

“We’re on approach to Gideon,” Jim said. “Report to the bridge, please.” 

“On my way.” 

“Good boy. Kirk out.” There was a faint _click_ as Jim cut the connection.

Slim saved his work, turned off the PADD, and headed towards the bridge. As he was stepping into the lift, he heard a voice behind him. “Hold it!” 

Slim turned and smiled, holding the lift door open as Leo strode towards him. “Going up?” he asked. 

“Got a feeling your father is about to need a sarcastic comment or two,” Leo said, deadpan, as he joined Slim in the lift. 

“Doesn’t he always? Bridge.” Slim took hold of the handle and felt the lift respond. 

“What were you working on?” Leo asked as they ascended. 

“Astrophysics. It’s…harder than I thought it would be,” Slim admitted. 

Leo laughed. “Your dad said the same thing when he took it at the Academy, and he aced it. You’ll get the hang of it.” He studied Slim. “You don’t like admitting that you need help, do you?” 

“Some of my scars are from askin’ for help,” Slim said softly. “Guess it sticks with you.” 

Leo’s eyes darkened briefly, but all he said was, “Guess it does.”

Jim was standing next to his chair when they arrived. He smirked when he saw Leo. “Med Bay too boring, Bones?” 

“You’re still on the ship, Jim,” Leo said dryly. “I don’t have anything to do yet.” 

Jim laughed. “Well, at least that’ll save me having to comm you when I’m ready to beam down.” 

“I’m going with you, then?” 

“It’s a diplomatic mission. Of course you’re going with me—you and Spock,” Jim said, instantly serious. “I need as much balancing as I can get.” Turning to Slim, he added, “I don’t necessarily think we need you on the Engineering panel, Slim, but I’d like you to stay up here anyway.” 

“Yes, sir,” Slim answered. As much as he disliked feeling useless, he knew everyone on the bridge would feel that way, unless something went wrong again. After all, they would be in a parking orbit around the planet. Everyone would just be making sure nothing changed. 

Leo nodded. “Whether you needed me for diplomacy or not, I’d be there. They’ll probably insist on feeding you and you’ll have an allergic reaction to something, and besides, you tend to pick up all the weird diseases the Federation hasn’t figured out how to cure yet.” 

“That, at least, will not be an issue, Doctor,” Spock said, raising an eyebrow. “The physio-cultural reports from the planet say that it is a germ-free atmosphere—a virtual paradise.” 

Leo’s eyebrow matched Spock’s. “Really.” It was not a question. “And you don’t think that maybe, just maybe, the Gideons are sugar-coating things, just a little bit?”

Slim suppressed a smile. Even on the relatively short time he’d been on the _Enterprise,_ he’d observed that, while Spock and Leo argued more or less constantly, there was no real malice to it. Indeed, both seemed to enjoy the verbal sparring. “Could I see the report?” 

“Certainly,” Spock said. “I intended to forward it to you earlier, but a combination of random external factors conspired to prevent my doing so.” 

“What he means is that he forgot,” Leo interjected. 

“My memory is faultless,” Spock said stiffly as he handed Slim a PADD. “I do not _forget_ things.” 

“You got too busy and you forgot.” 

“I most certainly did not. I simply did not have the time to forward the reports to the PADD Thomas uses for his sociopolitical assignments.” 

“It would have taken you all of ten seconds—” 

Slim tuned out the bickering and activated the PADD. Pushing his hair, which was getting a little long, out of his eyes, he encountered the stylus he’d stuck behind his ear and forgotten about, then used it to scroll through the report. Sure enough, the report said that their atmosphere was such that it was completely free of disease, and that the average lifespan of the residents had increased dramatically as a result. And there, sure enough, were the words _virtual paradise_. Slim kept reading, about the system of government, the love of life that would certainly make Gideon an asset to the Federation, which also professed that same love… 

“—insist you didn’t forget when you clearly—” 

“I fail to see why you take such delight in attempting to prove me—” 

“Why didn’t they list the population?”

Three heads turned to look at Slim in surprise as his question effectively cut off the argument. Jim frowned slightly. “What?” 

Slim indicated the PADD with his stylus. “The report mentions that the atmosphere is germ-free. It mentions that the people can live for hundreds of standard years, and it mentions that they’re ‘great lovers of life,’ which I reckon means they’re peaceful. But it never once says how _many_ people are down there.” 

“Maybe they haven’t taken a census in a while,” Leo suggested, his own forehead puckered in a frown. 

“Even so, wouldn’t they have made an educated guess, at least?” Slim spread out his hands. “I might not have seen the exact census figures for Nicoma, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t hazard a guess to within a few hundred people just from seeing who passes the Roxie on a Saturday afternoon. A government official ought to be able to take a better estimate ‘n that.” 

“He does have a point,” Spock said, raising his eyebrows. 

“Let me see that.” Jim took the PADD from Slim and scrolled through it quickly, his frown deepening. “He’s right, there’s no mention of population at all. That’s definitely something that should have been in this report…how did nobody catch that?” 

“It is not necessary to know precisely how many new people will be joining the Federation,” Spock said. 

“Population, no. Population _density_ , yes. That’s not in here, either.” Jim glanced up at the viewscreen. 

Slim, Leo, and Spock looked up, too, as the planet’s curve appeared before them. Gideon was a fairly typical Class M planet, similar to Earth, except that from this angle it seemed that more of the planet was covered in land. Only twenty-nine percent of the Earth’s surface was land; Slim estimated that Gideon’s land mass was at least double that. Since the report indicated that the Gideons, like most humanoids, were land-dwellers, that meant that they could either support a bigger population than Earth or had more room to spread out, or both. The only oddity was that the land masses were brown, rather than green or gold. 

“‘Paradise,’” Slim murmured. “I wonder what their basis for comparison is.”

Leo threw Slim a half-smile. Obviously, he caught the reference. Before he could say anything, however, Sulu looked over his shoulder. “Captain, we’re coming into scanner range. Standard planetary sweep?” 

Jim shook his head. “No, Mr. Sulu. The Gideons have stipulated that no surveillance scans be carried out.” 

Spock’s eyebrows shot up. “Most irregular, Captain.” 

“I agree. But this is a touchy situation. Admiral Hackett told me that the Federation has been trying to get Gideon to join since Scotty’s Academy days. We’ve been told to acquiesce.” Jim rubbed the back of his neck. “No scanning. Bring us into standard orbit.” 

“Aye, sir.” Sulu and Chekov spoke in unison. 

Uhura turned around. “Captain, incoming transmission from the Gideon High Council.” 

“Put it through, Uhura.” Jim moved back towards the chair but didn’t sit in it. 

A moment later, a man appeared on the screen, smiling benignly. “Captain Kirk, it is an honor to have you visit our humble planet.” 

Jim inclined his head. “Prime Minister Hodin, the honor is ours.” 

“I have the coordinates for your transporter,” the man called Hodin said. “You may beam the landing party to 875.020.079. It is within our Council Chamber—there should be no difficulties whatsoever.” 

“Thank you, Prime Minister,” Jim said. He indicated Leo and Spock. “This is my first officer, Mr. Spock, and my Chief Medical Officer, Dr. McCoy. The three of us will beam down shortly.” 

“Ah—” Hodin held up a finger. “I am sorry to disagree with you, Captain, but I must insist that you beam down alone.” 

Jim stiffened. “I beg your pardon?” 

“We are very careful to avoid contamination from other races, Captain Kirk,” Hodin said smoothly. “In order to minimize the risk, the Council has agreed that only you are to beam down.” 

“This is highly irregular, Prime Minister…” 

“I realize that, Captain, but the Council is firm.” Hodin looked apologetic. “I may be able to stretch the point for one additional party, and unfortunately, it could be neither of the officers you have previously named.” His eyes drifted to Slim, who tensed under the scrutiny. 

Jim put a hand on Slim’s shoulder and said, “I think that, in this instance, irregularities must be treated as…regularities. I will beam down alone.” 

“Are you certain, Captain Kirk? You could bring that young crewman with you, if you like.” 

“Sl—Thomas is not a crewman…yet. He is my son, and he’s only fifteen.” Jim’s jaw tensed slightly. “I apologize, Prime Minister, for my…momentary flash of bad manners. I will of course accede to your request that I come alone.” 

Hodin relaxed. “Thank you for your consideration, Captain. The Council looks forward to seeing you momentarily.”

The instant his image vanished from the screen, Leo rounded on Jim. “Jim, you’re not seriously going down there alone?” 

“I don’t really have a choice, Bones.” Jim ran a hand through his hair. “Mr. Spock, you have the conn.” He turned to Slim. “Sorry, son, but even if I could have stretched regulations enough to take you down there…” 

Slim nodded. “I understand, Dad. No offense, but that guy gives me the heebie-jeebies.” 

Jim managed a smile. “I’ll see you all when I get back. This shouldn’t take long.” He clapped Slim on the shoulder, then turned to Leo, his smile fading. “Dr. McCoy, would you mind accompanying me to the transporter room?” 

“Not at all,” Leo said softly. He laced his fingers through Jim’s as they headed off the bridge. 

Spock moved quietly over to the captain’s chair and sat down. Slim stood to the side and slightly behind the chair, his hands clasped behind his back. He really wasn’t comfortable with any of this. The Gideons were being altogether too secretive. What did they have to hide? 

“Transporter Room reports Captain Kirk is away, sir,” Uhura said. 

Spock nodded. Slim watched the curve of the planet below them and wondered, idly, where those coordinates led. A few moments later, the lift doors slid open. Slim turned to see both Leo and Scotty come onto the bridge, talking quietly. 

“Everything all right, Pa?” Slim asked. 

Spock looked over his shoulder as Leo nodded. “Like your dad said, this shouldn’t take long. I bet any minute now we’ll get a message from him requesting a beam back up and we’ll be away before shift ends.” 

“You seem delightfully optimistic, Doctor,” Spock said evenly. 

Leo threw up his hands. “First Scotty, then Jim, now you. If anyone else calls me an optimist on this mission, I’m going to start walking around with a sign reading ‘The End Is Nigh.’”

Sulu snorted. And then the viewscreen jumped to life, showing Hodin at the center of a row of admittedly healthy-looking men, all of whom had annoyed expressions on their faces. 

“Captain Kirk, the council is still awaiting your arrival,” Hodin said. He rose to his feet. “This discourtesy is unacceptable! Doesn’t your Federation recognize that first impressions are important?” 

Spock blinked. “Captain Kirk was transported down minutes ago, sir.” 

“That’s impossible.” 

“I transported him myself,” Leo said through lips pressed in a thin line, his face white. 

“He never arrived here,” Hodin said. 

Slim felt his stomach turn to ice. He looked anxiously at Scotty and Leo, then at Spock, whose face gave away nothing as he turned back to the screen. “Please check your coordinates, Prime Minister.” 

Hodin looked down at something in his hand. “875; 020; 079.” 

Spock looked up at Leo, who nodded. 

“Something’s gone wrong with ze transporter,” Chekov said, looking over his shoulder, his eyes wide with fear. “Ze keptin is lost somewhere between ze ship and Gideon…” 

Sulu reached over and gripped Chekov’s hand tightly. Spock gave no sign that he had heard the navigator or that he acknowledged the sentiments. Hodin spoke insistently. “We provided you the exact coordinates for this room, Mr. Spock. And that is all we were required to do. If he is not here, it is your responsibility and that of your staff.” 

“I do not deny that, Your Excellency,” Spock said. “I was not attempting to blame your personnel.” 

“I am glad to hear that,” Hodin said. Was it Slim’s imagination, or was there a hint of smugness in his voice? “In fact, we are entering it into the records of this…most unfortunate incident.” 

“Your Excellency, with machinery as delicate as ours, there is always a margin for error,” Spock said sharply. Slim was surprised; it took a lot to get Spock emotional, but Hodin had apparently tipped him over the edge. “Captain Kirk may simply have materialized on a different part of Gideon.” 

“Let us hope it was on dry land,” Hodin said.

Slim swallowed back his own hot words; Hodin reminded him painfully of Eagan Newton, the son of one of the foster families he’d stayed with. Eagan said things deliberately meant to be hurtful and hateful, but when you actually listened to his words, there was nothing you could actually say was hurtful. Hodin was deliberately pushing Spock’s buttons, but in the nicest, most diplomatic way possible. 

Spock got himself visibly under control. “Your Excellency, to cut directly to the point, I would like permission to beam down to the planet and search for Captain Kirk.” 

“Permission denied.” Hodin sat back in his chair. “Your Federation is well aware of our tradition of isolation from contamination with all other violent planets.” 

“Interplanetary wars are a thing of the past within the Federation, Prime Minister. If you will grant permission to—” 

“We shall institute a search immediately,” Hodin interrupted smoothly. “Meanwhile, I suggest that you look over your equipment.” 

Slim and Scotty both bristled at the implied criticism. Spock spoke in a carefully controlled voice. “We have already done so, Your Excellency. With regards to permission to land—” 

But the Council Chamber vanished from the screen without another word, without so much as an acknowledgement of departure or any other basic communications protocol.

“We must acknowledge once and for all that the purpose of diplomacy is to prolong a crisis,” Spock said bitterly, very deliberately switching off the communications circuit. 

“What are we waiting for, then, Spock?” Leo urged. _“We’re_ not diplomats.” 

“We _are_ representatives of the Federation, Doctor.” 

“That doesn’t mean we have to sit here and be lectured like disobedient schoolchildren by some damned-fool… _diplomat.”_ Leo said the word like it was the worst insult he could come up with, which at the time it probably was. 

“Unfortunately, at this time, diplomacy is our only resource,” Spock said. “The Gideons are not merely refusing to allow us to scan them; they are shielded to prevent it. We must therefore rely on the coordinates we are given. We are bound by the Federation’s agreements with Gideon.” He turned to Uhura. “Lieutenant Uhura, contact Starfleet command immediately. Advise them of this situation and request permission to use every means at our disposal to resolve it.” 

“D’ye think he’s down there, Spock?” Scotty asked quietly. “Or are there other possibilities?” 

“They are endless, Mr. Scott.” 

“So what are we going to do?” Leo sounded desperate. Slim moved closer and took his stepfather’s hand. Leo gripped it as tightly as though he were trying to save himself from drowning. 

Spock moved over to the console. “Institute three hundred and sixty-degree turn, Mr. Sulu—one degree at a time.” 

Sulu looked up in dismay. “You’re going to scan space for him? But that could take years, sir!” 

“Then I suggest you begin quickly,” Spock said grimly. 

“Yes, sir,” Sulu said quietly, turning back to his console.

Slim bit his lip until he could taste the coppery tang of blood. He watched intently as the screen shifted and the sensors blinked, wishing he’d gotten further on his astrophysics studies. The lights and numbers made absolutely no sense to him. He couldn’t tell how far away the stars were, and that was the most basic science of all. Part of him wanted to ask Spock to give him something, _anything,_ to do, but he also didn’t want to interrupt his concentration. As the minutes ticked by, he called on every ounce of practice he had to keep from fidgeting. 

“Go back two degrees,” Spock instructed suddenly. “There was a pulse variation.” 

Sulu obediently rotated the ship. Spock leaned forward. “There. There is something. Give me a reading.” 

Sulu flicked several switches, then shook his head. “I can’t make it out, sir.” 

“Get me chemical analysis and molecular structure.” 

Sulu pointed to the indicators. Slim held his breath and felt Leo tense next to him; Chekov, Scotty, and Uhura all watched Spock anxiously. After a moment, however, he shook his head. “Space debris.” 

Sulu sighed, dropping his head briefly, and resumed scanning. Leo sagged as though all the air had been let out of him. Scotty caught him under the arm and held him up. “Easy, lad,” he said softly. “If he’s out there, we’ll find him.” 

“I know,” Leo said, even more softly. “If he’s out there.” 

Spock turned to Uhura. “Lieutenant Uhura, any response from Starfleet concerning our request?” 

“Not yet, sir.” 

“Did you impress upon them that the captain’s life may be at stake?” Spock urged. 

“Of course I did,” Uhura said, somewhere between indignant and frustrated. “But they insisted that the matter had to be referred through the Federation.” 

“What department?” 

“Bureau of Planetary Treaties.” 

“Even though we don’t have a treaty with Gideon yet?” Slim frowned. 

Spock glanced briefly at Slim before telling Uhura, “Contact them directly.” 

“I already have, sir.” Uhura definitely sounded frustrated now. “But they insist on us going through proper Starfleet channels.” 

Sulu exploded, spinning around angrily in his chair. “With the captain missing, that’s the best they could come up with?” 

“A bureaucrat is the opposite of a diplomat,” Spock said bitterly, “but they manage to achieve the same results.”

Slim looked at the chronometer. It had been nearly forty-five minutes since Jim had—theoretically—beamed down to Gideon. If he was out in space somewhere, Slim had to accept that he was most likely dead. He _had_ to be on Gideon. There weren’t any other Class M planets within transporter range. Judging by the tenseness in Spock’s shoulders and the way Leo kept clenching and unclenching his jaw, they were thinking the same thing. 

Suddenly, Uhura’s voice broke into the tense silence. “Mr. Spock, Gideon is making contact.” 

“Great,” Leo snarled. “More doubletalk.” 

“Since we must learn the language of diplomacy in order to deal with our present problem, Doctor, perhaps it would be best if we hear what they have to say first,” Spock said softly, gesturing for Uhura to put it through. “Then we can judge the conversation on its merits.” 

The face of Prime Minister Hodin, flanked by four men who made Spock look expressive and emotional, filled the screen. Spock squared his shoulders. “Your Excellency,” he began in a courteous tone of voice, “we are pleased to learn that you have news about the captain.” 

“Good news!” Hodin said with a smile. Slim’s heart leapt. “Yes, good news indeed! Your captain is definitely _not_ on Gideon. We have made a thorough search, just as you requested. I am sure you will be relieved to know that you can now focus on other possibilities, and forget about Gideon.” 

Spock sat up straighter. “But that is not what we requested at all!” 

“It is in our records, Mr. Spock,” Hodin said. Astonishment overlay the smile. “You requested a thorough search of Gideon. We have used every means at our disposal to accommodate you.” 

“Your record on the subject cannot be precise, Excellency.” 

Slim winced internally as Hodin gestured for an assistant to open an old-fashioned paper book—evidently Gideon had not yet progressed to flimsi and PADDs. His smile vanished as he put a finger on the top of the page. “You do not, I hope, intend to make a conference the subject of a debate between the Federation and Gideon.” 

“It is not my intention to open a debate at all, Your Excellency,” Spock replied. “It is unnecessary for you to check your records. I am merely suggesting that the language of our request may not have been interpreted exactly as intended.” 

Hodin stood, all trace of jollity gone from his face. “Mr. Spock, you are an officer of a starship. In your profession, you make use of many instruments, tools and…weapons…to achieve your goals, is that not so?” 

“That is correct, Your Excellency,” Spock answered. 

“However,” Hodin continued coolly, “the only tool diplomacy has is language. It is of the utmost importance that it be crystal clear.” 

Spock’s very posture screamed his impatience, but he kept his tone in check, for which Slim was thankful. “I am a scientist, Prime Minister,” he said. “Clarity of formulation is essential to my function, also.” 

“I am glad to hear it,” Hodin said, in a tone that implied the opposite. “Perhaps, then, you will make a greater effort to choose your words precisely.”

The word “precisely” was like a spark to powder. Slim could see the members of senior command, each of whom had at one point or another teased Spock for his overly precise languages, staring at Hodin in sheer choleric rage. This man, Slim thought, was no Robert Fox; he was a politician, not a diplomat. 

“Are you going to let him get away with that, Spock?” Leo hissed through clenched teeth. 

Scotty’s hands were balled into fists. “No matter what ye say, he’ll find a way to twist it,” he muttered. 

“How can you _stand_ it?” Uhura agreed. 

Leo stepped forward and glared directly at Hodin. “Our captain may be down there somewhere. We don’t care _how_ thoroughly you’ve checked that planet. We won’t rest until we’ve gone over every square inch of it ourselves!” 

“Zis is no time to stick to rules and regulations!” Chekov said a little too loudly, tears of helplessness and rage in his eyes. “Zis is an emergency!” 

Sulu put a hand on Chekov’s shoulder to restrain him, but Leo nodded sharply. “We can’t leave without seeing that absolutely everything has been done. Surely you understand that.” 

“Mr. Spock. Mr. Spock, are you still there?” Hodin said with a smile. “There was considerable interference with your transmission; could you repeat your transmission more clearly?” 

Leo was speechless with rage. Spock’s fingers tightened on the arms of the chair, but he spoke neutrally. “I apologize for the…interference, Excellency. Permit me to summarize the transmission. I wish to beam down to your planet and search for the captain.” 

Hodin and his ministers looked at one another. All five of them broke out into rather ugly and derisive laughter. Slim frowned, wondering what Spock had said.

“Forgive me, Mr. Spock,” Hodin said at last. “No criticism of your equipment is intended. However, it has obviously sent your captain onto some mysterious journey. One that we, of course, hope he will return from safely.” He gave a formal bow. “It may, however, create for us a grave incident with your Federation. And now you propose to risk another officer to this? Are you mad?” 

Scotty bristled. “I’ll nae stand for this!” he shouted. “The equipment was in perfect condition. I personally guarantee it. Beam me down there, Mr. Spock, and I’ll be glad tae explain that to these…these… _gentlemen.”_ He spoke the word with almost as much scorn as Leo had used earlier for _diplomat._

“I did not quite catch that, Mr. Spock,” Hodin said. “Would you repeat the transmission, please?” 

_He’s enjoying this,_ Slim thought suddenly, staring at the man’s eyes. For whatever reason, Hodin was getting some kind of malicious pleasure out of baiting the crew. Was he seriously hoping they would walk away—that the negotiations would fail? What reason could he have for jeopardizing Gideon’s entrance into the Federation? 

“Our chief engineer was saying that the malfunction that existed has been repaired,” Spock said, keeping one stern eye on Scotty. “We wish to test it. I would like to beam down to your council chamber.” 

“You are a very persistent fellow, Mr. Spock.” Hodin turned to confer with his staff. Slim held his breath and crossed his fingers behind his back. 

At last, Hodin looked up. “Very well, Mr. Spock. You shall test the skills of your…er…very excitable repairman.” 

Slim realized he wasn’t the only one who had been holding his breath. A sort of whistling sound filled the bridge as everyone exhaled in relief. Scotty leaned over to Slim and said through gritted teeth, “He doesn’a ken what ‘excitable’ is.” 

Slim managed a smile and whispered back, “But he’s letting Uncle Spock go…wait,” he added, the smile fading as something occurred to him. 

“There is one additional proviso,” Hodin continued. 

“I thought there might be,” Leo said behind a raised hand. 

“We cannot risk further incident. You will therefore transport a member of my staff to your ship. Let us see if it works first.” 

“Thank you, Your Excellency. Your proposal is accepted.” Spock turned to Scotty. “Transporter room, Mr. Scott. On the double.” 

“Aye, sir, at once.” Scotty turned and strode stiffly out of the room. Slim knew him well enough to know that his pride was wounded.

On the screen, Hodin was talking to one of his assistants. He looked up. “My assistant will provide you with the appropriate—what is the word?” 

“Co-or-di-nates,” Spock said, as slowly and distinctly as if he was attempting to teach the word to Addie. 

“Thank you. You may proceed.” 

Slim watched as the assistant took up his stance in a blank spot on the floor. He took a deep breath and said, “875.” 

“875,” Spock said into the intercom. 

“020.” 

“020.” 

“709.” 

Slim started at those last coordinates as Spock repeated, “709?” 

The assistant confirmed the numbers. Spock hesitated, then said to the intercom, “709, Mr. Scott. Energize.” 

There was a momentary pause before Scotty spoke smugly. “The young man from Gideon is aboard, Mr. Spock.” 

“Thank you, Mr. Scott.” Spock turned back to the screen. “Your assistant has arrived safely, Your Excellency. I would now like to beam down myself and, if possible, a few technicians to follow through on—” 

“Now, now, now, Mr. Spock, not so fast,” Hodin interrupted smoothly. “We agreed to allow one representative on our soil, your captain alone. Now you demand ‘a few technicians’ be allowed. Will then an army of these ‘technicians’ be sent down to find these?” 

“I demand one thing only, Your Excellency,” Spock said evenly. “That I be allowed to beam down to your planet to search for our captain.” 

“Your request will be brought up before the next meeting of the Council, Mr. Spock,” Hodin said, a faint note of triumph in his voice. “Er—do not expect a favorable response.” The screen went black.

“Prime Minister Hodin!” Spock hit the switch on the chair several times, but the screen remained blank. With a disgusted look, he pressed another button. “Mr. Scott, send the—gentleman—from Gideon home.” 

Leo looked shaken to his core. “What the hell just happened?” he demanded. 

“Just what you said, Pa,” Slim said quietly. “Doubletalk.” 

Sulu and Chekov both turned to look at Slim. Spock said tightly, “Please explain, Thomas.” 

“Remember what he said about precise language? He never actually promised he’d let you beam down there. What he _said_ was he was willing to ‘test the skills of your very excitable repairman.’” Slim rubbed the back of his neck. “And he did that. You tested the transporters, using a man from Gideon, and found that they’re working correctly. So he may not have granted your request, but he _did_ fulfill his promise.” 

Spock turned to Uhura. “Lieutenant Uhura, contact Starfleet Command. Demand an instant response to our request to land on Gideon.” 

The tension that had left the room returned as Uhura began attempting to get someone’s attention. Slim bit the inside of his cheek absently as he studied the viewscreen. He was now more than ever confirmed in his initial speculations. Hodin was a horrible diplomat, but one hell of a politician—out for only what he could get for himself, and his planet, and not caring whose lives he ruined in the process. 

Finally, Uhura turned. “I’ve got someone, sir, but…” 

“Put it through, Lieutenant Uhura,” Spock said firmly. 

Uhura swallowed. “Yes, sir.” 

A moment later, the Starfleet symbol appeared on the viewscreen, followed by the face of a man in an admiral’s uniform, looking at something on his desk. Chekov and Sulu both inhaled sharply, but said nothing. Slim didn’t know what was going on. Then the man looked up, and he took an involuntary step backwards. The admiral’s eyes were yellow like a cat’s and absolutely without emotion. They made Spock look like a court jester. They also instilled Slim with a sense of terror he couldn’t quite understand. Scotty gave a little hiss, tensing visibly, but said nothing. 

“Mr. Spock,” the man said calmly. 

“Admiral,” Spock said, his voice equally calm. He had risen from the chair and stood at attention. 

“I have just finished reading the report on the Gideon situation so far. What is it, exactly, you would like from me?” 

Leo gripped Slim’s shoulders from behind as Spock said, “As I am certain Lieutenant Uhura said, Admiral, I request permission to beam down to Gideon in search of the captain. It seems logical to presume that his life is in danger. The High Council of Gideon has frustrated every attempt to rescue him.” 

“I sympathize deeply,” the admiral said in an almost robotic voice. Slim suddenly wondered what Hodin would make of this man. “But Starfleet cannot override Federation directives in this case.” 

Spock kept his face blank. “The crew will not understand, Admiral.” 

“Damned straight,” Leo muttered. 

“Has your crew suddenly become interested in provoking a war, Mr. Spock? That is hardly Starfleet’s mission.” The admiral raised an eyebrow, just a fraction. “Then again, given the ship’s past, such a turn of events would hardly be surprising.” 

Sulu made a small noise in the back of his throat, but Spock ignored both him and the comment. “We wish only to save the life of our captain.” 

“You have not proven your case to the Federation—or to Starfleet, for that matter,” the admiral said. 

“Ye rat bastard, I should ha’ known ye’d nae care at all—” Scotty growled. 

Slim nudged Scotty to get him to be quiet. Spock’s jaw was tensing; any minute he was going to burst out with a very un-Vulcan display of emotion. Suddenly, Slim thought of a way to justify his presence on the bridge.

“Mr. Spock, if I may?” he said quietly, stepping up next to Spock. 

The admiral stared at Slim. “Who is this?” he demanded. 

Spock hesitated, looking at Slim, then moved aside slightly, nodding for him to go ahead. Slim squared his shoulders, clasping his hands behind his back and calling on everything he had to keep his knees from shaking and his voice from cracking. “Admiral, my name is Thomas James Kirk. Captain Kirk is my father. I believe I can demonstrate to Starfleet’s satisfaction that his life is in danger.” 

The admiral blinked—and then a slow smile spread across his face. It made Slim’s flesh crawl, but through long practice he kept himself calm. “All right, Mr. Kirk. What do you have to say?” 

“Sir, I have been present from the first interaction with Prime Minister Hodin,” Slim said, slowly and carefully to keep his accent from slipping out. “I have suspected from the first exchange of courtesies that Captain Kirk has been taken prisoner. I now know precisely where he is being held—assuming he is still in the same place to which he was beamed down.” 

“They would not dare harm him within the Council Chamber, Mr. Kirk.” 

“That is not where he is, Admiral. He is being held somewhere very near there, but not within the chamber itself.” 

“Well!” The admiral’s smile had faded. “You have now answered _what_ and _where_. I await your explanation of _why.”_

“Since the planet is shielded from the _Enterprise’s_ sensors, by Federation agreement, Admiral, it is impossible for us to determine that without on-the-spot investigation,” Slim said. 

“Mmm.” The admiral tilted his head to one side, his eyes fixed on Slim. “What evidence do you have that the captain’s life is in danger?” 

Slim fought the urge to lick his lips. This was going to be the tricky part. “Prime Minister Hodin’s demeanor, and his choice of words, leads me to believe that he is deliberately obfuscating any attempts to locate the captain. Logically, if he intended no harm, he would have told us that he is holding the captain prisoner and why. That he has not indicates some nefarious purpose.” 

“I see,” the admiral said slowly. He turned to Spock. “Tell me, Mr. Spock, do you concur with what this child has to say?” 

Spock stiffened. “Admiral, the reason Thomas was the one to speak, and not I, is that Thomas has more skill in diplomatic phrasing than I do. His statements are correct in all respects.” 

“And yet they are insufficient to constitute proof. Permission denied.” 

Spock’s fists clenched. He took a deep breath. “I wish to go on record as stating that this decision is totally arbitrary.” 

“So noted.” The screen went black.

“That bastard,” Scotty snarled. “’Tis nae an arbitrary decision, Mr. Spock—‘tis a personal one.” 

“I am aware, Mr. Scott, but I could hardly put that on record,” Spock said. He looked down at Slim. “So you noticed that as well, Thomas?” 

Slim nodded, knowing what Spock was talking about. Leo frowned. “What were you talking about? Didn’t we beam Jim into the Council Chamber?” 

“No,” Slim said, shaking his head. “The numbers they gave us at first—the ones you put in the transporter, the ones Hodin confirmed—were 875.020.079. Whereas when we beamed up Hodin’s assistant, the last set of coordinates were 709. He deliberately switched the numbers to send Dad somewhere else.” 

There was a brief hubbub. Spock waved his hands. “A quick check of the log will be evidence enough—I hope.” He called up the ship’s memory, and everyone on the bridge stared at the numbers. Slim let out a sigh of relief—his own memory had not been faulty. 

“What now, Mr. Spock?” Leo asked. “Do we just sit on our hands and wait for Jim to magically reappear?” 

Slim heard the strain in his stepfather’s voice and knew, from Spock’s expression, that he did, too. “For the first time in my life,” he said, “I shall be forced to violate a direct order from Starfleet.” 

“Hear, hear!” Scotty shouted. “That’s the right decision, Mr. Spock. I’m with ye!” 

“One hundred percent!” Chekov declared. Sulu nodded eagerly. 

“I shall beam down at once,” Spock said, his voice resolutely calm. “Mr. Scott, the conn is yours.” 

“Aye, but ye’ll be needin’ me down there!” Scotty protested. 

“The captain will need all of you at your posts,” Spock said pointedly. Sulu and Chekov both went back to their stations; Scotty, subdued, walked after Spock towards the lift, obviously intending to beam him down. 

“I’ll grab my medical tricorder and join you,” Leo said. 

Spock shook his head. “I cannot assume responsibility for ordering another Starfleet officer to violate a direct command, Dr. McCoy. I go alone.” 

“Then I’ll leave the medical tricorder,” Leo snapped. “If I have to go change out of my damned uniform to prove I’m not acting as a Starfleet officer, I will.” He took a step closer. “My _husband_ is down there, dammit. You and Slim have _both_ said you think Jim’s life is in danger—” 

“And Admiral Nylund is aware of the situation,” Spock interrupted, his voice quiet but firm. “Leonard, Jim needs you on this ship. Today…and always.” 

Leo went still, then nodded slowly. “For the record, Mr. Spock, I don’t like this one bit.” 

“For the record, Dr. McCoy, neither do I.” 

Leo held out his hand; Spock shook it, then looked around the bridge. “I’m sure this won’t take long,” he said as the lift doors closed behind him and Scotty. 

“Isn’t zat just what ze keptin said?” Chekov said in a small voice. 

Sulu reached over and laced his fingers through Chekov’s. “We’ve got to trust them both,” he said softly. “If anyone can get out of this, they can.”

Slim bit his lip. A thought suddenly occurred to him. He walked over to Uhura. “Aunt Nyota,” he said, his voice sounding loud in the silence of the bridge. “That admiral that was talking to us—is he the only one you’ve talked to this whole time?” 

Uhura looked over in surprise. “Yes. That’s what I was trying to tell Spock before.” 

“And he ain’t the one Dad was talkin’ about earlier—the one who said the Federation has been tryin’ to convince Gideon to join for years?” Slim pursued. 

“No, that’s Admiral Hackett. He’s a good man. The man you were talking to was Admiral Nylund, and he’s a—” Uhura stopped herself. “He’s not.” 

“So Admiral Hackett doesn’t know what’s goin’ on down there?” 

A light dawned in Uhura’s eyes as she understood what he was getting at. “Slim, I could kiss you,” she murmured, turning back to her panel and beginning to tap buttons. 

The lift doors slid open and Scotty came in. “Spock’s arrived,” he said, crossing over to where Leo stood by the chair. “Apparently they’ve created a replica of the _Enterprise_. He’s looking for the captain now.” 

Slim started. “What? How did they get the schematics?” 

“Like as not, during negotiations, laddie. That fellow Hodin’s a slippery enough character that he could have got ‘em at any time.” Scotty shook his head. “Either way—” 

“Spockto _Enterprise_. Spockto _Enterprise.”_ Spock’s voice exploded onto the bridge with machine-gun rapidity. “ThreetobeamupmisterScott.” 

Scotty jumped. “Oh—aye, Mr. Spock. Same coordinates?” Without waiting for a response, he stabbed at the appropriate button. “Kyle! Three to beam up, coordinates 875.020.079!” 

Slim held his breath. A moment later, Kyle spoke over the intercom. “Three safely aboard, Mr. Scott. Captain Kirk requests Dr. McCoy report to Med Bay immediately—he has a patient.” 

“Of course I do,” Leo sighed, but there was a relieved look in his eyes that belied his exasperation. He was already halfway out the door as he called back, “Tell them I’m on my way.” 

“McCoy’s on his way,” Scotty said, unable to keep the grin off his face. “Scott out.” He turned and clapped Slim on the back heartily. “We’ve got ‘em, laddie, safe and sound.” 

“Thank goodness.” Slim grinned.

Uhura turned around, smiling as well. “I’ve made contact with Admiral Hackett.” 

“What? Why?” Scotty looked startled. 

“We thought he ought to know what was going on,” Uhura said. “Hold on, I’m putting it through…I know the captain’s busy, but…” 

Scotty sighed and adjusted his shirt. The Starfleet logo again flashed up on the screen, and then another face appeared above an admiral’s uniform. This one was an older man, with steel-grey hair and dark blue eyes. 

“Admiral Hackett, sir,” Scotty said, saluting. 

“Mr. Scott, nice to see you again.” Admiral Hackett smiled. Slim liked him instantly. His smile faded, however, and he added, “Is something the matter? Did something happen on Gideon?” 

Scotty looked helplessly at Uhura, who looked pointedly at Slim, who stepped forward. “Um, sir—” he began. 

Hackett’s eyes widened, and then he smiled slightly. “You must be Thomas—you couldn’t be anyone _but_ Jim Kirk’s son.” 

“Yes, sir.” Slim swallowed. “Sir, Prime Minister Hodin provided the ship with inaccurate coordinates for the captain’s initial beam-down. He did so deliberately. We’ve since learned that he was beamed to a replica of the _Enterprise.”_

Hackett frowned. “We provided them with the schematics for a _Constitution_ -class vessel—not the mechanical components, of course, but the architectural elements—but why would they have done that?” 

“We—don’t know yet, sir. The captain hasn’t reported back to the bridge—we’ve only just beamed him back aboard. But…sir, the Prime Minister obfuscated all attempts to find out where the captain was,” Slim said. He kind of liked the word _obfuscated_ —it was fun to say and it got the point across. “Mr. Spock requested permission to beam down and was repeatedly denied. He had Lieutenant Uhura contact Starfleet to request an override—” 

“I have no record of that communication.” 

“No, sir, it went to an Admiral Nylund.” 

Hackett’s eyes darkened. “It would. Continue.” 

Slim swallowed. “We explained the situation to Admiral Nylund, but he refused to grant permission for anyone to beam down. He…felt that I—that we had insufficient evidence that the captain’s life was in danger.” 

“I would imagine the mere fact that he was being held prisoner would be sufficient.” Hackett paused. “Then again, officially, it wouldn’t be. Unofficially, if you’d gotten almost any other admiral besides Nylund, it might have been…incidentally, you keep saying ‘we.’”

Slim blushed scarlet. Scotty put a hand on his shoulder. “The lad did most of the talking with Nylund, sir, and damn me if I didn’t think it might work for a minute. Think if our captain had been anyone but Jim Kirk, it might have.” 

“You have a gift for talking to authority, all right,” Hackett agreed. “It’s something your father had to cultivate over the years…have you considered a job in the Diplomatic Corps someday?” 

“Ambassador Fox put that same suggestion to me last year, sir,” Slim said, embarrassed. “It is not in my plans at the moment, but perhaps someday…” 

Hackett laughed. “You’re _definitely_ better than your father at this.” 

The doors to the bridge slid open behind them, and Slim turned to see Jim, Leo, Spock, and a totally unfamiliar young woman. Jim looked a little tired, but he smiled when he saw Slim. The smile slipped when he saw the viewscreen, however. “Admiral Hackett, sir!” 

“Captain Kirk.” Hackett smiled warmly. “Mr. Spock…Dr. McCoy. It’s good to see all of you. Mr. Scott and Master Kirk here were just apprising me of the situation.” 

“Sir,” Spock said formally, coming to attention, “Captain Kirk, and the remainder of the crew, had nothing to do with my decision to disobey Starfleet orders. I acted of my own volition.” 

“And the decision to beam Odona back aboard the _Enterprise_ for treatment was mine,” Jim said firmly. “Any repercussions coming from Gideon should be directed at me, and me alone, sir.”

Hackett’s smile faded. He turned to Slim. “Master Kirk, I have a very serious question for you. If you had anticipated Admiral Nylund would refuse permission, despite your reasonable explanation, would you have given it anyway?” 

“What?” Jim gasped, the color draining from his face. 

Slim ignored his father, focusing on the admiral. “I assumed he would refuse, sir. He…didn’t seem like a very reasonable fellow to me.” 

“Then why say anything at all?” 

“To get the whole thing on record.” 

Hackett raised his eyebrows. “In other words, you spoke knowing you wouldn’t get anywhere with that particular admiral, in hopes that your words would have the desired effect eventually anyway?” 

“You could say that, sir, but after all, that’s what most diplomatic talks boil down to,” Slim pointed out. “Diplomacy is just the art of saying ‘Nice doggy’ until you can find a big enough rock.” 

Hackett burst out laughing. So did Scotty. Jim looked startled, but Slim felt an involuntary grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Jim, I like this boy.” 

Jim put his hands on Slim’s shoulders. He looked up to find his father smiling at him with undisguised affection. “Yes, I think I’ll keep him.”


	40. There Outside

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is straight-up fluff. It sort of ties up a couple of loose ends from the previous chapter, but other than that, it is pure tooth-rotting fluff. With slight flavorings of innuendo. Enjoy the fun. Also enjoy the mental image of Chris Pine skinny-dipping.
> 
> Also, this chapter is dedicated to [iseult1124,](http://archiveofourown.org/users/iseult1124) because it references that little headcanon I sent her about the picnic.

“Captain, scans of the planet’s surface indicate dry weather and a temperature of approximately twenty degrees Celsius.” 

“In other words, a perfect fall day,” Jim said with a grin. 

“Presuming the seasons on this planet are identical to those on Earth…yes, Captain,” Spock agreed. 

Jim’s grin widened. “Then what are we waiting for?” He turned to Scotty. “You’re certain you don’t want to come along, Mr. Scott?” 

“Positive,” Scotty said with certainty. “Don’t worry about the ship, Jim. I’ll have her ready to go the minute you’re back aboard.” 

Jim nodded, then stepped onto the transporter platform. “Ready for this, son?” he asked Slim. 

Slim’s grin was his father’s twin. “You bet, Dad.” 

“All right, Mr. Scott.” Jim took up his position. “Energize.” 

The beams surrounded the figures on the platform. A moment later, they rematerialized on the planet’s surface. 

Jim looked around him. The landing party stood at the top of a hill, verdant and green. To their left, a winding path led into a small town, bustling and prosperous. To the right, the path led into a forest that curved around behind the hill. Ahead of them, a gap in the trees revealed a sparkling lake. The trees were similar to Earth’s pine trees, filling the air with a sharp, clean scent. A gentle breeze blew, ruffling Slim’s hair and toying with Uhura’s ponytail. The air was cool without being too cold, as Spock had said, and the sky overhead was cobalt blue and cloudless. 

It was perfection.

Jim turned to the others. “Remember, four hours, meet back here for beam-up. If you have any trouble, comm for help, but…let’s hope we won’t need that.” 

“Right.” Uhura smiled and looped her arm through Spock’s. “C’mon, Spock, I want to check out the market.” 

“Certainly.” Spock almost smiled. He nodded to Jim, then set off down the hill. 

Sulu turned to Chekov with a bright smile. “Want to go for a walk in the woods?” 

Chekov’s answering smile was shy as he slipped his hand into Sulu’s. “Zat sounds wonderful.” 

“Have fun, you two.” Jim smiled and watched them meander off together before turning to Slim with a broad grin. “Race you to the lake?” 

“Last one there’s a rotten egg!” Slim took off running. Jim laughed and chased after him. 

Slim’s legs weren’t much shorter than Jim’s, and he was in slightly better shape, considering all the hours he put in at the gym fencing with Sulu. Jim was hampered by the guitar case slung across his back, but Slim had a bag dangling on his hip that bumped him with every step and put them on an even footing…maybe. Jim managed to catch up to, and even pass him part of the way to the lake, but then Slim put on a burst of speed and charged past him, skidding to a halt just where the grass gave way to mud and sand, panting but grinning, his eyes sparkling with excitement. “I won!” 

“Show-off,” Jim said, but he was grinning, too. He flopped down on a rock and Slim sat next to him, both of them breathing heavily but utterly happy. 

It was all Admiral Hackett’s doing, and Jim blessed him for it. He’d given the man a very thorough briefing on the Gideon situation, backed up by Odona, the Prime Minister’s daughter. Spock had been cleared of any potential misconduct, and the Federation was reconsidering letting Gideon join, as they had first lied about the conditions on their planet—which was severely overcrowded—then attempted to kidnap a Starfleet officer, and were now introducing their first disease, Vegan choriomeningitis, which was relatively rare and damned near incurable. As Bones had put it, they were now essentially a plague planet.

Once the reports had been filed, Hackett had contacted the _Enterprise_ again with orders for them to proceed to Pleione VI and “take a well-deserved rest.” Actually, he had specifically told Jim to spend some time with his family. _Your son’s practically a young man now, Jim. He’ll be at the Academy before you know it. And your daughter won’t be a baby forever. You’ll never get these years back. Don’t let them slip away._

Bones came up, trying to frown at them sternly, but the smile was winning. “Were either one of you paying the slightest attention to where you were running?” he fussed. “You could’ve tripped and broken your fool necks.” 

Jim laughed, stood up, and kissed the end of Bones’ nose. “You worry too much, you know that?” he said fondly. “Come on, we’re here to enjoy ourselves.” 

Addie squirmed in Bones’ arms. He set her down, then said sternly, “Don’t go in the water without Daddy or Papa, okay?” 

“’Kay,” Addie said happily. 

Slim unslung the bag from around his neck and fished about in it, coming out with a red rubber ball. “C’mon, Addie, let’s play.” He kicked the ball gently away from the lake. Addie giggled and ran after it. 

Bones set down the old-fashioned picnic basket he’d had slung over one arm. Jim knelt next to him and helped him spread out the red-and-white checked cloth, then the food—sandwiches, macaroni salad, carrot sticks, and a plate of chocolate-chip cookies for afterwards. Simple, basic stuff that any Terran would have taken on a picnic. 

“This is different from our first picnic, remember that?” Jim said, grinning slightly. 

Bones flushed. “Jim, not in front of the kids,” he muttered. 

Jim grinned wider. “I guess you could say this is my first _real_ picnic.” 

“Just because we had a completely different…dessert…doesn’t mean it wasn’t a real picnic,” Bones retorted. 

Jim chuckled. “Kids, lunchtime!”

Slim and Addie abandoned their game, which seemed to mostly consist of Slim kicking the ball and Addie tripping over it, and hurried over to the blanket. Addie’s eyes widened at the food, and she reached for a sandwich. Jim sat her on his lap and let her eat the peanut butter and jelly on white bread with the crusts cut off. The rest of them had bologna and cheese. There was lemonade to drink all around, Addie’s in a sippy cup with blue and gold chevrons on it. 

“This is nice,” Slim said, taking a few more carrot sticks. “I ain’t never been on a picnic before.” 

“I never had, either, before the Academy,” Jim said. “Bones took me on my first one a little before graduation.” 

“Owed him for that moonlight ride,” Bones said. 

“Moonlight ride? On what?” Slim asked. 

Jim smiled. “Motorbike. I’d had one in Iowa—paid for it with money I made playing my guitar in bars—and Mom sent me one as a congratulatory present when they gave me the _Enterprise_ , a couple of months before we actually officially graduated. Must’ve been a month later, the night was absolutely perfect—not too hot, not too cold, a full moon and not a cloud in the sky—so I woke Bones up and convinced him to come for a ride with me. Took him out to this field…we spread out a blanket and just lay on our backs and looked at the stars.” His smile softened at the memory. “It was heaven.” 

“That where you went for your first picnic, too?” 

“Yeah, actually,” Bones said. “Couple days later. I’d said something that night about a picnic and Jim told me he’d never been on one, so I packed us a lunch and grabbed the same blanket and asked Jim to take me out there Saturday afternoon.” 

“That was heaven, too.” Jim smiled and Bones flushed. 

“I ain’t askin’,” Slim said with a grin. 

“Good, ‘cause we’re not tellin’,” Bones shot back.

Jim looked critically at the lake. “Hmm…hey, Slim, do you know how to swim?” 

“Kinda. Used to splash around in the cattle wade on the McKennas’ ranch when I was real little. Mr. Pinkerton insisted I take lessons at the community pool the summer I lived with him, an’ it was part of the school curriculum the last couple of years planetside.” Slim shrugged. 

“Lake looks clear,” Jim offered. “Want to race to the other side?” 

Slim looked uneasy. “I dunno, Dad. I ain’t a real strong swimmer. If it gets deep enough that I can’t touch bottom, an’ I can’t make it…” 

“Then forget the race. Let’s just go for a swim.” 

Still Slim hesitated, looking around them. Jim suddenly realized what he was thinking. “There’s nobody around, Slim, if you’re self-conscious about…” He trailed off. 

“You sure?” 

“Positive.” 

“Well…okay.” Slim smiled slightly. 

They’d worn the sorts of clothing any of them would have worn on an excursion like this back on Earth. Addie was clad in a sweater that Bones’ grandmother had knitted for her, a pair of black leggings, ruffled socks and little white sneakers. Both Jim and his son wore t-shirts—Slim’s a plain tan-colored one, Jim’s the soft, well-worn old grey one with the Starfleet Academy logo on it that he’d “borrowed” from Bones before they’d even started dating and just never actually given back—and jackets, black leather for Jim and brown cloth for Slim, over stonewashed jeans and sneakers. Bones, on the other hand, wore an outfit Jim hadn’t seen him in since the last time they’d visited his family in Georgia, a pair of faded blue jeans, scuffed tan hiking boots, and a red-and-black flannel shirt. It was Jim’s favorite outfit that Bones owned, and looking at him now, he was just thankful that it was cool enough that Bones was wearing it the way it was designed to be worn. If it warmed up any, he knew, Bones would undo the top two buttons, he’d unbutton the cuffs and push the sleeves up past his elbows, and if that happened Jim wouldn’t be able to restrain himself, kids or no kids.

Jim and his son took off the jackets first, then their shoes and socks. Slim took off his pants next, which surprised Jim—especially since he, too, had his pants half off before he thought about it. Despite being alone, he realized, they were both a little uncertain about exposing their scars. Jim knew that he would probably have left his shirt on if it weren’t for the fact that he’d have to walk back in it. 

“On the count of three, right?” he said to Slim, gripping the hem of his t-shirt. 

Slim smiled again and took the hem of his shirt. “Ready when you are.” 

“One…two…three!” Jim pulled the shirt over his head and tossed it to one side in a single fluid motion. He grinned as he saw Slim do the same thing, then glanced at Bones briefly before turning back to his son. “You know…walking around in wet underwear won’t be pleasant.” 

Slim shrugged. “I didn’t bring a spare set.” 

“Ever been skinny-dipping?” Jim asked innocently. 

Behind him, Bones made a strangled noise. Slim, however, smiled a little. “Yeah, actually, when I was stayin’ with the Minifees, Rob an’ I dared each other to do it.” 

Jim pulled off his underwear. Slim quickly did the same, tossing them onto his pants. Jim deliberately bent over to put them down carefully before straightening up and arching his back, stretching. 

“Last one in the water is a mud flea,” he called, running for the water.

It turned out that neither of them was a mud flea, but both of them were idiots. Slim matched him stride for stride as he ran along a jutting rock that stuck out a little ways into the lake, and they jumped together. The water closed over Jim’s head, and _damn_ it was the coldest water he’d ever jumped into in his life. He broke the surface with a gasp, his eyes bugging out. 

“Shit,” he managed, floundering a little. 

Slim’s head broke next to him, also looking a little shell-shocked. “When did the—ice on this lake—melt?” he gasped out, treading water with obvious difficulty. “This morning?” 

“You two all right?” Bones called from the shore. 

“Fine!” Jim and Slim shouted in unison, then looked at each other and cracked up. 

“C’mon, let’s see if it warms up if we swim,” Jim said, managing to get through an entire sentence without having to come up for air. He took a deep breath and plunged back under the water, striking out in a random direction. 

When he raised his head to draw breath again, he saw Slim also coming up for air next to him. His strokes were sloppy, not particularly strong or sure, but he was keeping afloat at least. Jim decided to stop worrying for a couple of minutes and just swim, see where he got. 

The lake was surprisingly clear, not murky like most lakes back on Earth. Jim found that, when he opened his eyes, he could see as though he was looking through glass. Which was a good thing, because otherwise he would have gone headfirst into the gigantic rock without seeing it. He broke the surface again, clinging to the side of the rock, and turned towards where he had last seen Slim. 

To his surprise, he was in the exact middle of the lake. The rock was flat and not that far above his head; he could probably pull himself up onto it if he tried. Bones was still sitting on the blanket, which was reassuring. And—yep, there was Slim, still swimming towards him steadily. Jim watched anxiously, just in case he needed to rescue him, but he made it without incident and clung to the rock next to Jim, breathing hard.

“I think—I need—more practice at this,” he panted. 

“I wish I could help with that,” Jim said sympathetically. “Unfortunately, water’s at a premium on a starship and we don’t get shore leave on planets like this very often.” 

Slim managed to raise an eyebrow. “You hardly get shore leave—at all.” 

“Well, true.” Jim grabbed the edge of the rock, bobbed twice, and then hauled himself bodily out of the water, scrambling up over the lip and feeling it scrape lightly at his stomach. Using his knees, he successfully kept his groin free of damage. He then rolled over and reached down, grinning. “Need a hand?” 

Slim gripped Jim’s arm tightly with one hand, holding the rock with the other, and let his father help haul him over the edge. Jim was surprised at the strength in his son’s arms. “You’re getting some muscle there, son,” he said, feeling Slim’s bicep as they sat on the edge of the sun-warmed rock. 

Slim smiled back as he caught his breath. “Fencing, your hand-to-hand lessons, and climbing around on the engines.” 

“Plus a good basis in farm work, right?” Jim grinned. “Tossing around hay bales, digging postholes…” 

“Pulling weeds and pickin’ stones,” Slim agreed. 

Jim laughed. He waved at the figures on the shore and saw Bones wave back. “Think we could teach Addie to swim?” 

“She might like splashin’ around, but I reckon she’s a li’l young t’ be swimmin’.” Slim waved, too. “Dad, how’d you learn to swim?” 

“School. Like you, it was part of the P.E. curriculum in middle school.” 

“Mmm. Your teachers try ‘n make you take off your shirt, too?” 

Jim looked at his son—more specifically, at the scars on his back, which glistened in the sunlight. “No,” he said. “Coach saw the scars while I was changing for regular P.E. once. I told him where I got ‘em from—” _well, most of them,_ he added silently—“and after that, I changed in the shower stall so the other guys couldn’t see ‘em. And when we did swimming, I had special permission to wear a wetsuit.” 

Slim rubbed the tops of his bare legs absently. “Wish I’d had that. But I reckon nobody was real anxious to give a foster kid special consideration. Never had anyone t’ go t’ bat for me.” 

“Well, you do now.” Jim caught Slim around the neck and ground his knuckles into the boy’s hair, in what Sam had always called a “noogie.” 

“Augh!” Slim pulled at Jim’s arm and struggled, laughing. He accidentally pulled both of them off-balance, and they tumbled into the water.

Jim sensibly let go of Slim as soon as they started falling. He caught sight of Slim righting himself, waited until the boy looked at him, grinned, and pressed his feet to the rock, bunching up his knees before pushing himself off. He pointed his arms straight ahead of himself and worked his legs in what his teacher had called a “dolphin kick.” When his need for air forced him to the surface, he broke out of the water with a gasp and started doing the stroke he’d always done best—the butterfly. 

Eventually the water got too shallow for proper swimming. Jim got his feet under him and stood up, shaking the water out of his hair and laughing. Bones was on his feet, looking halfway between panic and frustration. Addie, on the other hand, clapped her hands. “Yay, Daddy!” she cheered. 

Jim spread out his arms. “C’mere, baby.” 

Addie ran towards him and shrieked with laughter as he swept her up into the air, then pulled her close, regardless of being soaking wet and completely buck-ass naked. 

“Jim, what the hell were you thinkin’?” Bones shouted, waving his arms. “Why’d you pull that boy into the water by his _neck?”_

_“He_ pulled _me_ in!” Jim said indignantly. 

“You coulda both _drowned_ , you idiot!” 

Jim stepped over to Bones and cupped his jaw, suddenly more serious than he’d ever been in his life. “I would _never_ have let that happen, Bones,” he said in a low voice. “You know that.” 

He heard splashing behind him and turned to see Slim stumble to his feet in the shallows, his eyes sparkling. “That was awesome, Dad!” he enthused. “Ain’t never seen that stroke before. You make it up?” 

“Nah, it’s called the butterfly. Originated in the mid-twentieth century sometime.” 

“I gotta admit, you looked good doin’ it,” Bones whispered in his ear. One hand ran over Jim’s bare ass lightly. 

Jim jumped. “Bones, not in front of the kids,” he muttered, feeling his body react. 

“Oops.” Bones chuckled, obviously not in the least bit penitent, and stepped back.

“Bastard,” Jim muttered, then set Addie down and turned for the bag. With as much brightness as he could, he said, “Well! I think that’s enough swimming for one day…where’s that towel?” 

“Sure you don’t wanna take one more quick dip, Dad?” Slim said innocently. “You look like you could use one.” 

Jim felt the back of his neck turn red. He grabbed the towel and threw it playfully at his son. “Shut up,” he said. He did, however, run the length of the rock and dive into the cold water again. 

He stayed underwater as long as he felt safe doing. The water did, at least, have the desired effect; he was much calmer as he broke the surface and turned back to shore. This time, he was careful to stick to the regular old breaststroke. 

By the time he pulled himself out of the shallows, Slim was lacing up his shoes, fully dressed once more. Jim grabbed the towel and dried himself off vigorously. 

“Need a hand?” Bones asked. 

“No, thank you,” Jim said firmly, reaching for his clothing. 

Bones stepped closer and ghosted his fingers along the back of Jim’s neck. “You started this game, Jimmy boy,” he breathed. 

Jim shivered, and it wasn’t because of the breeze. “You cheated,” he whispered back. 

“I learned from the best.” Bones kissed the spot where his neck met his shoulder and then, mercifully, let him go.

Jim got himself dressed and repacked the towel, then turned to his family. “How long have we got left?” 

Bones checked the chronometer he’d brought along. “Two an’ a half hours.” 

“So what do you two want to do?” Jim asked Slim and Addie. “We could play ball some…or we could have some music.” 

“Git-taw!” Addie said, clapping her hands in delight. 

“I’m game,” Slim said, running a hand through his hair. Because of the water, it stayed back. Jim was suddenly struck by how much older Slim looked with hair more or less regulation length and secretly resolved to avoid getting him a haircut as long as possible. 

“All right, let’s see here.” Jim sat down on the blanket, legs crossed. Bones leaned back on his elbows, plucked a long blade of grass, and stuck it between his teeth, chewing idly. Addie lay down on her stomach, arms folded. Slim sat back against a rock with his knees clasped to his chest. 

Jim tuned the guitar quickly, then grinned at his family. “Anyone have any requests?” 

“Got a surprise for you,” Bones said, looking up. “Bottom of the picnic basket.” 

Jim raised an eyebrow. “Should I be worried?” 

Bones swatted at him half-heartedly. “Get it out, you infant.” 

Laughing, Jim reached into the basket. His fingers encountered something smooth and heavy. When he pulled it out, he grinned. “Cowboy music! Bones, where the hell did you—?” 

“Found it buried in the depths of ship’s stores,” Bones said, grinning as well at the thick, heavy old paper book. “Was gonna save it for the next _Enterprise_ Day, but I figured you’d like it now. This way y’all can play some of those songs together.”

Slim’s face lit up. He reached into the front pocket of the bag with the ball and the towel, as well as a few things Addie needed, and extracted the harmonica. Addie sat up and clapped her hands in delight. “Mo’ka!” 

“What’s in the book, Dad?” Slim asked. 

Jim turned to the first page. “Okay, first song is…‘Shenandoah?’ Hey, I know that song—just didn’t know how to play it.” 

“Old classic. What key?” 

“C.” 

Slim blew into the harmonica briefly. “Ready when you are, Dad.” 

Jim studied the page for a moment, to make sure he knew what to do, then strummed the first chord. After a couple of chords, Slim began to play. Bones sang along, doing passably well, all things considered. 

The book, published in the late twentieth century, had a table of contents; Slim gave Jim the names of about a dozen songs he knew, and Jim turned to them in the order they appeared in the book. About halfway through a song called “Old Paint,” which Jim thought might be his new favorite, Addie started yawning and rubbing at her eyes. 

When they reached the end of the tune, Slim lowered his harmonica and asked softly, “Dad, that book got ‘Wee Little Piute’ in it?” 

Jim flipped through the book until, surprisingly, he found it. “Right here.” 

He started to strum, but Slim didn’t pick up the harmonica. Instead, he gathered Addie onto his lap and rocked her back and forth, singing softly. His voice had finally finished changing and had settled into a warm tenor. Jim found his own eyes getting heavy as the words and the tune washed over the little group. 

“Slim, that was beautiful,” Bones said softly as the song finished. “Where’d you learn it?” 

Slim shrugged, shifting carefully so that Addie’s head lolled against his shoulder. She twined her fingers in his shirt and slept on. “Found a book at the school library when I was twelve that had a bunch of songs like that in it. Might’ve even been the same one.” 

“Maybe,” Jim agreed. He checked the chronometer and sighed, putting the guitar up. “Better start packing up. It’s almost time.”

Slim got to his feet and stepped back, letting Jim fold up the blanket and put it back in the picnic basket. Bones slung the bag over his shoulder and took the basket. Jim put his guitar on his back, looped his arm through Bones’, and put his other arm around Slim’s shoulders. “All right, let’s mosey.” 

Slim began humming as they walked. Jim gave him an affectionate smile. “Another cowboy tune?” 

“Uh-huh. ‘Git Along Little Dogies.’ Ol’ trail-drivin’ song.” Slim began to sing quietly. Without conscious thought, Jim found himself falling into step with the rhythm of the song as they walked, smiling at the words. _“Yippie-ti-yi-o, git along my little dogies…for Wyoming shall be your new home…”_

They reached the top of the hill first. Jim looked towards the woods and saw Sulu and Chekov coming out, their arms around one another’s waists, their heads very close to one another as they talked and smiled shyly. Chekov’s face was faintly flushed with pink. Jim smiled as he turned the other way. No sign of Uhura and Spock, but they’d be along shortly. 

“Hello, Captain!” Sulu called as he and Chekov started climbing the hill. 

Jim turned back and waved, smiling. “Hello, you two.” His smile broadened as they reached him. “I don’t need to ask if you two had a good time, obviously.” 

“Why not, Keptin?” Chekov asked. 

For an answer, Jim reached over and tugged a twig out of Chekov’s curly hair, which was even messier than usual. Chekov’s face went from pink to scarlet, and he buried his face in Sulu’s shoulder in embarrassment. Sulu blushed, too, but all he said was, “We were able to amuse ourselves well enough.”

Bones snorted. Slim bit his lips and tried to keep a straight face, but Jim had already seen him start to smile and reminded himself that his son _was_ , after all, a teenager; he knew more about life than Jim or Bones sometimes gave him credit for. Turning back towards the village, he said, “Bones, how much time until we’re supposed to beam up?” 

Bones dug out the portable chronometer again. “Two minutes.” 

“Let’s hope Uhura and Spock are just tied up dealing with a merchant or something,” Jim said absently. 

“I’m sure they’re fine, Jim,” Bones said reassuringly. 

A minute later, they saw Spock coming towards them, carrying Uhura in his arms. Jim was momentarily worried until he realized she was sitting up, her arms around Spock’s neck, and that she was talking. “Was wondering where you two were,” he called as they got closer. 

“My apologies,” Spock said formally. “We were forced to delay slightly.” 

Uhura looked sheepishly at Jim. “I twisted my ankle.” 

Bones sighed. “I’ll fix it when we get back aboard.” 

“Thanks, Doctor.” 

Jim fought down the grin threatening to split his face. “Other than that, did you two have a good time?” 

“Oh, yeah. I’ll have to show you the picture someone took of us dancing, a few minutes before I hurt myself.” Uhura smiled.

“Good.” Jim smiled back, relieved it was acceptable now, then flipped out his communicator. “Kirk to _Enterprise_. Beam us back aboard, Mr. Scott.” 

As the transporter beam surrounded them, Jim reached out and twined his fingers through Bones’. “It was a perfect day, wasn’t it?” he whispered. 

“Perfect,” Bones whispered, a moment before they left the planet’s surface for good.


	41. Must Be Doin' Somethin' Right

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **WARNING: This chapter contains porn.**
> 
> As a matter of fact, **this chapter _is_ porn.**
> 
> I'm upping the rating of this story from T to M _specifically_ because of this chapter (and because I have no guarantees there won't be more chapters like this one).
> 
> It adds nothing to the plot. It can be skipped if you so desire. It's just Jim and Bones and sex and a little bit of schmoopiness at the end.
> 
> And no, I don't know where I got the idea for Bones' little outfit.

It had taken a lot of preparation, and a lot of swearing people to secrecy, but Leo was finally ready. 

He wasn’t sure if this was going to work, or even if it would hit the right note. There were a thousand things that could go wrong. Jim could laugh. Jim could be too tired to notice anything. One of them could get hurt. _Both_ of them could get hurt. The ship could go on red alert status while Leo was waiting for Jim. The ship could go on red alert status while they were in the middle of everything. 

But timing was everything. Leo hoped like hell he’d timed this one right. And so he waited, his eyes on the chronometer. He knew Jim’s schedule to the second, knew how long it took him to get from the bridge to the officer’s mess and subsequently to quarters once he found that Leo wasn’t there. 

_Three…two…one…_

“Bones?” 

_Perfect._ Leo smiled and checked his position, then called, “In here, Jim.”

Jim’s footsteps got closer, and the door to their bedroom slid open. “Hey, I thought you’d be in the mess for dinner, but Slim said you were coming back he…” His voice trailed away and he stopped dead in the doorway, staring. 

Leo kept his smile in place, hoping his nerves didn’t show on his face. He’d set the lights at twelve percent, bathing the room in a soft glow. Leo himself lay on his side, his head propped up on one arm, the other dangling in front of his stomach, one leg stretched out and the other drawn up. He’d taken care with his outfit, too, but he was pretty sure he was too old to dress this way, no matter that he’d found everything in his size. He wore a pair of ruffled satin panties, high-cut and hanging low on his hips, a pair of lacy black garters, black fishnet stockings, and a pair of incredibly high, incredibly sharp heels that matched the panties. 

“Hey,” he said, pitching his voice low and velvety. 

Jim’s fingers twitched. He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Holy shit, Bones,” he half-whispered. 

Leo relaxed and allowed a seductive smile to curl across his face. He’d been worried, and Jim’s expression hadn’t given much away at first except that he was surprised—and really, who wouldn’t have been? But those three words told Leo that he’d hit exactly the right note. 

“Have a good day, darlin’?” he asked, raising one eyebrow slowly. 

“It just got about a thousand times better,” Jim murmured, his lips barely moving. 

Leo patted the bed beside him. “Care to join me?” he purred. “I want to hear all about it.”

Jim stared for another full minute before moving over to the bed, toeing out of his shoes and fumbling with his belt as he did so. 

“Ah-ah-ah.” Leo wagged a finger at Jim. “That’s my job, darlin’.” 

“Holy _shit_ , Bones,” Jim said again, flushing bright red. 

“Lie down, Jim,” Leo said, patting the bed again. “I’m gonna take _good_ care of you.” 

Jim made a strangled noise in the back of his throat. Obediently, he sat on the edge of the bed, then lay on his back, staring at Leo. “Bones…the kids…” he murmured. 

Leo stroked Jim’s cheek lightly with the backs of his fingers. “Don’t worry about them,” he whispered. “Addie’s stayin’ with her godmother tonight, and Slim and Sulu and Chekov are havin’ a movie night. It’s just you an’ me, darlin’.” 

“How—why—?” Jim stammered. 

“You know what today is?” Leo asked softly. He didn’t think Jim would really remember, exactly, but it was a date that had burned itself into his brain. 

“Stardate 2271.200?” 

“Ten years to the day.” 

Jim went still. His blue eyes widened, and his mouth fell open slightly. “Since I asked you to marry me,” he said softly.

“Mmm-hmm.” Leo smiled, cupping Jim’s jaw with one hand. “Ten years since the day you an’ Spock saved my life. Since the day you got down on one knee on the bridge an’ made me the happiest man in the goddamned galaxy. Since I realized that there was someone in the universe worth trustin’ with my heart.” 

Jim covered Leo’s hand with his own. “Bones…” 

But Leo decided the time for talking was over. He rolled over, straddling Jim, and kissed him with every ounce of love and passion he could muster. Jim moaned into Leo’s mouth, returning the kiss. When he fingered the waistband of Leo’s panties, however, Leo broke the kiss and gently but firmly pulled Jim’s hand away. “Not yet,” he whispered, his nose a molecule away from Jim’s. “You’ve gotta wait your turn.” 

Jim’s eyes were wide as Leo pinned his wrists to the mattress and kissed him again, slowly and sensuously. When he pulled back, he trailed his hands down Jim’s arms and over his ribcage until he reached his waistband. He finished undoing the belt Jim had started on, then slowly slid Jim’s pants over his hips. As each new inch of skin appeared, he brushed his lips against it in a series of feather-light kisses, carefully calculated to drive Jim crazy. That he was succeeding became evident as Jim whimpered, grabbing fistfuls of the sheets. 

Once he had divested Jim of his pants, Leo ran his fingers lightly back up Jim’s bare legs, making him squirm. He carefully raised Jim’s shirt, a little at a time. His kisses over Jim’s belly and ribs were a little harder than on his legs—a quick flick of the tongue here, a light nip there, all calculated to make Jim gasp and moan.

Getting the shirt over Jim’s head was always tricky. Leo had to work quickly there, which was at odds with the fact that he was taking his time with everything else, but he’d learned early on in their relationship that Jim panicked if Leo did anything while his shirt was over his face. But he had an idea this time. When the shirt was rucked up around Jim’s collarbone, Leo stopped and captured Jim’s lips in another kiss. As he did so, he slid his arms under the shirt and through the collar, holding Jim’s jaw and steadying him. Once he felt Jim relax underneath of him, he broke the kiss and pushed the shirt up and over Jim’s head with his forearms, keeping his hands on his husband’s face as he did so. Jim looked both relieved and incredibly turned-on as Leo finished pulling his arms out of the sleeves. 

They were now both in their underwear, although Jim’s white boxer-briefs were theoretically less sexually alluring than Leo’s row of satin ruffles. Only theoretically. Leo ran a loving hand along Jim’s ribcage, simultaneously rubbing his knee against the inside of Jim’s thigh. 

“Bones,” Jim breathed, his muscles twitching under Leo’s hand. “Bones, please…” 

“Hold your horses, darlin’.” Leo straddled Jim again, carefully arranging it so that they were a hairsbreadth away from touching, so that he could feel the electricity arcing between them and knew Jim could feel it, too. “We’ve got all night, and we’re gonna take all the time we need.” 

He cut off Jim’s reply by kissing him again, sliding his tongue into the wetness of Jim’s mouth. Jim whimpered, his hands coming up to slide over Leo’s torso. Leo let him for a minute, then pulled back again, smiling. “You ready?” 

“Yes,” Jim gasped. “Oh, God, yes…”

Leo caught Jim’s hands, pinned them to the mattress again, and suddenly bit down on Jim’s collarbone and sucked _hard_. Jim cried out sharply, his back arching and his fingers grasping helplessly at thin air. Leo let go of one of Jim’s hands and ran a finger into the waistband of Jim’s underwear. 

Jim gave vent to a strangled moan. Leo pulled himself upright and pulled Jim’s underwear down, maybe not quite as slowly as he’d removed Jim’s pants, because he was starting to get pretty eager himself. But once he had the boxer-briefs completely off, he sat back and studied Jim, like an artist examining his handiwork. 

“God, Jim, you’re beautiful like this,” he murmured. 

Jim raised his head slightly, his expression a curious mixture of vulnerability and need. And _damn_ if that didn’t turn Leo on even more than he already was. 

He climbed off of Jim, reached for the nightstand, and extracted the bottle of lube, putting it within easy reach before returning to his husband. Leo bent over and pressed a searing kiss to Jim’s lips. 

“All right, darlin’,” he whispered in Jim’s ear. “Ready to open your present?” 

“Bones,” Jim breathed, his hands going straight for the waistband of Leo’s panties. 

“Careful, darlin’,” Leo said with a low chuckle, toeing out of the heels and hearing them thud against the floor. “Don’t tear the wrapping paper.” 

Jim understood. Slowly, almost reverently, he pulled the panties down. Leo made no move to assist him, understanding that Jim had to do it himself, only shifting his position to make it easier for Jim to divest him of his entire outfit in one go. Within moments, both of them were completely naked.

For a moment, they just stared at one another. Jim was obviously having trouble catching his breath. “You all right, Jim?” Leo asked softly, a little anxious. 

Jim nodded. He raised one hand and cupped Leo’s cheek gently. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered. 

Leo felt a pleasant warmth spread through him. Jim rarely spoke in bed, except for exclamations and pleading and repetitions of his nickname for Leo, and often Leo could reduce him to wordless moans and cries with a few simple touches. But something like that was a precious jewel, something to be treasured. In the nearly fifteen years they’d been friends and lovers, Jim had never said something like that—not during sex. 

He leaned down to kiss Jim, sweetly, tenderly, thanking him for the compliment. After a moment, however, he deepened it, tenderness giving way to passion, sweetness giving way to searing heat, and Jim’s body reacted accordingly. And when Jim’s body reacted, Leo’s responded. 

He pressed a final, small kiss to Jim’s lips before pulling back and grabbing a pillow. “Raise your hips, Jim,” he breathed. 

Jim did so obediently, letting Leo slide the pillow behind him. Leo ran his hand lightly over the curve of Jim’s ass and pressed a light kiss to his hip. “Just lie still,” he murmured as he reached for the lube. 

The bottle was still about half-full, which was a blessing, as it was the one thing Supply didn’t stock, and if they ran out they would have to wait until they were at a starbase to get more. Leo squeezed a generous dollop into his hand and squished it around for a minute, warming it up, before coating his fingers in it.

Jim was keeping still, watching Leo intently. Leo pressed his lips to Jim’s shoulder, then to his chest, directly above his heart, before traveling down his rib cage. He traced a finger along Jim’s perineum, then pushed gently into his hole, flexing his finger and working against the tight ring of muscle. 

Jim let out a strangled gasp at the touch. His hands twisted into the sheets. Leo located Jim’s prostate with the ease born of long practice, and Jim bit his lips to stifle the cry of pleasure. Leo’s cock twitched in response. 

“Ready for another?” he murmured. 

“Yes, oh, God, _yes,”_ Jim panted. 

Leo added a second finger, scissoring, working Jim open as gently as he could. Sometimes they were rough, sometimes they were quick and dirty, but tonight Leo wanted to take his time. And from the way Jim was writhing and moaning underneath of him, he was obviously doing something right. 

He added a third finger, still going slowly and carefully. Jim bucked his hips, screwing his eyes closed and tipping his head back. Leo withdrew his fingers—Jim gasped at the loss of contact—and kissed Jim’s throat, flicking out his tongue to run it over the curve of his neck and shoulder. Jim gave a low moan, rolling his head to one side. 

Leo sat back on his haunches and picked up the bottle of lube again. Jim’s eyes opened and he raised his head slightly, watching wide-eyed as Leo coated his cock, as eager as if he’d never seen it before. Jim spread his legs wide, his hips still thrusting upwards. Leo ran his hands along the insides of Jim’s thighs, then wrapped one around the base of Jim’s shaft and braced himself on the mattress with the other before lining himself up against Jim’s waiting hole.

He slid inside slowly, not very far, just the head, just far enough to heighten both his and Jim’s arousal, then slid back out. Jim whimpered, hooking a leg around Leo’s waist. Leo feinted a few more times, never very far, taking his time, almost driving himself mad with desire but not wanting to rush things. 

Jim let go of the sheets and grabbed Leo’s shoulders, gripping them so tightly Leo was pretty sure he was going to leave bruises. “Bones, please, God, _please,”_ he begged. 

It was all the invitation Leo needed. He pulled back, then thrust himself as deeply into Jim as he could. Jim let out a scream, his hands and leg tightening around Leo. Leo shifted slightly, changing the angle of his next thrust, and the head of his cock hit Jim’s prostate. Jim moaned, practically sobbing, as Leo pushed in again and again, stroking Jim’s shaft in unison with the motion of his hips. 

“Bones, God, _Bones,”_ Jim gasped, clinging to Leo like he was drowning. 

“Good boy, Jim, such a good boy for me,” Leo crooned in his husband’s ear as he hit Jim’s prostate again. 

That was all it took; Jim came instantly, hot and sticky in Leo’s hand. He buried his face in Leo’s shoulder, breathing heavily, still bucking his hips in time with Leo’s thrusts.

“Jim—I’m gonna—” Leo panted. 

And then he came, too, curling his fists into the sheets and his head snapping back with a cry of pleasure. Jim held on as he rode out the orgasm, his muscles clenching around Leo’s shaft. 

When the last aftershock subsided, Leo gently eased out of Jim and collapsed onto the bed next to him, breathing heavily. Jim rolled into him, and Leo wrapped his arms around him. For a long moment, they just held each other. 

Finally, Leo murmured in Jim’s ear, “We should get cleaned up.” 

Jim nodded, but made no effort to move. Leo sat up with difficulty, taking Jim up with him, then carefully gathered his husband into his arms and stood up. Jim wrapped his arms around Leo’s neck as he carried him into the bathroom, stepped into the tub, set Jim carefully on his feet and turned on the water without taking his other arm from Jim’s waist. The gentle spray washed over them. 

Leo didn’t reach for the soap or the shampoo. He simply wrapped his arms around Jim, pulling him in close for a deep kiss. Jim responded eagerly, sliding one hand up to tangle in the hair at the nape of Leo’s neck and pressing the other to the small of his back. It was unhurried and tender and gentle, not really a contrast to the heat and passion of their lovemaking so much as a complement to it.

At last, Jim broke the kiss and lay his head against Leo’s shoulder. 

“Remember our first time?” he asked softly. 

Leo rubbed Jim’s back in slow circles. “The night after you took the _Kobayashi Maru_ for the first time.” 

“Would’ve been the night before, but I was a little tipsy and you wouldn’t let me.” Jim smiled up at Leo. “You surprised me that night, Bones.” 

“What, when I wouldn’t take advantage of your drunk ass?” Leo raised an eyebrow. 

“No, the next night. I wasn’t…I never expected you to be a top.” 

“Truth be told, Jim, I never expected you to be a bottom,” Leo admitted. They did switch off, of course—Leo enjoyed having Jim inside him from time to time—but for the most part, Leo was the dominant one in the relationship. Which was something that even their closest friends didn’t realize. 

Jim reached up and touched Leo’s jaw lightly. “It was a nice surprise. Kind of like this.” He smiled warmly and then cuddled back against Leo’s chest. “How long have you been planning this?” 

“I always knew I wanted to do something special for our tenth anniversary,” Leo said, leaning his cheek against the top of Jim’s head. “The specifics hadn’t quite entered my mind. But after everything that’s been goin’ on these last few weeks…I figured, well, our wedding anniversary isn’t for another five months. We’ll do something then, too, of course, but I thought about it, and…well, today it’s ten years since I got a second chance at happiness. Since _you_ gave me that chance. You saved my life and then you asked me to share it with you. I wanted to show you how much it meant to me.” He ran a finger lightly down the cleft of Jim’s spine; his husband hummed, pressing closer to him. “I guess it took me about a week to put this all together.” 

“I love you so much, Bones,” Jim whispered. 

“I love you, too, Jim.” Leo tilted Jim’s head up and kissed him deeply, then reached for a washcloth.

They cleaned each other up, slowly and tenderly and with frequent breaks for light kisses or gentle caresses. At last, Leo shut off the water and stepped out onto the bathmat. He and Jim dried one another off, and then Leo picked Jim up again. 

“Bones, what’re you doing?” Jim asked, wrapping his arms around Leo’s neck. 

Leo nuzzled Jim, then rested their foreheads together, smiling into his husband’s eyes. “I’m takin’ you back to bed, darlin’.” 

Jim hummed contentedly. “Mmm…’kay.” 

Leo chuckled, carrying Jim back into the bedroom. He stepped carefully over the blue platform spike heels. Jim eyed them, then Bones, with amusement. “Do I wanna know where you got those?” 

“Nyota. She ordered a pair and they came in the wrong color, and they let her keep them when they sent the right ones, so she gave ‘em to me.” Leo paused, studying the bed. “Mmm…on second thought, maybe we should change these sheets before we go back to bed.” 

Jim nodded. Leo carefully lowered him to the ground. Together, they stripped the cum- and lube-stained sheets from the bed, bundled them up, and dropped them into the laundry chute, then remade the bed with fresh ones. Leo started to reach for Jim, but Jim stopped him. 

“My turn, Bones.”

Surprised, Leo nodded, waiting. Jim turned back the covers, then took Leo’s shoulders in his hands and guided him back to the bed. Leo followed Jim’s hands, letting him lie him back against the pillow and pull his legs onto the bed. Jim then got in on the other side, pulled the covers up over both of them, and curled up against Leo’s side, resting his head on his husband’s chest. 

“There,” he murmured, idly running a finger over the muscles of Leo’s abdomen. “Comfy?” 

“Mmm-hmm.” Leo wrapped his arms around Jim. He traced some of the scars on his husband’s back with a delicate finger, wishing, as he so often did, that he could do something about them. Most of them were the results of improper care; Jim had never told anyone about Frank beating him, so he’d been forced to treat those cuts himself and had done a barely adequate job of it. The more recent ones, though, were ones that were so severe no amount of medical care could have stopped the scarring. Leo should have known, since he had been Jim’s primary physician since their first year at the Academy. Really, though, what Leo wished wasn’t so much that he could get rid of the scars as it was that he could prevent Jim from ever having had them in the first place. 

“Whatcha thinkin’, Bones?” Jim said, his voice a little drowsy. 

“Just wishing I could have been there for you sooner,” Leo whispered, stilling his fingers over a particularly bad scar. Jim had told him the story of every single scar, usually glossing over how much pain he’d been in at the time, but Leo was a doctor, and he knew damned well that the injury that had left this particular scar could have cost him his Jim, his salvation, years before they ever even met. 

“You got there as fast as you could.” Jim smiled and pressed a soft kiss to Leo’s sternum, then grew serious. “You always are. You’ve saved my life so many times, Bones. You brought me back from the _dead_. You’re my rock, my anchor, and…God, Bones, I love you so much.” 

“I love you, too, Jim,” Leo said, holding Jim tighter and kissing the top of his head. “You’ve saved me, too, you know. And I’m not just talking about with the Fabrini cure. I’d never have made it through the Academy if it weren’t for you. I wouldn’t have been able to come up here if it weren’t for you.” 

“You’re my home,” Jim whispered. 

“And you’re my miracle.” Leo tilted Jim’s chin up and kissed him deeply. “My bright golden boy. My Jim.” 

Jim sighed into Leo’s kiss, closing those deep blue _need-you_ eyes of his. “My Bones.”


	42. Smiled and Took His Hand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fluff fluff fluff fluff fluff. Some seriousness, but mostly, this is just fluff. With a Looney Toons reference. And a Disney singalong, properly attributed, at the end.

Slim crawled out from under the reserve molecular dissipation modulator and waved up at Audra. “Try it now,” he called. 

Audra flicked a couple of switches. A moment later, the machine in front of Slim whirred, coughed, and then settled into a steady thrum. 

“It’s working!” Audra dropped down from the ladder and held up her hand. 

Slim gave her a high-five, grinning. “We did it!” 

Audra turned and called over to a nearby ensign, “Hey, Watanabe, you lose.” 

Watanabe looked up from his task, his face the picture of disbelief. “I don’t believe it!” 

“Believe it,” Audra said smugly, pointing to the modulator. “Fully operational in under an hour.” 

Scotty came over. “Shift’s up, you lot. I’ll get Beta to finish—” He stopped, staring at the modulator. “It’s working?” 

“It’s working, sir,” Audra confirmed. 

Scotty looked at Audra, then at Slim, then shook his head. “I need to talk to your dad about the possibility of making ye an acting ensign,” he muttered. “The two of ye work amazingly well together…all right, scamper off, the three of ye.”

Watanabe fell into step with Audra and Slim as they headed out of Engineering. “So, you two won. I owe you a drink, right? The synthehol in the rec room isn’t all that great, to be honest, but I’ve got a bottle of the real stuff in my quarters. If you two want to—” 

“I’m still only twenty,” Audra reminded him. 

“And I’m only fifteen,” Slim put in. 

Watanabe shrugged. “All the more reason to come back to my quarters. Nobody’d serve you in the rec room, but…” 

“Aren’t you in enough trouble these days?” Audra said tartly. Watanabe made constant mistakes, often the same ones over and over again, and Scotty was always on his case about them. 

“Aw, c’mon.” Watanabe grinned winningly. “Who’s gonna tell?” 

Slim stopped and stared at the ensign. “You really think if I walked by my dad after havin’ an alcoholic beverage, he wouldn’t figure it out?” 

“So don’t walk by him.” 

“You may feel comfortable deceiving the captain, but we don’t,” Audra snapped. “The deal was ‘a drink.’ Not necessarily an alcoholic one. No alcohol, no synthehol. End of story.” 

“Okay, okay!” Watanabe held up his hands. “Sheesh. Fine. So what am I buying you then? Hot cocoa?” 

“I was thinkin’ apple fizz,” Audra said. “You?” 

“Sounds good to me,” Slim said, eyeing Watanabe. 

Watanabe grumbled under his breath as he headed to the canteen and purchased two bottles of the apple fizz, which he presented to them with a flourish. “To the heroes of the day,” he declaimed theatrically. “Enjoy. ‘Scuse me.” He stalked away. 

“Where’s he off to in such a hurry?” Audra asked. 

“Probably lookin’ for Solari,” Slim answered, popping the top off his bottle. He held it up. “To quick repairs an’ lastin’ ones.” 

“To sense an’ sensibility.” Audra tapped her own bottle against Slim’s. “You wanna go up to the mess?” 

“I ain’t really hungry, but I’ll go if you want,” Slim replied. 

“I ain’t, either,” Audra confessed. 

Slim glanced at his open bottle, then back up at Audra. “Wanna head on up t’ the observation deck?” he offered. “We’re s’pposed to be passin’ what’s left of Sheani in a couple hours.” 

“Sounds all right to me,” Audra agreed.

Slim had been afraid things would seem awkward once he realized he had a crush on Audra, but to his relief, it hadn’t been, not at all. Or, at least, not any more awkward than it had been before he realized why it was awkward. Actually, things had gotten easier between the two of them in the last weeks. She was probably his best friend on the ship, besides Sulu and Chekov. On days when he didn’t have fencing practice, they usually went up to the mess together and ate; on days when he did, she came and sat with Chekov to watch, and then the four of them got something to eat together. They’d taught her to play Fizzbin, and she’d taught them four-way chess. 

He hadn’t worked up the nerve to say anything to her about how he felt, mostly because he was so much younger than she was. Sulu had pointed out, one afternoon when the two of them were alone in the rec room, that the age gap between the two of them was about the same as the age gap between Jim and Leo, or between Sulu and Chekov, for that matter. Slim hadn’t said anything at the time, had just mulled that over, but that evening in the shower he’d reflected on the fact that an age gap was a lot less significant when the parties in question were forty-four and thirty-eight—or even twenty-eight and twenty-two—than when they were twenty and fifteen. As he’d heard Mr. Minifee observe about his then-fifteen-year-old son once, Slim was “between hay and grass,” neither boy nor man, whereas Audra was a woman grown. Sulu and Chekov hadn’t crossed the line between their hearts when they were that young, either. 

That didn’t change the fact that Slim found himself humming love songs older than interstellar flight after he spent time with her, that he felt an electric charge whenever their hands accidentally touched, or that he’d had to take some pretty cold showers from time to time. It just made him more determined not to say anything about it.

There was already someone in the lift when they reached it, just getting out. Slim stopped and touched Ensign Porter Simril on the shoulder. “Port, how’re you holdin’ up?” he asked softly. It was usual for the crew members—and, subsequently, Slim—to refer to one another by their last names, but because the Simril twins were both ensigns in Engineering, or had been, everyone had called them by their first names. It was a hard habit to break. 

“I’m still here, aren’t I?” Simril said with a shrug, starting to walk away. 

“You sure ‘bout that?” 

Simril stopped and looked back at Slim. When he’d come aboard the _Enterprise,_ he’d had round, chubby pink cheeks, sparkling green eyes, and curly red hair a little longer than most guys wore it. Now his face was thin and gaunt, his eyes dull, and he’d shaved his head down to a centimeter’s stubble. He was only twenty-two, but he looked like an old man. 

“No,” he said finally. “I’m not. Some days everything’s fine, some days I have trouble getting out of bed. Some days I can go whole hours without thinking about her, some days I can’t take a step without feeling her ghost at my shoulder. Some mornings I wake up and start towards her quarters to wake her up for breakfast, and then I remember and it’s all I can do not to fall apart…” He shook his head, tears starting to well up in his eyes. “Some days I don’t even know what kind of day it actually is. I’m not living, I’m just…existing.” 

“I’m sorry,” Slim said, and meant it. He and Simril weren’t terribly close, since the ensign usually worked Gamma, but they were friends of a sort. “I can’t imagine how you’re feelin’.” 

“I hope you never have to,” Simril said quietly. “How’s Addie?” 

Slim felt guilty as he answered, “You’d never know she’d been sick.” 

“I’m glad to hear that,” Simril replied. “I really am.”

“Where you headin’?” Slim asked. He knew Simril wasn’t on duty this shift, and it was a little early for him to be getting something to eat, since usually he ate right before Gamma and right after and spent the rest of the time sleeping. 

“No idea. I couldn’t sleep, so…guess I’m kind of wandering around.” Simril shrugged. 

“Why not go talk to someone in Medical?” Slim suggested. “Pa—Dr. McCoy—might be able to give you somethin’ to help you sleep, or even somethin’ to help you work through it. They’re pretty fair psychologists, y’know.” 

“There’s a thought,” Simril admitted. “I never considered that. You really think it would help?” 

“Sure can’t hurt.” 

“I wager you’re right.” Simril rubbed the back of his neck. “You know, I think I’ll give that a shot.” He turned back for the lift, then added, “Where are you two heading?” 

“Observation deck,” Audra said, speaking for the first time. 

Simril glanced over at her, then nodded. “I’ll wait for the next one, then.” 

“No, you go ‘head,” Audra said firmly. “We can keep goin’ after you get out.” 

“If you’re sure…” Simril shrugged and grabbed the lever. “Deck five.” 

They rose three decks, and then Simril stepped out. Before the doors closed, he turned, caught Slim’s eye, and nodded once. Slim nodded back, then took hold of the lever and said, “Observation deck.”

Audra exhaled as they ascended. “I didn’t realize how hard that was gonna be.” 

“You ain’t talked to him since Allyn died?” Slim asked, surprised. 

“Nope,” Audra admitted. “Think we’ve been avoidin’ each other.” 

“He ain’t really ready to talk to you, either,” Slim guessed. 

“I ain’t surprised. Next to him, I spent the most time with Al.” Audra got quiet. “Still hard to believe I ain’t gonna see her on shift.” 

Slim wanted to squeeze her hand reassuringly, but wasn’t sure how she’d take it, so he contented himself with, “I’m sorry.” 

“Ain’t your fault.” 

Most people who spent time in the observation deck did so during Gamma shift or early Alpha; during Beta, it was nearly always empty. But this time, as Slim and Audra stepped out, they found that there were two other people there. Not that it was a problem; the deck was big enough that they could easily avoid anyone else. It was mildly annoying that they were sitting in the corner Audra and Slim preferred, but not really an issue. 

One of the figures looked up and saw them, then waved. “Slim, Cayne, come join us?” he called. 

Slim waved back, then glanced at Audra, who smiled and nodded. They crossed the room to their corner. Sulu and Chekov sat on the floor, Sulu with his back against the wall and his legs stretched out in front of him, Chekov curled up half-on and half-off his lap with his head resting on Sulu’s shoulder, their arms entwined around one another.

“How was it on the bridge today?” Slim asked, sitting down next to them and drawing his knees up to his chest, resting one arm on them and taking a swig out of the bottle. Audra sat on his other side, legs crossed Indian-style. 

“Uneventful,” Sulu answered. “No distress signals, no diplomatic missions, no communications from Starfleet, no inexplicable cosmic phenomena. How was everything in Engineering?” 

Audra took a sip from her bottle. “The RMDM went down ‘bout an hour ‘fore the end of shift, but other ‘n that, nothin’ really happened.” 

“What’s the RMDM?” Sulu asked. 

“Reserve molecular dissipation modulator,” Chekov said, sounding a little drowsy. 

“Is that anything like an Illudium-236 Explosive Space Modulator?” 

Slim and Audra both cracked up, having spent enough afternoons at the Roxie to know what Sulu was referencing. “Not remotely. Take too long to explain what it does. It ain’t terribly important, ‘less the main modulator goes down, but it still needed to be fixed,” Slim explained. 

“I suppose the two of you did the work on it?” Sulu asked with a grin. 

“Darn right.” Slim grinned back. “Watanabe didn’t think we’d manage it by end of shift.” 

“O ye of little faith,” Sulu quoted. “What’d he bet you?” 

“A drink. How’d you know he bet us?” Slim was surprised. 

Sulu looked equally surprised. “You didn’t know? Ken Watanabe’s a compulsive gambler. Be worse if there was anything serious to bet on out here, or a real bookie, but he’s always putting wagers on the running chess tournament or how long it’ll take us to get to a particular destination, that kind of thing. And he usually loses.” 

Slim sighed. “That explains a heck of a lot.”

“Yeah. Anyway, what brings you two up here?” Sulu tucked his chin over Chekov’s head. 

“Reckoned we’d come see the nebula,” Audra answered. “How ‘bout you?” 

“Same. You know we’ll be the first people in the Federation to see it?” 

Slim nodded. The upcoming nebula was the remains of a binary star system. A space station four light-years away had seen the lights of the explosion and sent a message to Starfleet command. The _Enterprise_ was the nearest ship to that particular sector, so command had sent them a message to swing by, observe the nebula that had undoubtedly formed by now, and then transmit that information back to Starfleet. 

“You know,” Sulu continued, “thirteen years of service in Starfleet, eleven in deep space, and this is the first time I’ve ever gotten to see a nebula.” 

“I believe it,” Slim said. “There ain’t that many in the Alpha Quadrant, are there?” 

“Just a couple. And we’re a long way from them. Since we’re mostly doing uncharted space…” Sulu shrugged. “I’m kind of excited, to be honest. I’ve only ever seen pictures. It can’t possibly compare to the real deal.” 

“What d’you reckon it’ll look like?” Slim asked, genuinely curious. 

“Nobody knows, and that’s the other exciting part. Could look like a crab, or a horse’s head, or nothing at all. Could be warm colors or cool colors. We won’t know until we pass it by.” 

“Do you think if it is shaped like something, zey will still call it Sheani?” Chekov asked. “Or will zey call it something else?” 

“Dunno,” Audra said. “You know, the Crab Nebula doesn’t look like a crab up close. I mean, it’s eleven light-years across, it probably doesn’t look like anything when you’re right up against it, but…” 

“I know what you mean,” Sulu said, smiling slightly. “Just because it looks like something to us doesn’t mean it’ll look like anything on Earth, when the light eventually reaches it. And vice versa.” 

“That’s exactly it.” Audra smiled back, obviously relieved.

Slim studied the stars before them. “Reminds me a bit of the openin’ to ‘The Rite of Spring.’” 

“Like the beginnin’ of the universe, you mean?” Audra asked. 

“Yeah, I reckon.” 

Sulu knew what Slim was talking about; the four of them had watched _Fantasia_ the night after La Pig broke up, in an ultimately futile effort to make Chekov feel a little less stressed and worried. “I can see that. More accurate if you could see other galaxies from here, but we’re a little too close to galactic central point for that.” 

“You reckon we’ll reach it on this mission?” Slim asked, turning to look at his friend. 

“We’re heading in the wrong direction, so no.” 

Slim winced. “I should’ve known that. Sorry.” 

“Don’t be.” Sulu gave him a friendly grin. “You’re an engineer. You don’t have to know where the ship’s going—you only have to know how to keep the ship together so it can take us there and back. Whereas we don’t need to know how the ship runs, we only need to know that it does, so we can get it where it’s going.” 

“I still should’ve known,” Slim protested. “Often as I’m on the bridge, I should’ve known what direction we were headin’ in, for Pete’s sake.” 

“Who is Pete?” Chekov asked sleepily. 

Sulu chuckled, pressing a light kiss to Chekov’s temple. “It’s just an expression, Pasha,” he said, with loving gentleness. Looking back up at Slim, he added, “We’re traveling at a kind of an angle, towards the outer reaches of the galaxy. If we reach it this journey—which we might very well—we’ll reach it at the corner where the Alpha and Delta quadrants meet. I’ll show you the map later.” 

“Thanks,” Slim said gratefully. He really did want to know what kind of path the ship was taking. He didn’t like feeling ignorant, and if Spock asked him, he would need to know. And Spock probably _would_ ask him, at some point. He liked springing random questions like that on Slim at random times, presumably to test his ability to react automatically under pressure. So far Slim hadn’t missed one yet, and he didn’t want his first to be something as simple as their trajectory.

“Have y’all ever been to the galactic barrier before?” Audra asked, taking another drink from her bottle. 

“Yeah, actually,” Sulu answered. “First year of our first five-year. It…uh…it didn’t end well.” His smile disappeared. “You won’t get many people to talk about it. Something about the penetration of the barrier…there were about a dozen people aboard with really high psi scores. Nine of them died when we broke through the barrier. One’s powers were augmented to the point that he was…incredibly powerful. If we’d found a primitive culture, or even a pre-space flight one, he probably would’ve been treated as a god. He sure _thought_ of himself as a god. Anyway, uh, he went kind of insane, spread that insanity to a Dr. Dahmer—the other one with the really high psi scores—and tried to kill the captain. Mitchell and Dahmer both died in the end.” 

Slim swallowed. Audra went pale. “Sorry for bringin’ it up, sir,” she mumbled. 

“I’ve told you about the ‘sir’ thing,” Sulu said, managing a small smile. “And don’t worry about it. You didn’t know. How could you have? It’s natural you’d ask.” He studied her. “Incidentally, Cayne, how high were your psi scores?” 

“As close to zero as you can get an’ still be functionin’,” Audra answered promptly. “I’ve got no psychic abilities whatsoever. I don’t even get vujà dé.” 

“I’ve heard of déjà vu, but never vujà dé,” Sulu said with a frown. “What’s that?” 

“The feelin’ that you’re doin’ it wrong all over again.” 

Slim cracked up. Sulu thought for a second, then started laughing, too.

Once their merriment subsided, Sulu added, “They’ll test you once you join Starfleet, Slim. Unless you’ve been tested before?” 

“No,” Slim said. “Don’t reckon it’s standard in Oklahoma public schools.” 

“I doubt it,” Sulu agreed. “I mean, I guess if you had any psychic abilities, I mean really significant ones, you’d know by now. The little ones, maybe not so much. I have mild empathic tendencies—I can tell by looking at an injury how badly it hurts, my knees give these weird twinges that get more intense depending on how much pain the injuries are causing. So when I say ‘that looks like it hurts,’ it’s no good lying to me, because I _know.”_ He chuckled. Slim smiled as well. “But I didn’t really know it was related to ESP until I was…well, about your age. You got anything like that?” 

Slim hesitated. He still hadn’t told his father, or Scotty. But he’d told Audra, and Sulu and Chekov were his friends…“Actually, yeah.” 

Sulu’s smile disappeared. “What?” 

Slim checked over his shoulder to make sure there was nobody else in the room, then said quietly, “I can understand machines. It’s hard to explain. But…if I put my hands on somethin’ broken, y’know, an’ concentrate, I c’n find out what’s wrong with it.” 

“Is that how you know so much about the ship?” Sulu asked, also dropping his voice. 

“Kinda. I mean, I don’t use it all the time. It ain’t a substitute for hard work. But in a pinch, yeah, I’ll ask the ship t’ give me a hand.” Slim shrugged, blushing. 

Sulu stared at Slim, then looked sharply at Audra. “You knew about this, didn’t you?” he demanded. 

Audra blushed, but nodded. “Yeah. Few months back, when the cooling towers went down…we had a little bit of metal we didn’t know where it came from, an’ there wasn’t any way of findin’ out, short of tearin’ the whole thing apart. So Slim…asked it where the thing came from.” 

“Have you told your dad? Or Mr. Scott?” 

“No, not yet. I ain’t sure how to bring it up.” Slim spread out his hands helplessly. “I know I gotta, sooner or later. But I just don’t know how.” 

Sulu stared a minute longer, then sighed and shook his head. “I can’t help you with that one. But…you’ll find the right time. And don’t worry—I won’t say anything, not until you do.” 

“Thanks, Sulu,” Slim said gratefully. 

Sulu looked down at Chekov. His smile returned as he added, “I won’t even tell Sleeping Beauty here.”

Slim followed his gaze and couldn’t help but grin. Chekov had drifted off, a contented smile on his face. “I swear he could sleep leanin’ up against a tree.” 

“No, not really,” Sulu said. “He’s got to be pretty comfortable to just fall asleep like that.” 

“He must be real comfortable with you, then,” Audra said. Slim didn’t have to look around to know she was smiling—he could hear it in her voice. 

Sulu didn’t answer, but the look in his eyes said everything. It was a look Slim had seen thousands of times over the last sixteen months—a look he’d seen pass between Leo and Jim, Spock and Uhura, and more recently Sulu and Chekov. He’d even seen Scotty occasionally look like that when he looked at the _Enterprise._ It was a look of tenderness, of protectiveness, of absolute love and devotion. A look that said, clearer than any words could have, _This is mine and you will never take it away from me._

Slim wondered, with a slight flutter of his heart, if he would ever see anyone looking at him that way.

In the silence that followed, Slim distinctly heard the swish of the doors. He turned and smiled to see Jim and Spock come in, talking quietly, each holding one of Addie’s hands. Leaning over to Audra, he murmured, “Reckon they’re here to see the nebula, too?” 

“Reckon so,” Audra answered softly. 

Addie tugged on Spock’s hand and said in a voice that carried, “’Tars, Unca ‘Pock!” 

“Yes, Athena, I see them,” Spock said patiently. 

Jim let go of her hand; Spock let go of the other, and she ran forward, pressing her hands against the glass and looking out at the panorama of space. “’Tars,” she said happily. Then she caught sight of Slim and beamed. “’Lim!” 

“Hiya, Addie,” Slim said warmly. 

Addie ran over and flung herself at Slim. He wrapped her in a bear hug, then settled her on his lap. She grinned at Sulu, then at Audra, before returning her gaze to the stars. 

“I was wondering where you’d gotten to,” Jim said, smiling as he walked towards the small group. “Should’ve guessed you’d be up here…mind if we join you?” 

“Not at all,” Sulu said warmly. 

Jim sat down on the bench; Spock chose to remain standing. “By rights, I suppose senior command should be on the bridge. But a first-year cadet could handle the observation equipment for this one, and we’re not getting close enough to require careful handling. We can see it just as well from down here.” 

“We will also get a unique perspective from the observation deck,” Spock observed mildly. “Which will be beneficial in preparing a report for Starfleet.” 

“Right as always, Mr. Spock.” Jim glanced down at Chekov and smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “I don’t know if I have the heart to wake him.” 

“I’ll wake him up when we get closer,” Sulu said, pressing another light kiss to Chekov’s temple. The navigator hummed in his sleep, snuggling closer to Sulu. “He’ll never forgive me if I let him miss this. Especially since that’s why we came up here in the first place.” 

“Is that why you two are up here?” Jim asked, turning to Audra and Slim. 

Slim nodded. “I reckon I ain’t gonna get another chance like this.” 

“I’m sure at some point you will, if you’re serious about joining Starfleet, but I know what you mean.” Jim ruffled Slim’s hair.

“We should be approaching the new nebula within ten minutes, Captain,” Spock said. 

Jim nodded. Addie squirmed in Slim’s lap. Since he knew she wouldn’t go far, he let her go, figuring she wanted to run back up and press her face to the window again. To his surprise, however, she ran around Audra to tug at Spock’s pant leg. “Unca ‘Pock,” she said, stretching up her arms. “Up!” 

Spock bent down and scooped her into his arms without hesitation. Addie threw her arms around his neck and planted a kiss on his cheek. “Love ‘ou.” 

Slim’s eyebrows shot up. He glanced at Jim, whose mouth had fallen open slightly. Addie had never said those words to anyone before, at least not that Slim had heard. Spock’s ears turned green, and although he didn’t smile, his eyes, as he regarded Addie, were undeniably soft. “Thank you, Athena,” he said softly. 

Addie gave him a puzzled look, then shrugged and returned her gaze to the window. Jim chuckled. “Mr. Spock, a word of advice. When a child tells you she loves you, it’s generally considered appropriate to say ‘I love you, too,’ not ‘thank you.’” 

“Generally speaking, ‘thank you’ is not an appropriate response to _anyone_ saying ‘I love you,’” Sulu said under his breath. 

Spock said nothing. Addie looked up at him again, then touched his cheek with a chubby hand and smiled before leaning her head on his shoulder. Slim smiled at the picture they made and remembered something Leo had said once—that Spock would make an excellent father. 

“I reckon sometimes you don’t have to _say_ ‘I love you’ for a kid to hear it,” he said softly.

Jim squeezed Slim’s shoulder briefly, then changed the subject. “Sulu, if you’re gonna wake Chekov up, you might want to do it now.” 

“Aye, sir.” Sulu smiled, then leaned over and spoke directly in Chekov’s ear. “Pasha, sweetheart, wake up.” 

Chekov shifted, murmuring softly, and then his eyes fluttered open. He looked up at Sulu and smiled. “What time is it?” 

“The nebula should be coming into view in a couple of minutes,” Sulu told him. 

Slim heard the swish of the door again and turned to see Leo come in, a broad smile on his face. Trailing after him, to Slim’s mingled surprise and delight, was Simril, who still didn’t exactly look like himself but was at least standing a little straighter. 

Jim turned and smiled at Leo. “Hey, you. Everything okay?” 

“Is now.” Leo came over and slid onto the bench next to Jim, putting an arm around his shoulders. “I figured you’d be up here—thought I’d come see this nebula with you, if you don’t mind.” 

“Bones, why would I mind?” Jim kissed Leo’s cheek. 

Leo smiled up at Addie, who smiled back but didn’t reach for him, then clapped Slim on the shoulder. Leaning over, he said in a voice that only Slim could hear, “Good thinking on your part.” 

Slim knew what Leo meant. He nodded, looking over at Simril. The ensign stood apart, his hands clasped behind his back, looking out at the stars. There was something wistful in his gaze. As Slim watched, however, he noticed that Simril kept stealing glances at the little group in the corner. 

Slim waited until Simril looked their way again, then beckoned him over. “C’mon, Port, I reckon there’s room for one more,” he coaxed. 

Simril looked startled. He hesitated for a moment, then slowly crossed over and sat down on the ground on the other side of Audra. “Thanks, Kirk,” he said quietly.

Spock raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. Jim leaned forward slightly. “Ensign Simril, how are you doing?” he asked. 

Simril looked up. Slim noticed that, for the first time in weeks, his eyes were clear. “Better, sir.” 

“Glad to hear it.” Jim smiled slightly. 

Slim felt the ship change direction slightly beneath them. Sulu glanced at the chronometer. “We should see the nebula in three…two…one…” 

And suddenly the little group was bathed in a new light. Slim heard more than one gasp from around him, but he couldn’t make a sound; his breath was caught in his throat. 

The nebula was beautiful. Slim had seen pictures of numerous nebulae, brightly-colored and oddly-shaped, but never one like this. Its colors were soft, not as pale as pastels but not bright either, shades of green and blue and purple. It had no shape, not that they could see from their position, but like a ribbon curling through space. The light from the gas cloud played over the room like a stained-glass window. And, unexpectedly, it was not stationary, but constantly in motion, rippling and shifting like water flowing in a pond. 

It was the most beautiful thing Slim had ever seen in his life. 

“It’s like ze Aurora Borealis,” Chekov whispered in an awed tone of voice. 

“I’ve never seen anything so beautiful,” Leo agreed. 

“Most fascinating,” Spock murmured, his voice as hushed as it had been when Addie told him she loved him. 

Slim felt a grin steal over his face as he stared at the dancing light. It took him a few moments to notice the soft, gentle pressure on the fingers of his right hand, and a minute longer to realize it was Audra’s hand. She had taken his hand, apparently without conscious thought, and both of them were clutching each other tightly. He wasn’t really motivated to release it, however. 

“And to think,” Simril said, in a voice that, though soft, was husky with tears, “I almost missed this.” 

“I’m glad you didn’t,” Jim said sincerely. 

“Dat?” Addie asked, but not with her usual imperiousness—there was a sense of wonder in her voice as she spoke. 

“It is called a _nebula_ , Athena,” Spock told her. 

“Neb’ya,” Addie repeated.

A soft voice began singing, a high, clear soprano, and it took Slim a moment to realize that it was Audra. He turned to see her green eyes fixed on the dancing lights of the nebula. Something in her expression told him that she wasn’t even aware of the fact that she was singing. He recognized the song, or thought he did, but he couldn’t figure out where he knew it from or even what it was, except that it was about light. Not until Jim started singing, too, and he realized it was the duet from _Tangled_ , the movie he’d seen for the first time two months ago. 

Jim and Audra sounded good together. When they got to the last line— _All at once everything looks different…now that I see you_ —Audra turned her head and made eye contact with Slim. She turned faintly pink, but smiled, a little shyly. 

Slim couldn’t help but smile back.


	43. The Savage Curtain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you've all enjoyed the fluff of the last few chapters, because this one is gonna hurt like a bitch.
> 
> This chapter is based on the TOS episode of the same name written by Gene Roddenberry. I emphasize _based_ , more so than usual. I've made one significant alteration to the storyline--trading out one character for another--because the original character just didn't have the same emotional pull, and anyway I couldn't make it work properly with that character in the AOS setting. (You'll figure it out pretty quick when you get there, if you're familiar with the episode.)
> 
> This is the longest chapter up to this point. And I cried while I was writing it. So...be warned.

“I’m going to go with…no, Mr. Spock,” Jim said, staring out the viewscreen. “I’m almost completely certain this is _not_ a Class M planet.” 

“I am inclined to agree with you,” Spock said soberly. 

The _Enterprise_ had discovered a new star system, if such it could be called, two weeks from the nebula that was all that remained of the Sheani binary system. (Officially, Starfleet had not designated a name for that nebula; unofficially, Jim had made a suggestion that was under consideration.) This particular star had only a single planet orbiting it, at an appropriate distance for a Class M planet. However, visual scans made it fairly obvious that there was no life on it. 

“Atmosphere looks like a frog in a blender,” Jim muttered, watching the atmosphere shift in poisonous swirls of red and green. 

Spock raised an eyebrow. “I beg your pardon?” 

“It’s an old Earth joke, Mr. Spock.” Jim saw his first officer’s confusion and was about to explain when the door to the bridge slid open. He turned and saw his son come onto the bridge, wearing the dark grey sweater he preferred when he wasn’t working in Engineering or on the bridge crew. “Slim, what’s red and green and goes a hundred and twenty miles an hour?” 

“A frog in a blender,” Slim answered immediately. “Come on, Dad, that one’s old as the hills and twice as dusty.” 

“Also quite appropriate.” Jim gestured towards the screen. 

Spock focused his attention on Slim. “Is something the matter, Thomas?” 

“No, everything is fine. But as it’s technically ten minutes into Beta shift, Pa asked me to come up and see what was keeping everyone.” 

“I believe that answer should be self-evident,” Spock said, nodding at the screen. “Fifteen minutes ago we began our approach to this system, and this planet. It is vital that the senior command remain on duty.” 

“We thought we might be able to make contact, or at least some sort of survey,” Jim explained to his son. “From a distance, we couldn’t tell if it was Class M or not. It’s at the right distance from the star.” 

“I don’t reckon that’s Class M,” Slim said, looking at the viewscreen. 

“That is the conclusion to which we have come,” Spock agreed. “Tell me, Thomas, what classification _would_ you give this planet?” 

“Could I see a scale, please?” 

Spock nodded to Sulu, who pressed the appropriate buttons and called up the white scale. Slim narrowed his eyes as he studied the planet. After a moment, he took a deep breath and spoke slowly—the reason, Jim realized after a moment, being that he was trying to keep his accent under control. “The planet is twelve thousand kilometers in diameter. That rules out Classes A through D, I through K, and S through V—in the cases of Classes A to D and Class K, the planet is too large; in the other cases, the planet is too small. It ain’t— _isn’t_ a rogue planet—it’s still in orbit around its star—so it isn’t Class R, obviously. From the color of the atmosphere, though…” He bit his lip, then nodded. “Without being able to see the surface, I’d say Class N at best, but more likely Class X.” 

“A sound analysis,” Spock said, approval in his voice. “Readings should indicate fairly quickly which of those two categories the planet falls into.” He moved over to his station and bent over his scanner. 

“You’ve been studying,” Sulu said with a grin, looking over his shoulder. 

Slim flushed, but grinned back. “Extra hard.”

“Captain.” Spock sounded puzzled. 

Jim left his son’s side and crossed over to Spock’s science station. “What is it, Spock?” 

“The surface of the planet is largely volcanic—molten lava, covering almost the entirety of the planet, making it a Class X planet,” Spock said, straightening. “However, there is a small area that appears to have carbon-based life-forms. Moreover…there is an astonishing amount of power coming from that location. Enough, I would wager, to support a considerable civilization.” 

“Advanced enough to make contact?” Jim frowned. 

“Undoubtedly.” 

“Uhura, try and hail someone,” Jim instructed, turning towards his communications officer. “There’s got to be _somebody_ down there who can explain this.” 

“Aye, Captain.” 

Jim headed back towards his chair. As he did so, the bridge doors slid open and Bones came on, holding Addie’s hand and frowning slightly. “Shouldn’t you be off-duty by now?” 

“Ordinarily, but this is too weird to walk away from,” Jim said absently. 

“What is it?” Bones asked, coming closer and handing Addie to Slim. 

“A Class X planet with carbon-based life-forms.” 

Bones’ frown deepened. “Come on, Jim, you know as well as I do that Class X planets are extremely hostile to humanoid life-forms.” 

Jim leaned on the back of his chair and gave his husband a crooked grin. “Now you know why it’s too weird to walk away from. Lieutenant Uhura, any reply from the planet?” 

“I’m hailing on all frequencies, but getting no—” Uhura began. 

“Captain!” Sulu said suddenly. “We’re being scanned from the planet!” 

“Red alert status!” Jim barked. 

Scarcely had the alarm started blaring, however, when Sulu said in bewilderment, “Wait—the probe is gone.” 

“What?” Jim was probably as confused as his helmsman. “Uhura, cancel red alert.” 

The klaxon died away. Addie uncovered her ears and scowled at Jim, who ignored her, instead looking at Spock. “What the hell was that?” 

“Keptin!” Chekov cried, at the same time that Slim said, “Dad!” 

Jim looked up at the viewscreen. The image of the planet dissolved in a swirl of colors. These slowly coalesced into a face—a fully human face, clean-shaven except for silvery-grey “mutton chops” attached to salt-and-pepper hair, wearing the uniform of a Starfleet admiral. He sat on nothing, against a backdrop of nothing, seemingly supported by empty space, looking equal parts irritated and resigned. 

And Jim recognized him.

The man focused on Jim, and his blue-grey eyes widened in astonishment. “J—” he began, then caught himself, swallowed, and straightened. “Captain Kirk. I—was not expecting to see you, although I suppose I should have been.” 

All six members of the senior command on the bridge stared at the man for a long minute. Finally, Jim gathered his wits enough to gesture, shakily, at Uhura. 

The man shook his head. “You don’t need the comm. We can talk easily enough without it.” 

Talk? Jim could hardly _breathe._ He felt as though a hand had reached into his chest and was squeezing as hard as possible. How could he possibly talk to the man on the viewscreen before him—the man who couldn’t _possibly_ be there? 

He turned mute, appealing eyes on Spock, begging his first officer to give him some kind of explanation. Spock, too, seemed unusually shaken, but he turned to regard Jim. “They _did_ scan us and our vessel, and doubtless obtained sufficient information for this…illusion.” 

The man before them managed a half-smile, one that went straight to Jim’s heart. “Cautious and logical as always, Spock. However, in this case, I am exactly what—and who—I seem to be. And I think you both know that,” he added softly. He looked back at Jim. “Captain Kirk, I suggest you beam me aboard. You’ve got the equipment to verify.” 

Jim wanted nothing more than to agree immediately, and fifteen years before he would have, but time and experience had taught him to be cautious. He hesitated and glanced at Slim. His eyebrows were knotted in slight confusion, but he met Jim’s gaze and said nothing. Those bright blue eyes spoke volumes, however. 

Looking back up at the viewscreen, Jim still couldn’t manage to speak, but he swallowed hard and nodded. 

The man nodded back. “You should be over my position in twelve and a half minutes. Until then…” He raised a hand, which trembled slightly. And then the figure dissolved, to be replaced with the image of the planet again. 

The bridge was perfectly still for a minute. Jim was still having difficulty forcing air through his lungs. Finally, Slim spoke, his voice seeming loud in the silence. “I reckon that man—whoever he was—is in that patch that just appeared on the planet?” 

Jim noticed a spot of blue, like a dollop of spilled paint, had appeared in the middle of the frog-in-a-blender atmosphere. He noticed this in a detached way. Spock shook himself out of his fog and made his way to his hooded viewer. “An area of approximately one thousand square meters, Captain,” he reported, his voice still unusually soft. “It is completely Earthlike, complete with a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere.” 

“He was right, Keptin,” Chekov volunteered in a subdued manner. “We’ll be over zat spot in twelve minutes.” 

Jim closed his eyes and forced himself to take a deep, shuddering breath. He then moved over to the chair, hesitated, and pressed the intercom button. “Security,” he said quietly. “Send a detachment to the Transporter Room immediately. Phaser side arms…but be prepared for a formal welcome.” 

“Jim,” Bones said softly. “Jim, you know it’s not—it _can’t_ be—” 

“I know, Bones,” Jim said softly. “But _he_ thinks he is, at any rate. Come on. You, too, Spock…Sulu, you’ve got the conn.” 

“Dad?” Slim said uncertainly. 

“Slim, you and Addie stay here,” Jim said, a little more like his usual self when he said that. “Just in case, I want you up here and out of trouble.” 

“Sure thing,” Slim said, shifting Addie onto his hip. He didn’t ask whatever questions he undoubtedly had. Instead, he moved over to stand next to the console. While Sulu was nominally in charge, and had sat in the chair several times, Jim could tell that his helmsman was reluctant to relinquish the helm at a time like this. 

Jim couldn’t blame him.

The three men descended in silence. Jim, personally, was starting to find it hard to breathe again. The thought kept nagging at his head, impossible and illogical as it may have been. 

What if this man _was_ who he seemed to be? 

They reached the Transporter Room, and Jim started to go in when Bones stopped him with a gentle hand on the arm. “Jim…wait,” he murmured, hardly opening his lips. 

Jim stopped and turned back. From almost the first moments of their friendship, Jim had charged ahead and Bones had followed in his wake, grumbling all the way. But all it took was a light touch and a quiet word from Bones, and Jim would stop instantly, would turn back and wait. 

Wordlessly, Bones pulled Jim into a hug, pressing his face into the top of his head. Jim leaned his head on Bones’ shoulder for a moment, hoping to borrow some of his strength to get through whatever was to come. 

“It’s gonna be okay, darlin’,” Bones said quietly. 

As always when Bones called him _darlin’,_ Jim felt warmed and strengthened. He could face anything after that. Taking a deep breath, he straightened up and squared his shoulders. He still couldn’t speak, but his eyes, he hoped, conveyed everything he was thinking. Bones nodded, kissed him lightly, and then let him go. 

Scotty was adjusting the transporter when they came in. Dickenson, the Chief of Security, stood nearby, with a complement of six guards. Scotty straightened and looked over his shoulder with an expression of mild irritation—which faded to concern when he saw Jim’s face. He opened his mouth to speak, glanced at Spock, and evidently changed his mind, for which Jim was grateful. He needed a moment or two to compose himself. 

He was opening his mouth to attempt to explain to Scotty and Dickenson when the intercom cut him off. “Bridge to Transporter Room. One minute to owerhead position, Keptin.” 

Ordinarily, Sulu would have been the one to speak, since he was in command, but he and Chekov usually traded off communicating. It therefore didn’t surprise Jim to hear the navigator’s voice instead of the helmsman’s. Scotty leaned back over his controls. “Locking onto—something,” he said. He paused and did a double-take. “Mr. Spock, does that look human to you?” 

Spock joined him at the console. “Fascinating,” he said, observing the screen. “For a minute it appeared to be almost mineral. Like a living rock, with heavy claws…however, it is now settling down to more human readings.” 

“We can beam it aboard at any time, Captain,” Scotty said. 

Jim nodded to Dickerson, who turned to his men. “Phaser team, set for heavy stun. Honor guard, at the ready.” 

Two men took up positions on either side of the transporter platform, their phasers at the ready. The others snapped to attention. Jim looked to Spock, who calmly gave the order. “Energize.” 

The swirl of light from the transporter beam activated, then dissolved, leaving in its wake the middle-aged man in the grey-and-white admiral’s uniform Jim had spoken to earlier. Scotty gasped, his eyes widening. Dickenson looked curiously at Scotty, then at Jim, but said nothing; the other guards didn’t so much as react. But then, why should they have? They were all relative newcomers. They didn’t know this man. 

Jim stepped forward, fully intending to do his job as captain, but the words stuck in his throat. The figure stepped down from the transporter platform, his eyes fixed steadily on Jim. He opened his mouth, closed it, and swallowed hard, then said quietly, “Jim.” 

That did it. Jim gave a hoarse sob, threw caution and reason to the winds, and flung himself at the man, clinging to his shirt and bursting into tears. He felt two strong arms wrap around him, felt hot tears drop onto his head, and knew that the man was crying, too. 

After a moment, Jim forced himself to pull back, looking up with wet eyes. “It can’t really be you,” he whispered. 

“I know it can’t,” the man agreed hoarsely. “But it is, Jim. It’s me. I really am Christopher Pike.”

“Readings are fully human,” Bones said quietly from behind them. Jim started and turned to see him holding the medical tricorder and looking at them with an indescribable expression. 

“You really should have let him do that first, you know,” Pike—or the man appearing to be Pike—said to Jim, with that reproachful quirk of the eyebrow he knew so well. 

“I know.” Thirteen years at the head of a starship—eleven of them in deep space—had bred in Jim the caution and care that Pike had tried to beat into his head during his Academy days, and that Boyce had long ago told him, with a soft chuckle of reminiscence, would only come with age and experience. He knew better than to rush at an unknown entity—even one that looked like someone he respected and cared for and missed more than words could say. _Especially_ one that looked like someone he respected and cared for and missed…and who had been dead for more than a decade. 

He took a step back, took a breath, straightened his shirt and gestured for the guards to holster their weapons. Forcing himself to speak normally, he said, “Admiral, permit me to introduce Security Chief Louis Dickenson, Officer Jarred Caldera, Officer Michael Patterson, Officer Neil Joseph, Officer Deray Johns, Officer Kegan Morales, and Officer Aaron Abrams. I believe you already know my chief engineer, my first officer, and my chief medical officer.” 

Pike nodded soberly to the three senior officers. Scotty still seemed somewhat stunned; Spock’s Vulcan mask was firmly in place, but his eyes flickered briefly. “At ease, gentlemen. I hope to get the chance to speak with all of you, but for now, your captain undoubtedly has a lot of questions that I’ll do my best to answer.” Turning back to Jim, he added, “And I hope you’ll have the opportunities to answer some of mine, too.” 

“I’ll do my best, sir,” Jim said quietly. He bowed and ushered their distinguished guest out into the corridor. 

They walked slowly, neither saying a word. Jim was vaguely aware of Bones and Spock trailing after them, but he kept his eyes fixed on the man who seemed to be Pike. He trusted the medical tricorder, and if it said the man was human, he was human. Whether or not he was Pike was another matter, but in their limited interaction, he had seen nothing to indicate otherwise. He bore himself exactly the way Christopher Pike had, he had the same inflections and intonations to his voice, he had looked at Jim exactly the way Pike always had. 

At last, about halfway around the deck, in a stretch of corridor that was deserted and largely unused—something Jim instinctively felt was no accident—Pike stopped and turned to face Jim. “It’s good to see you again, Jim, even under the circumstances,” he said quietly. 

Jim swallowed, knowing that the time had come for some of those answers Pike had mentioned. “Sir—what _are_ the circumstances? What’s going on? You said you knew that you can’t really be here—you implied that you knew what—what happened.” His voice cracked slightly at that. “But at the same time…” 

“I know I’m supposed to be dead,” Pike agreed. “Then again, as Phil used to say, with the advancements medical science is making these days, staying dead is starting to become optional.” 

Jim tensed. Pike—if it really _was_ Pike—could have no idea how true his statements were. Or could he? Jim glanced over at Bones, who evidently had the same thought. There was something almost angry in his eyes as the doctor said, a little harshly, “It wasn’t for you. I tried— _we_ tried—but there was nothing to be done. Christopher Pike is _dead_. I attended his burial myself.” 

“You said you weren’t expecting to see me,” Jim said, returning to the original point of the conversation. “But you were obviously expecting to see _someone_ —you knew you were contacting a Federation vessel.” 

Pike pressed his lips together, looking torn between annoyance and confusion. “I have no intention of deceiving you, boys. I—I know someone must have told me _something_ , but right now, I can’t remember when or where.” 

“Could you perhaps venture a guess as to _whom_ it was, sir?” Spock ventured. “What others exist on that planet with you?” 

“Others? What others do you mean?” 

“Sir, that clearly isn’t San Francisco down there,” Jim said, licking his dry lips. “Or do you believe that it is?” 

“I never thought of that,” Pike admitted. “No, I don’t venture to claim that we’re anywhere near Earth.” 

Jim hesitated, then said, “Less than thirty minutes ago, conditions on that planet would have made it impossible for you to exist in this form. It’s a Class X planet.” 

“Jim, I can’t explain it. I can only tell you that I am exactly what I appear to be—a common, un-mutated _Homo sapiens._ I’m just an ordinary man.” Pike faced Jim squarely, his expression serious and sad. “I’ve made mistakes, son, just like anyone else. I know I yelled at you about not respecting the chair, accused you of taking risks with your command, but the truth is I made all those errors, too, when I was just starting out. I made them up until I stepped out of command and stayed behind a desk. So many things I could have done differently, so many deaths I could have prevented…” 

“I’m sure you did all you could—” Jim stopped, thinking of his own unforgivable errors, the men he’d lost over the years, all the way back to the crewmen who had died after Jim chased down Khan despite his officers’ sage advice to slow down and think first…and even further back, to the people who had died on Tarsus IV, to his big brother and his girlfriend, to his aunt and uncle and little cousins. 

“It’s obvious you don’t believe that about yourself, Jim, why do you think I should believe it about myself?” Pike asked dryly. He shook his head. “Look, son, you’re a Starfleet captain—your mission is to explore and discover. You can find the answers out there.” He stopped, his eyes widening slightly. “That’s it—that’s what I was looking for. You and Spock are invited down to that planet—the answers are down there.” Looking back into Jim’s eyes, he added, “No need to rush into a decision.” 

Jim bit his lip, then turned to his first officer. “Spock, find Scotty if he’s not still back in the Transporter Room. We’ll discuss this in the Briefing Room in an hour.” 

“Certainly, Captain.” Spock inclined his head and strode away without a backwards look.

Pike came closer and put his hands on Jim’s shoulders. “Jim,” he said quietly. “The purpose of Starfleet is to make contact with other words, and under your charter, it would be your duty to beam down there, or at least to send a party down. As a Starfleet admiral speaking to a captain, I would recommend that you comply, that you beam down and find out what the hell is going on, make contact with whatever species _is_ actually down there.” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and looked steadily at Jim with steel blue eyes full of concern. “But as someone who cares about you, I suggest that you get the hell out of here. Beam me back down there and leave. Don’t stop, don’t beam down. I—I don’t know what’s down there. There are holes in my memory, and I suspect that’s been done deliberately. But whatever it is…for your own sake, and for the sake of your crew, don’t risk it.” 

Jim felt tears well up in his eyes. The speech was exactly the sort of thing he would have expected from Pike. And he was torn—between his duty and his desire, his logic and his emotions. He wanted answers, and under regulations, he needed to go down and get them. But at the same time, he knew Pike was right. Beaming down there would be a terrible risk. And with all the people he had depending on him… 

He took yet another deep breath to steady himself and wiped his eyes. “Would you care to see the bridge, sir?” he offered, not ignoring the advice but needing time to mull it over. “I know it’s been some time since you were in space.” 

“Thank you, Captain, I would be delighted,” Pike answered, obviously understanding. 

Jim turned to look at his husband. “Bones, you coming?” 

Bones hesitated, then shook his head. “You two go ahead,” he muttered. “I’ll meet you in the Briefing Room. And, Jim…” 

Jim took two steps closer to Bones, took his face in his hands, and kissed him. After a moment, he pulled back. “I’ll be careful,” he whispered. 

Bones nodded, turned, and walked away. Jim turned back to Pike and led him to the lift. 

As they reached it, Pike asked softly, “How long has it been?” 

Jim started. “What?” 

“Since I—since Harrison shot up that conference room. How long has it been?” 

“Twelve years, six months, two weeks, and two days,” Jim answered immediately. “Not that I’ve counted or anything.” 

“Twelve and a half years,” Pike mused, shaking his head. He glanced over his shoulder as the lift doors closed, then added, “And how long have you and McCoy been married? I’m assuming you’re married.” 

“Be ten years four months from now.” 

“I wish I could have been there,” Pike said regretfully. 

Jim looked upwards, as if towards the bridge, although he wasn’t really seeing anything. “We were in the middle of our first five-year mission at the time. We’d had a couple of close calls, and…well, we’d planned to wait until we got back to Earth, when we could have a big, traditional ceremony in Georgia, but we decided life was too tenuous and precious. Spock performed the ceremony right here, in the chapel.” 

Pike put a hand on Jim’s shoulder. “I knew you two would end up together someday…I’d always hoped I’d be able to be the one to perform the ceremony.” 

Jim looked at the man who’d been the closest thing he’d ever known to a father and said softly, “I wish you could have.” 

The doors to the bridge slid open. Slim was more or less where Jim had left him, standing by the console and talking to Sulu and Chekov. All three turned around when they heard the doors. Pike’s attention was caught by the planet on the viewscreen; he didn’t even seem to notice the others. Jim, however, caught Sulu’s eye and nodded slightly; the helmsman swallowed hard, though he still looked worried. Uhura was nowhere to be seen, probably off running an errand. Since it was Beta shift, there was nobody else on the bridge. 

Addie, still on Slim’s hip, spotted Jim, and her face lit up. “Daddy!” she squealed, struggling to get down. 

Slim tightened his grip slightly. “No, Addie, you can’t get down right now,” he said firmly. 

Pike turned his gaze from the viewscreen to Slim and stopped dead, the color vanishing from his face, his eyes widening. He shook his head. “I’m sorry. For a minute, I thought…” His voice trailed away. 

Jim cleared his throat. “Sir, allow me to introduce my son, Thomas James Kirk, and my daughter, Athena Dawn Kirk-McCoy,” he said quietly. “I think you know my senior helmsman and my senior navigator…Slim, this is—this is Admiral Christopher Pike.”

“It’s an honor to meet you, sir,” Slim said, bowing as well as he could for still holding his sister. 

Pike looked at Jim in astonishment, then slowly turned back to Slim. “How old are you, young man?” 

“Fifteen, sir,” Slim answered. 

“Fifteen?” Pike repeated. He turned to look at Jim, his expression hardening. 

Jim held up both hands. “I _swear_ I didn’t know. His mother was Alice Johnson—she was assigned to the _Farragut…”_

“I remember Cadet Johnson. Vaguely. Didn’t know her baby was yours, and believe me, son, if I had, I would have told you.” Pike turned back to Slim. “You’re a little young for Starfleet, unless they’re accepting them even younger ‘n they took the Russian whiz kid here, aren’t you?” 

Slim flushed. “Yes, sir. I’m not part of Starfleet—I’m just along for the ride.” 

“The brass refit the captain’s quarters as family quarters, so that we could stay together,” Jim explained. “Addie was…kind of a surprise. C’mere, baby,” he added, stepping around Pike and holding out his arms. 

“Daddy,” Addie said happily, wrapping her arms around Jim’s neck as Slim handed her over. Jim kissed her soft, warm cheek, smelling of baby powder and cinnamon. 

“I presume you’re planning to join Starfleet at some point, though?” Pike asked Slim, continuing the previous conversation. “Command track?” 

“No, sir, Engineering.” 

“You can do both, if you choose to.” 

“I know, sir, but with all due respect, I don’t choose to.” Slim smiled slightly. “I don’t reckon I’m cut out for the chair.” 

Pike’s smile was instantly familiar to Jim, simultaneously comforting and painful as hell. It disappeared as he said, “I’m guessing, from the fact that you’re actually talking to me and not staring at me like the rest of senior command, that you don’t actually know why I’m not supposed to be here.” 

“Mr. Sulu told me, sir,” Slim said quietly, his own smile disappearing. “But I reckon—well, sir, if my father trusts you, I ought to as well.” 

The door to the bridge slid open behind them, and Jim turned to see a very serious-looking Uhura come in. “Captain—” 

“Lieutenant Uhura,” Pike said, sounding slightly surprised but pleased. “Glad to see you’re still aboard.” 

“Where else would I go, sir?” Uhura raised an eyebrow, then turned to Jim. “Captain, Mr. Scott and Mr. Spock are waiting for you in the Briefing Room.” 

“I’m on my way. Sulu, you’ve still got the conn for the moment.” Jim hesitated, then turned to look at Pike. “Admiral—” 

Pike forestalled him with a shake of the head. “I’ve got no part in your meeting, Captain Kirk. With your permission, I’ll remain here.” 

“Granted,” Jim said with the barest of hesitation. “I’ll rejoin you shortly.” 

“Dad, d’you want me to keep Addie here?” Slim asked, holding out his arms. 

Jim had forgotten that he was still holding his daughter. He set her down and said, “Addie, stay with Slim, okay?” 

“’Kay,” Addie agreed. She ran over to Slim and attached herself to his leg. He patted her dark curls, but didn’t pick her up. 

As Jim turned to go, Pike caught his arm, gently restraining him—the way he usually had. “Jim,” he said, so quietly that no one else could hear him. “You’ve got my thoughts on the matter. I meant them.” 

Jim looked up at Pike and nodded seriously. “I’ll keep them in mind, sir,” he said softly. 

His head was spinning as he walked down to the Briefing Room. About the only thing he was sure about was the reaction he was going to get once he reached there. 

Christopher Pike was dead. There was no doubt about that. Spock had melded with his consciousness at the moment of his passing; Jim had come running in time to see his eyes film over as he took his final breath; Bones had watched them bury him in a stone sarcophagus and consoled his widower. Having heard Bones’ angry comments, he now realized that they had evidently tried the same serum on Pike that they had used on Jim, the synthesis of Khan’s super-blood, but it hadn’t worked. If Leonard McCoy and Phillip Boyce couldn’t save him, the man couldn’t be saved, it was as simple as that. 

Yet Jim had reacted as though the man really _was_ Christopher Pike. His crew was going to think he’d lost his mind. His senior command was going to give him hell for it, and honestly, he deserved it. It was just that, for a few minutes, it had been comforting to believe that he was getting the chance to talk to Pike, one more time.

As he entered, he heard Bones say in the grumbling voice that often covered up his worry, “Where the hell is he?” 

“Probably in the galley looking up a plate of haggis,” Scotty said dryly. “They’ve been everywhere else.” 

“Sorry, gentlemen,” Jim said, letting the door close behind him. “I was—delayed somewhat.” _Let the recriminations begin,_ he added to himself as all three men stood. 

Scotty’s voice, however, held no censure as he said, “What the devil is going on here? That man cannae possibly be the real thing. Christopher Pike died twelve years ago, on a planet hundreds of light-years away.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. 

“More in that direction, Mr. Scott,” Spock said, pointing down and to the left. 

“The exact direction doesn’t matter, you green-blooded hobgoblin!” Bones snapped, glaring at Spock. 

“Gentlemen,” Jim said tiredly, feeling the beginnings of a headache. “Human or alien, Pike or not, Spock and I have been invited to beam down to the planet with him. Comments?” 

“Aye, Captain,” Scotty said soberly. “Suddenly, miraculously, an Earth-like spot appears down there. Is it really there, or do we just imagine it? Ye could beam down to a sea of molten lava.” He gestured to the small scanner on the table. “At the moment, it’s a raft-like mineral crust several hundred meters thick, floating on a molten iron core. Stable at the moment, but notably unstable in its formative years. An’ the life-forms are mineral-like themselves.” 

“Captain,” Spock put in, “that patch of Earth-like environment was put there after our ship was scanned. Whoever did so determined our needs, and acted accordingly.” 

“It’s a trap, Jim,” Bones said softly. 

“What possible logic could there be to only attempting to destroy two of us?” Jim asked. 

“It would be illogical, with their demonstrated abilities,” Spock admitted. “They could easily trick us into destroying the entire vessel.” 

“Spock, are you implying that it’s probably safe to beam down?” Bones demanded. 

“I am not, Doctor. There is no doubt that they want us down there for some hidden purpose. Had their reasoning been logical, there would have been no need for secrecy and subterfuge.”

“Why Pike?” Jim asked softly. “If they’re plucking from my head, there’s a decent-sized list of personal heroes they could have chosen—people I’ve never met, people I know only from books, people I would have beamed down to meet out of curiosity. Abraham Lincoln, William Shakespeare, Anne Frank—why choose someone I know, someone whose death I’ve already witnessed? At least with the others, I might have been able to come up with a possible scenario—temporal incursion, some truth to those rumors of alien abductions that went around in the mid-twentieth century, _something.”_

“But you have an emotional connection to him, Jim,” Bones said quietly. “Shakespeare wasn’t a leader, Anne Frank was a teenaged girl, and you’ve studied enough to know that Lincoln made mistakes, a lot of mistakes. Even your father—if they’d plucked _him_ out of your head, would you have trusted him enough to beam down with him, looking for answers? Whereas Christopher Pike is someone you not only admire, but _respect.”_

“Aye,” Scotty said, nodding. “They created him knowin’ ye’d follow his advice!” 

“If I were going to follow his advice without question, we wouldn’t be having this discussion,” Jim said. “We—” 

He was interrupted by the chirp of the intercom. “Bridge to Captain Kirk.” 

Jim felt a sudden twinge of fear, then pressed the correct button. “Go ahead, Lieutenant Uhura.” 

“Captain,” Uhura said, sounding somewhere between annoyed and miserable, “a message just came from Starfleet Command requesting a thorough analysis of this star system. It—it was from Admiral Nylund, sir.” 

Jim closed his eyes briefly. Damn. “Are you still in contact with him?” 

“No, he cut the circuit fairly quickly after delivering his message.” Uhura paused briefly. “We were able to conceal our…guest from him.” 

“Thank goodness for small mercies,” Jim muttered. “All right, Lieutenant, thank you for passing on the message. Kirk out.” He switched off the intercom and looked up at the three officers. “Well, that tears it. We don’t have a choice anymore.” 

“What are you talking about? Of course we do!” Bones blurted. 

“No, Bones, we don’t,” Jim said quietly. “Scotty, when I told you that we wouldn’t be having this discussion if I was going to take Pike’s advice offhand—shortly after Mr. Spock left us to find you, Pike told me that, under our charter from Starfleet, I was obligated to examine the planet. But in a personal capacity—as my friend—he recommended that we hightail it out of here. He was right, and I probably should have done that from the start. Now, however, it’s too late. If the brass is involved—specifically, if Nylund is involved—I, at least, have to go down there.” 

“Jim,” Bones said, pleadingly, brokenly. 

“I have to, Bones,” Jim repeated. He turned to Spock. “As for you, Mr. Spock—” 

“Since I was included in the—invitation—to make contact, I must beam down with you, Captain,” Spock said calmly. 

“Ye’re both out of your bloody minds!” Scotty exploded. 

“And you’re on the edge of insubordination, Mr. Scott,” Jim said, pointing meaningfully to the recorder. He hadn’t switched it on, but it automatically came on in certain circumstances, and if it had… 

“Would it be insubordinate to remind the captain that this has the smell of things happening that I may not be able to patch back together this time?” Bones said. 

“Aye,” Scotty growled. 

“Your objections are duly noted, gentlemen.” Jim squared his shoulders. “Mr. Spock, phasers and tricorders. Mr. Scott, have someone escort Admiral Pike to the Transporter Room. We’ll beam down shortly.” 

The small gathering broke up. As they stepped out of the room, however, Bones stopped Jim. “Are you sure about this?” he asked softly. 

“No,” Jim admitted, just as softly. “But I don’t have a choice.” 

Bones pulled Jim into a tight embrace. Jim clung to Bones for a long moment before reluctantly pulling away. “I take it you’ll be staying on the bridge?” 

“I’m seeing you off first,” Bones told him, slipping an arm around his waist. “If you’ve no objections, Captain.” 

“No objections.” Bones usually walked Jim to the transporters when he had to beam down, especially if he was beaming down alone; it gave them a little bit more time together, a little longer before they had to say goodbye, always conscious that this time might be forever. As Jim had told Pike, they’d had too many close calls over the years. 

They reached the Transporter Room a few steps behind Spock. The half-Vulcan climbed onto the transporter platform and waited patiently, but Jim took the few moments left to him to lean into Bones again. Bones held him tightly, burying his face in Jim’s hair, and Jim could feel his tears drop hot onto his scalp. Jim buried his face in Bones’ shoulder and tried to suppress his own tears. 

When the doors opened, admitting Pike and the single security guard acting as his escort, Jim started to pull away, but Bones held on a minute longer. 

“Jim,” Bones whispered. “I don’t know what you’re gonna face down there, but…be safe, darlin’. Be safe and come back to me. I can’t lose you.” 

Jim looked up at his husband, knowing damned well he couldn’t promise anything. He cupped Bones’ jaw in one hand and kissed him deeply. “I love you,” he murmured against Bones’ lips. 

“I love you, too.” Bones’ voice was husky with tears. “God, Jim, I love you so much…” 

Jim kissed him again, then, reluctantly, drew back. He wiped his eyes and climbed onto the transporter platform. Pike reached over and put a hand on his shoulder, briefly, then looked directly at Bones. Bones straightened a little and nodded slightly before taking a step back to stand next to the console. 

The technician’s fingers hovered over the board. Jim squared his shoulders. “Energize,” he said shortly. 

The last thing he saw, as the beam surrounded them, was Bones, watching him with wet, worried hazel eyes.

The party of three rematerialized in what seemed to be a wild canyon. The sides were steep and studded with rocks and boulders; the floor was littered with shrubbery and small, scrubby trees. Jim looked around, wondering where these answers he was supposed to be looking for were. 

“Captain!” Spock spoke sharply. “Our weapons and tricorders did not beam down with us!” 

Jim felt under his shirt and found his communicator, but as Spock had said, no phaser or tricorder. He flipped open the small device. “Kirk to _Enterprise_ …come in, _Enterprise!”_

There was no response. Jim tried again, while Spock examined his own communicator minutely. “Undamaged,” he reported. “Yet something prevents them from functioning.” 

Jim turned to look at Pike. “Your explanation?” 

“Hell if I know, Jim.” Pike spread out his hands desperately. “I only know what I’ve already told you, and that’s damned little.” 

“The game’s over!” Jim shouted, his voice cracking with something between anger and fear, not knowing if he was addressing the man who appeared to be Pike or whatever creatures had sent him to the _Enterprise_ , or both. “We’ve gone along with who and what you think you are—” 

“Despite the obvious contradictions, I _am_ who I appear to be,” Pike interrupted, his own eyes flashing with anger but obviously trying to keep it together—probably because he knew that Jim had a point. Which did, at least, make Jim’s anger subside a little. 

“Just as I,” said a voice from behind them, “am precisely whom I appear to be.” 

Jim whirled around to see a tall, distinguished-looking Vulcan walking towards them. He was obviously older than any of the remainder of the group, although not as old as Spock Prime, showing only the rudiments of age, and walked with the erectness and strength that characterized his race. His face bore dignity and wisdom. 

“Surak!” Spock cried in outright astonishment. 

“Who?” Jim thought he should have known who Surak was, but the name stubbornly refused to come out of his memory banks. 

“The greatest who ever lived on our planet, Captain. The father of all we became.” 

Surak stopped and raised his hand in the _ta’al_ , the Vulcan hand salute. “Live long and prosper, Spock. May you also, Captain Kirk.” 

“It is not logical that you are Surak,” Spock insisted, still seeming stunned. “There is no fact, extrapolation from fact, or theory that would make it possible—” 

“Whatever I am, Spock, would it harm you to give response?” 

Spock slowly lifted his hand and returned the sign. “Live long and prosper, image of Surak, father of all we now hold true.” 

Surak smiled, and his eyes were kindly. Jim found himself trusting the Vulcan implicitly. “The image of Surak read in your face what was in your mind, Spock.” 

“As I turned and beheld you, I displayed emotion. I beg forgiveness.” 

Surak nodded. “The cause was more than sufficient. We will speak no further of it. Captain—Admiral,” he added with a nod to Pike, “in my time, we knew not of Earthmen. And I am pleased to see that we have differences. May we together become greater than the sum of both of us.” 

Jim nodded. Spock turned to him, his mask once more in place. “Captain, you do not intend to continue this charade any longer?” 

A new voice answered him, seemingly reverberating out of thin air. “You will have your answers soon.” 

Pike turned, instantly on alert, taking a half-step in front of Jim. A sound, like the chiming of bells, followed the voice, and then in front of the four appeared what looked like rainbows. Jim felt like he was trapped in one of the fairy tales Slim occasionally read Addie. The rainbows flashed, then congealed into a creature seemingly made out of rock, roughly man-sized but with claw-like appendages in place of hands and a gaping mouth, like a cave, permanently open. It sat in a rock chair apparently carved for its body. 

“I am Yarnek.” The voice was like echoes from a cavern. “Our world is called Excalbia. Countless who live on that planet are watching. Before this drama unfolds, we welcome the ones named Kirk and Spock.” 

Spock’s eyebrows drew together in a frown. Jim stepped around Pike and faced the apparition squarely, trying to remind himself to be diplomatic—this was, after all, first contact. “Yarnek, we know nothing of your planet or its customs. What do you mean by the drama about to unfold?” 

“You are intelligent beings. I am surprised you do not recognize the honor we do you.” The creature gestured with a claw. “Have we not created on our planet an exact replica of the conditions of your home world, here upon this stage?” 

Jim spread out his hands, palms up. “We recognize only that we were invited down here and came in friendship. You have deprived us of our instruments for investigating your world, of our means of defending ourselves and of communicating with our vessel.” 

“Your objections are well taken,” Yarnek acknowledged. Jim was about to sigh with relief when it added, “We shall communicate with your vessel so that your fellow life-forms may also enjoy and benefit from the play. Behold…we begin.”

“Captain,” Spock said in a low voice, “I do not like the sound of that.” 

“Neither do I,” Jim murmured, risking a glance upwards. Somewhere up there, Bones, Slim, and Uhura were going to have to listen to, and possibly watch, everything that happened down here. Which was probably not going to be pleasant for anyone involved. 

“Jim,” Pike hissed. 

At the other end of the valley, four figures came into view. One was a squat human in an odd outfit Jim had only seen in very old drawings and pictures; another, also human, wore a military outfit of the mid- to late twenty-first century, his shoulder pips proclaiming him a colonel. The other two were alien, one a male Klingon and the other a female Tiburon, a race Jim had seen in pictures but never in real life. The colonel was dapper and not unhandsome, but the others were darkly unattractive. 

“Some of these you may know through your history,” Yarnek said. “Genghis Khan, for example.” Jim tensed at the mention of the name _Khan_ , as did Spock. “Colonel Green, who ran a genocidal war on twenty-first-century Earth. Kahless the Unforgettable, the Klingon who set the example for his planet’s tyrannies. And Zora, who experimented with the body chemistry of subject tribes on Tiburon.” 

Jim was familiar with Kahless and Colonel Green— _especially_ with Green, who had committed thousands of atrocities during World War III—and he had at least a basic knowledge of Genghis Khan, but he’d never heard of Zora. Yarnek continued, “We welcome the vessel _Enterprise_ to our solar system and our spectacle. We ask you to observe with us the confrontation of the two opposing philosophies you term ‘good’ and ‘evil.’ Since this is our first experiment with Earthlings, our theme is a simple one: survival. Life and death. Your philosophies are alien to us, and we wish to understand them and discover which is the stronger. We learn by observing such spectacles.” 

Jim felt his flesh crawl. “What do you mean, survival?” he demanded. 

“The word is explicit. Should you and Spock survive, you will be returned to your vessel. If you do not, your existence will be ended. Your choice of action is unlimited, as is your choice of weapons, should you choose to use any—you may fabricate them as you desire from the materials around you. Let the spectacle begin.” 

“Mr. Spock and I refuse to participate,” Jim said firmly, fighting back the tide of panic threatening to engulf him. 

“You will decide otherwise,” Yarnek said. 

“You can’t _do_ this!” Pike shouted, but it was too late—Yarnek dissolved in the same rainbows he had come in, leaving them alone. 

Jim turned swiftly to his first officer. “Analysis, Spock. Why force us to fight?” 

“It may be simply as they say, Captain—our concepts of good and evil are alien to them. They desire to find out which is the stronger.” 

“And they’ll have their answer if it kills us,” Jim said grimly. His mind clicked over the admittedly limited options. “Do you recall the exact position we beamed down to?” 

“We have strayed from it somewhat,” Spock answered, turning slightly, “but it was just beyond those boulders there.” 

“Come on,” Jim said immediately, turning in the direction indicated. But then he hesitated and glanced back at Pike. 

“Go, Jim,” Pike said immediately. “Don’t worry about me. I’m already dead. _Go!”_

Jim nodded once and strode off, Spock behind him, feeling like he was betraying Pike nevertheless. They were soon lost to sight—but as he rounded a boulder, Jim found himself face-to-face with Pike and Surak once more. He stared for a moment, then set off on another path, only to find himself in the same place again. 

“It’s the damned O.K. Corral all over again!” he said, frustrated. “They’re not going to let us leave without their showdown any more than the Melkots did.” 

“Damn!” Pike balled up his fists. “You’re sure you can’t—?” 

From the group of potential antagonists, the colonel stepped forward, smiling charmingly, his hand outstretched. “Captain Kirk, if I may? I’m Colonel Green. We share the same attitude towards this little charade. It’s ridiculous to expect us to take place in it.” 

Jim regarded the man with open suspicion. Green stopped a few paces away, obviously realizing that Jim was not going to accept his outstretched hand right away. “What do you want?” 

“Exactly what you do—a way out of here. I have no more quarrel with you than you do with me.” 

_You have no idea how much of a quarrel I have with the very concept of everything you stand for,_ Jim thought rebelliously. “You’re…somewhat different from the way history paints you,” he said, struggling to remember exactly what he knew about Green. 

“History tends to exaggerate.” Green gave a little laugh. “I suggest we call a halt to this at once and work together to find a way out of this. My associates agree with me.” 

Jim glanced beyond Green to his “associates.” Zora was nodding approvingly; Kahless was studying the slopes curiously. Genghis—Jim’s mind stubbornly refused to think of him as _Khan_ —squatted, obviously bored. 

“You were tricked into coming here, weren’t you?” Green said, almost coaxingly. “So were we.” 

“Where did you come from?” Jim challenged. 

Green paused. “I don’t remember—isn’t that strange? My memory used to be quite remarkable.” He came forward and reached for Jim’s arm. Jim flinched involuntarily and took a step back; Green smiled and held out both hands as he continued. “But wherever it is, Captain, I want to get back to it. So it seems to me that our best option would be to join forces against the _real_ enemy—that creature.” 

“What do you propose?” Jim was stalling for time, hoping he could come up with a better alternative. 

“That we join forces and reason out some way to overcome it. Are we in agreement?” 

Jim finally remembered what he had read about Colonel Phillip Green. “As I recall, Colonel, you were notorious for striking out at your enemies in the midst of negotiating with them.” 

“But that was centuries ago, Captain!” Green said, with an even louder laugh than before. “And not altogether true! There is much that I would change now if I could.” 

“Captain!” Spock shouted. 

Suddenly everything seemed to be happening at once. Swinging around, Jim realized in a flash that Genghis had managed to get to higher ground while he was preoccupied, and was now holding a boulder. Before he could do anything, Green locked an arm around Jim’s neck, trying to wrestle him to the ground. In this, however, he made a mistake; Jim Kirk had been a hand-to-hand combat instructor at the Academy, still taught his son at least twice a month, and was a veteran of hundreds of bar fights, where anything you walked away from was a “good fight.” He knew how to fight bare-knuckled, even against much bigger and stronger opponents. 

He lashed out, his shin connecting with Green’s, and managed to loosen the arm about his neck. Using the other man’s momentum against him, he attempted to flip him over, and succeeded only in sending Green to the ground alone—which was, at least, an advantage. Jim leaped upright and away slightly, in time to see Pike wrestling with Genghis, who seemed to have missed whoever he was aiming at with the boulder. 

And then, just as suddenly, the combat was over. The four representatives of “evil” melted away into the scrub trees. Total silence enveloped them. Breathing heavily, Jim rejoined the other three. They were all somewhat battered, Spock the most of all.

“Is anyone hurt?” Jim asked. 

“Nothing serious,” Pike answered. “Good to know I can still hold my own in hand-to-hand, at my age.” 

“Spock?” 

“Quite all right, Captain,” Spock assured him. “However, I suggest we prepare ourselves for another attack.” 

Jim hesitated. “No,” he said finally. “Green was right, about that at least. The enemy is Yarnek, not…” He was about to say “the illusions,” but caught himself. They were too solid to be illusions, and he was starting to suspect he knew where they had been taken from. “Not them,” he finished, a little lamely. 

“The captain speaks wisely,” Surak observed placidly. “These four are not our enemy. We should arrive together at a peaceful settlement.” 

Pike was opening his mouth to reply when the bells chimed again and Yarnek reappeared. 

“I am disappointed,” it said. “You do not appreciate the honor we do you. We offer you the opportunity to become our teachers. By demonstrating whether good or evil is the most powerful—” 

Jim ran forward and lunged at the creature, not sure whether he intended to shake some sense into it or try to attack it. It didn’t move, but when he grabbed it, he felt as though he had grabbed a white-hot conduit. He cried out, letting go and reeling backwards. Pike caught him, staring at his scorched hands. 

“You find our body heat distressing?” Yarnek said. “You forget the nature of this planet.” 

“Let them go, Yarnek,” Pike ground out, steadying Jim. “They’re not toys for you to play with as you will! The four you’ve chosen for ‘evil,’ Surak and myself, we’re long dead, but these two—” 

“I must conclude that your species needs a cause to fight for,” Yarnek said, as though it hadn’t heard a word Pike had said. “You may now communicate with your ship.” 

His heart suddenly hammering rapidly, Jim fumbled for his communicator, managing to flip it open despite the pain in his hands. “Kirk to _Enterprise_. Kirk to _Enterprise._ Do you hear me? Come in!” 

“Be patient, Captain,” Yarnek said. “They hear you.”

Suddenly the communicator came alive in a cacophony of shouting voices, backed up by the ship’s alarm. The bridge was obviously in bedlam. 

“Mr. Scott, the captain is trying to contact us!” Uhura’s voice shouted over the noise. 

“What is it, Lieutenant?” Jim demanded, trying to ignore the conversations going on in the background, the fact that he couldn’t hear his daughter crying, which she would undoubtedly have done if she was on the bridge…and able to cry. 

“Red Alert, sir, Mr. Scott is on standby.” Uhura sounded frantic. 

“What caused the alert?” Jim demanded. Spock stood next to him, his expression helpless and frustrated. 

“I don’t know, sir. Mr. Scott, I have the captain!” 

Jim still couldn’t pick out any individual conversations in the background, and then he heard Slim’s voice. “Mr. Scott, I’ll talk to Engineering, Lieutenant Uhura has the captain!” 

“Huh? Oh, aye!” Suddenly Scotty’s voice was louder and clearer. “Captain, Scott here.” 

“Beam us aboard fast, Scotty,” Jim said, his heart rate increasing. 

“I cannae, sir, there’s a complete power failure. We’re on emergency battery power only.” 

“What’s happening?” Jim asked, looking helplessly at Spock, then at Pike, whose face reflected Jim’s pain. 

“I cannae explain it, sir. Matter and antimatter are in Red Zone proximity. No knowing how it started, and no stopping it either. Shielding is breaking down. Estimate four hours before it fails completely. That’ll blow us up for sure!” 

“The estimate is quite correct, Captain.” Yarnek’s voice echoed from just beyond where they stood. “Your ship will blow itself to atoms within four hours—unless you defeat the others before then. Is that cause enough to fight for?” 

Jim suddenly found it very difficult to draw breath. “What if they defeat us?” 

“To save your ship and your crew, you must be victorious.” 

“Scotty, alert Starfleet Command,” Jim shouted, not even caring if it was Nylund they got so long as they got _someone_. “Disengage nacelles and jettison if possible. Scotty, do you read me?” 

“Your communicators no longer function, Captain,” Yarnek said. “You may proceed with the spectacle.” With the shimmer and chime, he disappeared once more.

“History repeats itself.” Pike sounded resigned. 

“I see no logical obstacles in fighting illusions, Captain,” Spock put in. 

“And if they’re not illusions?” Jim gingerly felt at his neck, where he could tell bruises were beginning to form. 

“The needs of the many—” Spock began. 

“Outweigh the needs of the few, or the one,” Jim completed. “Yes, Spock, I recall the saying.” 

“He’s right, Jim,” Pike said. He put a hand on Jim’s shoulder. “I don’t know if I’m really here or not—I assume I am—but either way, it’s kill or be killed, and you can’t condemn four hundred and thirty people to death by just refusing to fight.” 

Jim hesitated. “This is the _Kobayashi Maru_ all over again,” he said at last. “I still don’t believe in no-win scenarios. It may not come down to a choice between killing four people or condemning four hundred and thirty to death. There’s _got_ to be an alternative.” 

“There is,” Surak said. “In my time on Vulcan, we faced these alternatives ourselves. We had suffered devastating wars that nearly destroyed our planet, and another was about to begin. We were torn. And out of our suffering, some of us found the discipline to act. We sent emissaries to our opponents to propose peace. The first were killed. Others followed. Ultimately, we achieved peace, which, as I understand, has lasted since then.” 

“The circumstances were different then,” Pike argued. 

“The face of war never changes, Admiral. We have been hurt. So have they. Surely it is better to heal than to kill.” 

“Do you realize what you’re asking?” Pike demanded. He gestured to Jim. “His _children_ are aboard that ship, Surak!” 

“And you would wish them to believe their father a murderer?” Surak turned to Jim. “I am a man of peace, Captain. I will not fight.” 

“I admire your convictions, Surak,” Jim said slowly. “But…” 

“The risk would be mine alone,” Surak pointed out. “And if I fail, you would lose nothing. I am no warrior.” 

Something about Pike’s expression suggested Bones preparing to call Spock a “green-blooded hobgoblin,” a comparison that strengthened Jim’s resolve. “Do as you think best,” he said quietly. 

“Thank you, Captain Kirk. May you live long and prosper.” Surak gave him the _ta’al_ , then departed. 

Turning back to the other two, Jim said quietly, “In case he fails, I think we should prepare some weapons.”

They fell to work, without speaking at first. Jim hoped Surak would succeed; he really didn’t want to fight, which surprised him in a dull way. But he was a realist, and he knew that, no matter how reasonable Surak was, the four representatives of “evil” would never come to his point of view. Spock was visibly agitated; he kept pausing in fashioning crude boomerangs, or gathering rocks, to look after Surak. 

“A brave man,” Jim said at last, also pausing to look in the direction the Vulcan had headed. 

“Men of peace usually are, Captain,” Spock said absently. “On Vulcan—among the Vulcan people—he is revered as the Father of Civilization.” 

“You show emotion, Mr. Spock,” Jim said dryly, hoping to inject a flash of humor into the situation but afraid Spock would think he was twitting him. 

All Spock said, however, was, “I deeply respect everything what he has accomplished.” 

“Let’s hope he accomplishes something here,” Pike muttered. 

As if on cue, a scream of agony rent the air. Spock shot upright. “Surak!” 

Jim, with more years of experience with screams than he cared to think about, nodded grimly. “And it sounds like he’s being tortured.” 

Pike reached over and gripped Jim’s shoulder tightly—he knew Jim’s story—as Colonel Green’s voice carried over to them from a great distance. “Mr. Spock! Your friend wants you. He seems to be hurt!” 

“Help me, Spock!” Surak’s voice called, raw with pain. It hurt Jim just hearing it; he clenched his fists tightly. 

“You can’t let him suffer!” Green called. 

“They’re trying to goad us into attacking,” Pike said in a low voice. 

“And Surak was aware that this might happen when went.” Spock’s voice was strained, and Jim, looking over, could see his friend’s agony as another scream split the air. 

“I never should have agreed to let him go,” Jim muttered, feeling the familiar twinge of despair at having sent another to his death. 

“You could not have stopped him,” Spock began, but was cut off by yet another scream. He looked like he was in utter agony.

Jim, too, was badly affected by the screams, but they were striking a false note with him. He glanced at Pike. “Something’s not right,” he said. “Those screams—they’re wrong.” 

“He is being tortured,” Spock said sharply, rounding on Jim. “I fail to see what could be ‘right’ about that.” 

“Spock, you’re Vulcan,” Jim said, turning to face his first officer. “Would a Vulcan cry out like that? No matter _how_ much pain he was in?” 

Spock stopped, looked in the direction Surak had gone as another scream rent the air, and rallied. “Whether he is Vulcan or not, he is in agony.” 

“I’m not insensitive to that fact, Spock, but—” 

“You may be able to ignore it, Captain, but I cannot.” Spock began to stride towards the sound. 

Jim grabbed his arm, holding him back. “Spock, don’t be an idiot! That’s what they _want_ —they’re hoping we’ll try to rescue him. My God, man, get ahold of yourself. I need your logic right now, not your emotions!” He let go of Spock’s arm and dropped his voice. “I’ve got enough of those for the both of us.” 

Pike stepped up to join the two of them. “Maybe we _can_ rescue him,” he said quietly. “I suggest, gentlemen, that we do what they want.” 

“Do what they want?” Jim repeated dumbly, staring at Pike. 

But there was a steely light in Pike’s eyes—something that reminded Jim of himself. “Not the way they want it, though. First we have to convince them that they’ve provoked us to recklessness. I’ll circle around to the back while the two of you provide a frontal distraction. Make sure it’s violent enough to cover what I’m doing.” 

“Which is?” Jim prompted. 

“Slipping into the camp and freeing him.” 

“No,” Jim said immediately. 

“I’m Academy-trained, too,” Pike reminded him. “I might’ve been desk-bound for a few years, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been taught to do this sort of thing. And I grew up in Mojave. It’s a lot like this. I grew up in this kind of environment.” 

“I can’t let you risk it,” Jim said, his voice cracking slightly with emotion. 

Pike’s expression softened. He came forward and took Jim’s shoulders in his hands. “Jim,” he said quietly. “I’m already dead. I don’t know where these bastards found me, or how they got me here, but I know I’m already dead. You’re not. You’re alive, you’ve got your whole life ahead of you. You’ve got a son who’ll be a man before you know it, a daughter who looks to you for guidance, a husband who loves you so much it kills him. Your crew needs you. Remember, we’re doing this for them.”

Tears burned at Jim’s eyes, but he took a deep breath and nodded, wiping them away. Pike nodded and stepped back. He turned to Spock with a serious expression. “You remember what I told you, Spock—the day after I gave Jim the _Enterprise?”_

“Yes, sir,” Spock said softly. “And I have always endeavored to keep that promise.” 

“Good.” Pike squared his shoulders and turned back to include both men in his gaze. “One more thing, gentlemen. We fight on their level. With trickery, brutality, and finality. There is no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is no good in war—except its ending. And the only way to end this war is to win.” 

Jim looked up at the man who had believed in him when he couldn’t believe in himself. “Admiral Pike, your campaign,” he said. 

Pike reached over and squeezed Jim’s shoulder, the way he’d done in that San Francisco bar more than twelve years before. “It’s gonna be all right, son,” he said quietly. 

Jim bit back a moan of distress at the echo of the last words of comfort Pike had ever given him. All he could do was squeeze Pike’s hand tightly before, reluctantly, letting him go.

They crept together down the valley. Pike slipped away from them, circling, keeping hidden, to sneak into the back of the enemy camp. Jim and Spock made their way towards the front. Genghis and Green were on watch. Jim made no effort to remain hidden, “accidentally” letting himself be seen several times as he and Spock slipped from boulder to boulder. By the time they were in range, the other two had appeared as well. 

With the wordless communication born of years of working together, Jim and Spock rose as one, threw a spear apiece, and ducked back down. Jim’s spear narrowly missed Genghis, who, with a bellow of rage, threw boulder back with equal accuracy. Jim flinched as a chip of rock nicked his ear. 

When he looked back up, Green had gone; a moment later, Zora and Kahless disappeared as well. Jim wondered uneasily at the maneuver, but had no time to think before Green reappeared, holding a spear. He flung it at Jim, forcing him to dive to one side. When he got up this time, Green was gone and Zora was back. 

And then Surak’s voice, which had died away some time before, suddenly returned, stronger than ever. “Help me, Pike!” 

Jim froze momentarily, knowing the awful truth. It had never been Surak calling out to them. Someone was imitating his voice—someone with great skill. They had been lured into a trap. And Pike had fallen right for it. 

Spock caught his eye from where he crouched behind a boulder. Jim nodded, briefly, and both of them broke cover and charged.

It was difficult, afterwards, for Jim to sort out the battle. Zora was closest to his position, so he went for her while Spock went for Genghis. She hit him with a rock, making him stumble, but the minute he closed with her it became clear that, no matter how much she may have known about body chemistry, she was no fighter. He managed to hurt her to the point that she couldn’t attack further; she lay on the ground and looked up at him fearfully. 

Spock and Genghis were grappling, and seemed fairly evenly matched, but Jim had no time to assist before Kahless charged out of the trees, spear at the ready. Jim lunged for it and let his training take over. The struggle was violent, and Jim was aware of none of it until it stopped, very suddenly, and he realized that Kahless the Unforgettable lay on the ground with his neck bent at an unnatural angle, clearly dead. Jim snatched the Klingon’s spear from his hand and leaped to his feet. Genghis, seeing him, broke away from Spock and ran. 

Not that far away, Green took off running, too. Jim gritted his teeth, adjusted his grip on the spear, and threw it as hard as he could at the man’s back. 

He didn’t miss. 

Breathing heavily, Jim turned to Spock. “Are you all right, Mr. Spock?” 

“Rather bruised, but I shall recover, Captain,” Spock said, also panting. 

“Jim,” a voice croaked. 

Forgetting his injuries and exhaustion instantly, Jim took off running towards the sound of the voice. In the middle of the camp, he stopped, the blood draining from his face. 

Surak lay on the ground at the base of a tree, on top of some cut ropes. He was dead. There were drag marks on the ground, starting from behind him, and leading to where Christopher Pike lay on his side, gasping for breath. One of the crude spears Green and his “associates” had fashioned stuck out of his abdomen, and he was soaked in blood.

“No, no, no…” Jim muttered, dropping to his knees next to Pike and supporting his head, scanning anxiously. “Hold on, just hang on, we’ll get you to the _Enterprise_ and—” 

“Jim,” Pike said feebly, wrapping his fingers lightly around Jim’s arm. “I told you, son. I’m already dead.” 

“I lost you once already,” Jim whispered, tears flooding his eyes. “I can’t lose you again.” 

“I’m always…with you, Jim.” Pike coughed, closed his eyes briefly, then looked up at Jim again. There was no fear in his eyes, no sorrow—only a gentle tenderness, and something more. “I’m…so proud of you.” 

He smiled, flexed his fingers briefly against Jim’s arm…and then the light went out of his eyes, and his head lolled back against Jim. 

Grief-stricken, Jim lowered Pike gently to the ground and stood, not bothering to check the tears pouring down his face. He looked up at Spock, who also looked distressed. The Vulcan’s dark eyes moved from Pike’s body to Surak’s and back, before raising to meet Jim’s. Neither could find anything else to say. 

And then came the bell-like chiming again, the shimmering of rainbows, and the creature called Yarnek appeared before them again. 

“You are the survivors,” it said. “The others have fled. It appears that evil will run when forcibly confronted. However, you have failed to demonstrate to me any other differences between your philosophies. Your good and your evil use the same methods, achieve the same results. Can you give me any explanation?” 

“You established the methods and the goals,” Jim reminded Yarnek. 

“For you to use as you chose.” 

Jim gestured towards the clearing where the bodies of three of the four competitors lay. “What did you offer them if they won?” 

“What they wanted most—power.” 

“You offered me the lives of my family,” Jim said simply. 

“I perceive,” Yarnek said thoughtfully. “You have won their lives.”

Jim was too tired, too hurt, and too sad to summon up even a shred of the anger he’d shown to the Melkots when they had confronted him after putting him through a similar rigmarole. Spock, on the other hand, was not. “Yarnek, how many others have you done this to?” he demanded. “What logic gives you the right to hand out life and death?” 

“The same right that brought you here,” Yarnek replied. “The need to know new things.” 

“We came in peace—” Spock began. Jim placed a hand on his forearm, restraining him. 

“And you may go in peace.” With that, Yarnek disappeared. 

Jim flipped out his communicator. The pain in his hands, which had subsided, seemed to return tenfold. “Kirk to _Enterprise.”_

“Scott here.” 

“Scotty, beam us up.” 

The sparkle of the transporter beam surrounded them. Jim gave one last look at Pike’s face, serene in death, before they disappeared. 

Scarcely had the _Enterprise_ reappeared around them when Jim heard a broken cry. _“Jim!”_

An instant later, Bones was right there, flinging his arms around Jim and pulling him tightly to his chest. Jim clung to him desperately, burying his face in his husband’s shoulder and feeling himself start to tremble. The adrenaline was wearing off, the aches and pains sustained during the fight starting to make themselves known…and then there was the fact that Pike had just died in his arms, for the second time. 

He was vaguely aware of the fact that Uhura had leaped onto the platform, too, and was holding onto Spock just as tightly. In the background, he heard Slim’s voice, slightly shaky but perfectly clear. “Transporter Room to bridge.” 

“Go ahead, laddie.” Scotty’s voice was slightly subdued. 

“Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock are safely back aboard, sir.” 

Jim managed to pull back from Bones, at least a little. “Slim, tell him we’ll be up shortly,” he said softly. 

Slim relayed this information. Bones looked worriedly at Jim. “Jim…oh, God, Jim, we saw everything…are you sure you can go up there? You’re hurt…” 

“I’ll be all right,” Jim said. He hesitated, then added, “Once we’re clear of the system, though…yeah, I—I think I need my hands treated, at least.” 

“With your permission, Captain, I will accompany you to the bridge,” Spock said. 

Jim managed a slight smile. “Granted, Mr. Spock.” He got off the platform, a process made more difficult by the fact that he didn’t let go of Bones, but he needed the physical contact just then. Bones evidently did, too, because he kept his arm wrapped around Jim’s waist. 

Spock and Uhura both got down as well. As he headed for the door, however, he stopped and looked at Jim. “Sir—they could not have been real. Could they?” 

Jim hesitated. Finally, he said, “The Excalbians demonstrated a number of highly advanced skills, Mr. Spock. They could have created anything they wanted, simply by reading our minds and rearranging molecules to suit themselves. However…I see no reason to believe that they could not have plucked their combatants themselves from any point in time.” He looked up at his first officer. “I don’t know if they _were_ real or not, Spock. But they _could_ have been.” 

Spock licked his lips, but said nothing.

Slim trailed after the other four as they returned to the bridge. Scotty made no effort to disguise his relief when he saw them. “Captain, it’s good to see ye again,” he said. 

Jim nodded. “How’s the ship, Scotty?” 

“Fine, Captain. Everything sorted itself out the minute ye won the contest. I’ve no explanation.” 

“The Excalbians are likely telepaths, Scotty—of a different sort than the Melkots, to be sure, but with the same sort of abilities,” Jim said. “As Spock said before we ever beamed down there—if they’d wanted to destroy us, they could have.” 

“Aye, there is that.” 

Jim crossed over to the chair and sat down gratefully, feeling as though he’d been on his feet for the past three hours. “Mr. Sulu, onward to our next assignment.” 

“Aye, Captain.” Sulu gave Jim a smile over his shoulder before easing the throttle forward. 

Jim turned to look at Slim, who was still standing by quietly. “How’s Addie?” he asked, suddenly aware that he hadn’t seen his little girl since beaming back aboard. 

“She’s okay,” Slim answered. “Yeoman Rand has her. I’ll go grab her while you’re getting patched up.” 

“She didn’t see what was happening, did she?” Jim asked, suddenly worried. 

Slim shook his head quickly. “Soon ‘s we realized what was goin’ on, we got her off the bridge.” 

“Good.” Jim relaxed.

Twenty minutes later, he felt comfortable summoning Beta shift to take their places on the bridge, and ten minutes after that he lay back on a table in Med Bay, watching quietly as Bones ran a regen over the cuts, bruises, and burns. He took special care with the palms of Jim’s hands; the burns were only first-degree ones, but they were still sore and tender. 

After a few minutes, Bones set aside the regen and leaned on the tray table. He put his free hand over his eyes, and his lip trembled slightly. 

“Bones? Bones, what is it?” Jim sat up anxiously, reaching out for his husband. 

Bones looked up at Jim, his expression completely vulnerable, tears pouring down his face. “They made us watch,” he whispered. “They acted like they were conferring this big honor on you by making you _fight to the death_ , and they made us watch and acted like _that_ was a big damned honor, too, and I almost lost you and _the bastards made me watch…”_

Jim jumped off the table, not caring if Bones was done with him or not, and grabbed Bones’ arm. “Come on,” he said quickly. He could see that his husband was about to fall apart, and he knew he needed to get him out of Med Bay before he did. For every doctor or nurse who knew Bones well, there were three more who weren’t so familiar with him, and Bones was conscious of image. If he broke down in the middle of Med Bay, he would probably lose the respect of at least one nurse or orderly, which was ridiculous, but Bones would never forgive himself.

He steered Bones up to their quarters. It was about two-thirds of the way through Beta shift, so the halls were deserted, and they made it up quickly. Jim was able to get Bones all the way into their bedroom before he completely lost it, grabbing Jim around the waist and bursting into racking sobs. 

Jim tugged Bones down onto their bed, scooted back, and pulled him into his lap. He fought back his own tears, his own pain and sorrow. Bones needed him. It wouldn’t help if he fell apart, too. Instead, he stroked his husband’s hair tenderly, hoping Bones wouldn’t notice that his hand was shaking. 

“I almost lost you,” Bones whispered, his voice raw with tears. “I almost lost you right in front of me, and I couldn’t do a damned thing about it…” 

“Bones,” Jim whispered, tightening his grip. He knew it hadn’t been that close of a call—not for him—but it had evidently been too close for Bones. Then again, any call was too close a call for Bones. 

“An’ then Pike…dammit, Jim, I was _there_ when they buried him, I cried with Boyce afterwards. I didn’t want to believe that was really him. But…we heard everything he said to you, him and Surak. Every damned word. An’ I saw him die in your arms…” 

Jim couldn’t hold back a small sob. He closed his eyes tightly, trying to block out the memory, but he knew it would never leave him. He’d lost his father-figure for the second time, been just as helpless as the first time to do anything about it, and even though this time he was able to cling to the words _I’m so proud of you,_ he didn’t know for sure if it was really Pike who had said them, or just a shadow pulled from his mind. He didn’t know if Pike was really proud of Jim, or if it was just that Jim wanted so badly for Pike to have been proud of him that the Excalbian projection had absorbed that. 

“Jim?” There was something a little different in Bones’ voice as he said Jim’s name. “Oh, God, Jim, I’m sorry, I’m so damned sorry…I shouldn’t have said that, I…oh, God…” 

“Bones,” Jim choked out, opening his eyes and looking down at Bones. 

Bones shifted himself so that he wasn’t leaning on Jim, but curled up next to him. He tried to get a little further up, so that he was the one protecting Jim instead of the other way around, but Jim stopped him. He adjusted his arms around Bones and pulled him closer, so that he could rest his chin on Bones’ shoulder. Bones did the same, tucking his face into Jim’s neck, and both of them cried. 

They fell asleep like that, Bones still fully dressed in his medical uniform, Jim shirtless and wearing the torn and dirty uniform pants and scuffed shoes he’d worn on the planet, on top of the sheets and tangled in one another’s arms and feeling one another’s hearts beating against each other’s chests. 

And if, in the morning, they discovered that someone had removed their socks and shoes and tucked them in and turned out the lights, they never mentioned it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone who hasn't seen the original episode, and was curious...the original episode had Abraham Lincoln in the role I gave to Pike.


	44. But He Swore

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The movie described in this chapter is a real movie. I have not made up a single thing about it. If you haven't seen it, you really, really need to. It's hilarious.
> 
> And having a frame of reference will make certain comments a LOT funnier.

All of them were more shaken by what happened on Excalbia than they were willing to admit, even the ones who hadn’t been directly affected. It was two weeks before Jim’s nightmares eased up, and it was another two weeks after that before Leo stopped holding him as tightly as he possibly could, for fear he would slip away at night. 

Spock, too, was unusually quiet, unusually tactile. Whereas he had always shied away from overmuch physical contact, walking around the _Enterprise_ with his hands clasped behind his back most of the time, Leo noticed that, in the weeks following the experience, Spock never passed Uhura without touching her in some way—a gentle caress of her arm, a light touch on her hair, or the double brush of the fingers that constituted a Vulcan kiss. She, for her part, seldom let him pass without returning the contact in some way. 

The afternoon after they had cleared the Excalbia system, Jim had sat on the sofa with his son and told him everything about Christopher Pike, from how the man had found him in a Riverside bar to how his death—his first death, his true death—had touched off the chain of events that nearly cost Jim his own life. Slim had taken it all in, had asked no questions, and had never referred to it again. He’d bowed his head and put his shoulder to the grindstone, throwing himself headlong into his studies and the occasional duties in Engineering. But Leo had heard him playing his harmonica, the one that had once been Pike’s, a lot more often in the last month. 

Addie had been unusually difficult, or maybe it just seemed that way because Jim and Leo were both still so raw and vulnerable. Leo almost suspected that she was taking advantage of it. Jim had difficulty disciplining her under ordinary circumstances, but she was running roughshod over him lately, and the man who could command a complete starship with ease was fast meeting his Waterloo at the hands of his toddler. Leo tried, but he didn’t like feeling like the “bad guy” any more than Jim did.

Leo sighed as he finished up the last of his paperwork and left Med Bay, intent on getting changed and then going to grab something to eat. It was about an hour into Beta shift; ordinarily Slim and Sulu would have been having their fencing practice right about now, but it was Sulu’s day off, so they’d probably fenced earlier in the day. It would give Sulu and Chekov more time alone together, anyway. 

As he reached the doors of his family’s quarters, he heard a sudden explosion of noise from within. So tense was he that he couldn’t immediately identify it and assumed it was a noise of distress. Quickly, he punched in the entry code and rushed in—then stopped. 

Slim, Sulu, and Chekov were all sitting in the living room. They had evidently been there a while, as indicated by the large blue bowl, empty except for a few stray popcorn kernels. And they were laughing. Leo felt his heart slow down to a more normal rate as he edged quietly into the room. _Nothing dangerous. Just innocent fun,_ he thought, studying the holoscreen and trying to figure out exactly what the plot of the movie his stepson and friends were watching. 

Then the character on the screen, wearing a black swashbuckler’s costume, held up a hand mirror dramatically and declared, “I want the world to recognize _Zorro, the Gay Blade!”_

_“What?!”_ Leo cried, unable to stop himself.

At that, all three of the watchers burst into even louder, more uncontrollable laughter. Slim actually fell off the couch, he was laughing so hard. Chekov clutched at his side, giggling helplessly. Sulu managed to pause the movie, but tears were rolling down his face as he laughed. 

Leo couldn’t help but laugh, although not at whatever they had been laughing at, but at the three of them laughing. “Okay, seriously, though,” he said at last, leaning on the back of the sofa. “What the hell are you watching?” 

_“Zorro, the Gay Blade,”_ Slim answered, trying to get his laughter under control. “It’s…every bit as bad as it sounds.” 

“It’s hilarious. Why don’t you join us?” Sulu said, wiping the tears from his eyes, still chuckling sporadically. 

“You’re partway through the film. I’ve already missed a lot,” Leo protested, although secretly he really wanted to know what was going on. 

“We’ll back it up. C’mon, Doctor, you look like you could use a laugh.” 

“Well, when you put it like that…” Leo sat down in the armchair. “Where’s Addie?” 

“Aunt Nyota promised her this morning that if she was good today, they’d have a ‘girl’s night’ when she got off shift. Last I heard, she an’ Aunt Carol were gonna take Addie up for dinner, then give each other mani-pedis.” Slim hauled himself off the floor and back onto the sofa.

Sulu restarted the film and put his arm around Chekov’s shoulders. Chekov leaned into the helmsman, smiling contentedly. Leo smiled, too, at the picture they made, then turned his attention to the movie. 

He started laughing less than a minute into the film, when the narrator informed him imperiously that the landowners considered Zorro “a real pain in the ass,” which declaration was accompanied by a black-and-white image of someone carving a Z into a man’s backside. As the rather extended opening credits rolled, backed up by soupy, romantic music, he calmed down enough to ask, “Am I going to be lost? I’m vaguely familiar with Zorro, but I’ve never seen one of the films.” 

“No, you’ll be able to keep up pretty well,” Sulu assured him. “Technically this is set a generation after the original films, but it’s not a sequel by any means.” 

The credits ended and opened on a sappy romantic scene that had Leo rolling his eyes—until the woman followed the man’s praise by asking, “Then why doesn’t my husband ever say so?” 

“Did she really just—?” Leo choked. 

Sulu and Slim both laughed. Chekov turned faintly pink, but grinned. Leo couldn’t help but laugh, especially as the scene just kept getting more and more ludicrous.

It quickly became clear that, while Leo wasn’t lost by the plot, several of the jokes were lost on him. The film was obviously a spoof of the original films, and if Leo had seen them, he would have probably understood why the other three snorted on occasion. But it was a hilarious story nonetheless. As soon as Esteban and Florinda were introduced, Leo nearly peed his pants laughing at the by-play between the three characters. 

Some of the jokes, however, fell flat. Ten minutes into the film, there was an unexpected shot of a man being broken on a wheel; while it was bloodless and short, Leo couldn’t help flinching at the sight of it. Slim saw him and reached over to grip his hand lightly. “I never liked that part, either,” he said quietly. 

Leo squeezed his stepson’s hand and refocused his attention on the film. 

The door swished open behind them a minute later, immediately following Esteban screaming, “THE WOMAAAAAAN IS ALLOWED TO SPEAK!...But arrest anyone who listens.” 

“What the hell are you four watching?” Jim’s voice exclaimed from behind them. 

Before anyone could answer, a minor background character ordered the people, “Go home, my children! You have heard enough idiots speak today!” 

Sulu and Leo looked at Jim, then at one another, then burst into hysterical laughter. Neither of them could explain why.

Chekov paused the film, and Slim giggled before telling him, “We’re watching _Zorro: The Gay Blade._ Wanna join us?” 

“Is this a _porno?”_ Jim’s eyebrows shot up into his hairline. 

His incredulous expression sent both Leo and Sulu into new spasms of laughter. Chekov turned brick red, which only made them laugh harder. Slim covered his mouth with his hand and made no real effort to conceal the fact that he was laughing. “No, it’s just a spoof of the old Zorro films. C’mon, have a seat, you haven’t missed but the first fifteen minutes or so.” 

Jim still looked wary, but seated himself on the floor at Leo’s feet. “What _did_ I miss?” 

As Slim gave his father a quick run-down of the story so far, Leo got his mirth under control and studied his husband. Jim still looked tired, but at least he looked a little more human than he had in the past month. 

“And that’s pretty much it to this point,” Slim concluded. “It only gets better from here on out.” 

“Okay, I’m willing to give this a shot,” Jim answered, leaning back against the chair. Leo tangled his hand absently in Jim’s hair as Chekov pressed the play button again. 

It was obvious from the first look that passed between Don Diego Vega and Charlotte Taylor Wilson that they were going to end up together by the end of the film. But despite that, the interplay was pretty funny.

“Why is he asking his _mute_ servant to read his letter _aloud_ to him?” Jim asked, half-laughing and half-exasperated. 

“In case you haven’t guessed, Dad, Diego ain’t exactly the brightest candle in the chandelier,” Slim said, laughing. 

“He reminds me of you, Jim,” Leo teased. 

“Shut up.” Jim smirked up at his husband. 

“If the captain is Diego, does that make you Charlotte Taylor Wilson, Doctor?” Sulu asked with a grin. 

“I’d look good in that outfit, don’t you think?” Leo chuckled. Slim cracked up. 

As the film continued, all five of them were in a more-or-less constant state of hilarity. When Diego’s first inspiring speech as Zorro declared that he was there to “help the helpless, to befriend the friendless, and to defeat…the featless,” Leo remembered Jim’s first diplomatic mission and nearly cried, and when Florinda and Charlotte were introduced to one another, Sulu looked at Leo and nearly bit his tongue in half trying not to laugh. Leo had to admit that he could see himself behaving in exactly that manner. 

“Are you _sure_ this isn’t a porno?” Jim asked when Florinda made a double entendre. 

“Pornos don’t have this much plot to ‘em,” Slim said with a perfectly straight face. 

Leo and Jim both looked at Slim in unison with expressions of such horror that all three of the younger men cracked up.

“Seriously? Seriously? You have time for romance in the middle of a swordfight?” Sulu demanded, not two minutes later. 

“‘Fear not, fair maiden!’” Jim quoted. 

Sulu blushed. “Shut up.” 

Leo felt Jim relax against him, even as he convulsed with laughter, and he knew this film had been a good choice. Not ten minutes later, however, when Paco stomped on Diego’s broken foot and effectively won their fencing spar, Slim ceased his laughter and said quickly, “’Bout a minute of a reign-of-terror montage comin’ up.” 

Heeding the warning, Leo placed one hand over Jim’s eyes, closing his own tightly. There were no accompanying screams, only music, and after a moment, Slim said, “It’s over.” 

Leo opened his eyes and gave Slim a weak smile of thanks. Less than a moment later, he groaned at Diego’s horrible pun, which made Jim laugh. 

“There ain’t any more sequences like that,” Slim assured them, chuckling a little as well. “Just fighting and—” 

“What the ever-loving hell?!” Jim squeaked out as a figure in a parasol rode into Diego’s courtyard. 

“And fabulousness,” Slim completed, giggling outright now.

It wasn’t long before they reached the point in the film that Leo had walked in on. Now that he knew the context of the line, it was even funnier. And the subsequent scenes had him in stitches. 

“You know, at the beginning, I thought the ‘gay’ part of this film was Esteban and Diego, but now…” Jim trailed off, watching as “Zorro” did some fancy work with his whip and giggled his way through terrorizing the dons. 

“Trust me, it gets even heavier as the film goes on,” Slim assured him. 

“I don’t see how it could _possibly_ get any heavier,” Jim protested. 

“Just watch.” 

Even the “romantic” scene between Zorro and Charlotte made Leo chuckle; the rest of the time, he was laughing so hard he almost couldn’t see the screen. He was thankful that Addie wasn’t trying to sleep, or they would undoubtedly have woken her. And Slim was right—every interaction between Esteban and Diego made it clear that Esteban had some unexplored and unresolved feelings towards his “boyhood _amigo.”_

“Is Peter the Dressmaker a real saint?” Sulu wheezed out between his laughter. 

“Of course not,” Chekov giggled. 

“This is my favorite sequence coming up,” Slim admitted. 

The “prayer” had all of them laughing, but when Esteban bellowed _“FRUITCAAAKE!”_ at the top of his lungs, Leo almost fell on top of Jim, and Sulu had to pause the film again because none of them could _breathe,_ they were laughing so hard.

Leo realized that the movie was exactly what the doctor ordered, for all of them. By the time they got to Florinda’s second masked ball, all five of them were themselves again. Even Slim looked less serious than usual, more like the fifteen years he actually was and less like the man-child he usually appeared. 

“That man looks better in a dress than some women I know,” Leo said dryly. “Including my ex-wife.” 

“You know that’s the same actor, right?” Slim said. 

“As what?” Leo raised an eyebrow. 

“George Hamilton played both Diego and—uh—Bunny Wigglesworth.” 

“Still looks better in a dress ‘n Joss ever did,” Leo said. Jim snorted. 

The moonlight scene between Diego and Charlotte probably wasn’t intended to be funny, but Leo couldn’t help laughing. It was just so over-the-top and ridiculous. 

“Not an ounce of romanticism in your soul, is there, Bones?” Jim smiled up at him. 

Leo kissed his husband’s forehead lightly. “Plenty, darlin’, but only when it comes to you.” 

Jim laughed. His laughter ceased instantly, however, when the _peon_ suggested threatening Charlotte to flush out Zorro. One hand came up to grip Leo’s hand, which was resting on his shoulder. Leo squeezed his fingers back in complete understanding. He noticed that Sulu, too, had tightened his arms around Chekov. And when Diego looked Esteban in the eyes and whispered _free her and I’m yours,_ Chekov let out a soft whimper and clutched Sulu’s arm more tightly. Even the admittedly funny lines in the subsequent exchange didn’t bring a smile to their faces.

And then Bunny showed up, in a gold satin Zorro outfit, and freed his brother. Jim exhaled with relief. “I should have known that would happen,” he murmured. 

“Would that—” Slim began, but he stopped himself. “No, I ain’t goin’ there.” 

“You’ve already started,” Leo pointed out, quirking an eyebrow as the brothers bantered lightly. “Might as well finish.” 

Slim paused the film and looked sideways at Leo, a very Jim-like smirk playing about his lips. “If you’re Charlotte an’ Dad’s Diego…would that make Uncle Spock Bunny?” 

There was a split second of silence. And then, simultaneously, all four members of the senior command completely lost it. Slim just sat in the middle of it, grinning smugly. 

“Oh. My. God,” Jim wheezed, clutching his side. “I…I mean, that’s totally what he would do in that situation, but…oh, my _God…”_

“Can you imagine Spock wearing some of those costumes?” Sulu giggled. 

“I was trying _really_ hard not to, thanks, Sulu.” Leo closed his eyes, trying to banish the mental image of the stoic Vulcan wearing a fringed teal hat and matching satin cape, brandishing a whip. 

“What would Mr. Spock say if we asked him to say something like a sissy boy?” Chekov asked innocently. 

“Probably ‘something like a sissy boy,’” Leo answered. The comment had sent Jim into further paroxysms of laughter.

It was probably ten minutes before they had calmed down enough for Slim, who was obviously satisfied with the result of his comment, to restart the movie. Having laughed so hard, they were a lot calmer and were able to watch the rest of the film in its proper spirit. 

“Thanks, Slim, I needed that,” Jim sighed, wiping tears of laughter out of his eyes as the credits rolled. 

“Is this the first movie y’all have watched tonight?” Leo asked, remembering that he’d come in no more than half an hour into the movie and the popcorn had already been gone. 

“No, we’ve been watching since about one in the afternoon,” Sulu admitted. “Things have been so tense lately that…well, we figured we all needed a laugh.” 

“Zis was ze third,” Chekov added. 

“What were the first two?” Jim asked. 

_“Beetlejuice_ and _Ghostbusters,”_ Slim answered. 

“I’m surprised,” Leo said, raising an eyebrow. “As many swashbuckling movies as y’all watch, I’d have expected you to watch _The Court Jester.”_

“Never heard of it,” Sulu said. 

“Never—Slim, you’ve heard of it, haven’t you? It’s from the nineteen-fifties, I think.” 

“I—I think so. Danny Kaye, right? I know Mr. Pinkerton had it to play at the Roxie, but I always missed it.” 

“You—Sulu, pass me the remote,” Leo said commandingly. Sulu complied, and Leo began flipping through the ship’s film library, which covered everything from the early silent films to the most recent holovids. “Slim, want to go get Addie? She’d like this one, I think.” 

“I ran into Uhura earlier,” Jim said, looking up at Leo with a soft smile. “She asked if she and Spock could keep Addie tonight.” 

Leo paused in his scan, looking down at Jim in surprise. It wasn’t that he objected to Addie spending the night with her godparents—far from it. It was just that he’d never expected Jim to actually agree to it. “Well, that’s—that’s good, too,” he managed. He looked up and caught Slim’s eye, and was relieved to see that his stepson was just as surprised as he was.

_The Court Jester_ was a musical, a lighthearted romp through a medieval setting, and Leo knew it by heart—it had been his grandmother’s favorite movie, and her grandmother’s before her. In fact, he could trace a direct line back from himself to one of the extras who made up the Black Fox’s band. At the first introduction of Jean, the captain of the band, Slim sat up straighter. “That’s—that’s Mrs. Banks from _Mary Poppins_ , ain’t it?” 

“Glynis Johns,” Leo confirmed. 

“It’s weird seein’ her with dark hair,” Slim mused. 

A little later, when the character of Ravenhurst first appeared on the screen, Chekov and Slim exclaimed in unison, “Basil Rathbone!” 

“Where do you know him from?” Leo asked, startled. 

“He played the villain in _The Mark of Zorro_ —and in _The Adventures of Robin Hood,_ the one with Errol Flynn,” Sulu explained, grinning. “He was younger then.” 

“I can imagine.” Rathbone as Ravenhurst was an old man, obviously stiff and uncomfortable in his movements, but still able to carry the part fairly well. “Now listen to the princess’s voice…” 

Jim’s face lit up. “Is that Mrs. Potts?” 

“Yeah. When she was _much_ younger.” 

“So the princess grew up to be a teapot? Spock would approve of _that_ logic.” 

Leo snorted, but dropped a kiss on the top of Jim’s head.

While not as outright hilarious as the previous film, _The Court Jester_ did have some excellent jokes in it, and all of them cheered when the Black Fox’s band, accompanied by Hubert’s small friends, successfully defeated Ravenhurst and his men. Hubert and Jean got their happy ending, and they ended the viewing with smiles all around. 

“God, is it really that late?” Sulu caught sight of the chronometer inset as the movie wrapped up, returning them to the main library screen. “We should get out of your hair…c’mon, Pasha. ‘Night, Captain, Doctor…’night, Slim.” 

“G’night,” Slim said with a smile. 

Jim raised his hand in a wave, and Leo flashed a grin and a nod as the two younger officers extracted themselves from the sofa and exited the quarters, their arms about one another’s waists. 

“Those two make an adorable couple,” Jim mused, watching after them. 

“They do.” Leo smiled broadly. “Remind me of us, back when we first got together.” 

“The ‘honeymoon phase.’” Jim smiled up at Leo, then turned to Slim. “Want to go ahead and get your pajamas on, son? I’ll be there in about five minutes to read with you.” 

“Thanks, Dad, that’d be great.” Slim smiled and stood. “’Night, Pa.” 

“Goodnight, Slim.” Leo stood up, carefully avoiding stepping on Jim, and gave Slim a hug, then tousled his hair roughly before sending him towards the bedroom with a light swat on his rear. 

Jim scrambled to his feet and smiled up at Leo again, kissing his cheek lightly. “I’ll be back in a minute,” he promised.

Leo took a shower and changed into his pajamas, then plumped up the pillows and climbed onto his side of the bed, stretched out, and picked up the PADD with the most recent medical journal. Fifteen minutes later, Jim came into their room, crossed over to Leo, and kissed his forehead. 

“Hey,” Leo said with a smile. “How’s your book?” 

“Pretty good. I’ve seen the movie series they made in the early twenty-first century, but I’d never read the book itself before. They added a lot to it to plump it out into three movies, I guess.” Jim ran a hand through his hair. “I’m gonna take a quick shower, and then I’ll join you, okay?” 

“Sounds good,” Leo agreed. 

He finished the article he was reading and set the PADD aside just as Jim came out of the bathroom, his hair plastered against his head and wearing his grey sweatpants. “Feeling better?” 

“Much,” Jim agreed. He slipped into bed and tucked himself against Leo’s side, humming contentedly. 

Leo cuddled his husband. “Lights, two percent,” he said. The lights dimmed obediently, and Jim and Leo lay back against their pillows.

“That boy’s got a mind like a well,” Jim said after a moment. “Still waters run deep and all that.” 

“What do you mean?” Leo asked, looking down at the dim outline of his husband against his chest. 

“He mulls over questions for ages before he asks them. I think he tries to solve them himself, and if he can’t, then he’ll ask.” 

“He’s like you in that.” Leo smiled, knowing how much Jim hated to ask for help. 

He felt Jim smile in return. “Yeah, I guess.” 

“What brought this about?” 

“Hmm? Oh, you mean why mention it now?” Jim sighed. “We were getting ready to start reading when he looked up at me and asked me where Addie came from—you know, how they made the zygotes.” 

“Did you go into the technical details?” Leo asked, a little amused. 

“Started to, but he interrupted and said that wasn’t what he meant. He knows how the process works, more or less. What he wanted to know was…” Jim swallowed. “He’s smart, Bones. I forget how smart he is sometimes. He couldn’t figure out how they obtained my half of the DNA.” 

“What did you tell him?” 

“The truth. Bone marrow.”

Leo tightened his arms around Jim. It was something they tried not to think about too much, but when Jim had climbed the warp core, he had died of radiation poisoning. When they first started discussing the idea of having children someday, Jim had been devastated to learn that Leo’s serum had restored all biological functions but one: sperm production. He was sterile, as far as traditional methods were concerned. Scientists had extracted bone marrow—a much more painful process than sperm extraction would have been—and used it to create the genetic material that had combined with Leo’s to produce the zygotes, one of which had eventually become Addie. 

“How’d he take that?” he asked quietly. 

“He accepted it,” Jim answered. “Picked up the book and asked if I wanted to start or wanted him to.” 

Leo smiled. “That’s our boy.” 

Jim sighed and snuggled more closely to Leo’s chest. Leo stroked his hair lightly, wishing he hadn’t said anything. The laughter and joy of earlier was gone, replaced with a quiet sort of regret, the specter of Pike’s first death and Jim’s. Then again, he had to admit, it was still a return to normalcy. They’d both been so tense lately that even curling up together like this had brought them little comfort. At least tonight they were talking about what was wrong. At least, Leo thought, they’d be able to sleep better, knowing things were more like usual.

Seeming to read Leo’s thoughts, as he often did, Jim murmured, “I haven’t been myself lately.” 

“I’ve noticed.” Idly, Leo ran a finger over Jim’s chest, just below his heart. Although the light was dim and made it difficult to see clearly, he knew Jim’s body well enough to know the location of every mark and scar. Curving along the bottom of Jim’s left pectoral muscle was a line of poetry, Jim’s first tattoo, the one he’d gotten just after he started at the Academy. “It’s not easy, watching your father die. I can’t imagine having to do it twice.” 

Jim’s arms tightened slightly around Leo’s waist. “I always forget you had to watch your father die, too,” he said softly. 

“It wasn’t the same, darlin’,” Leo said, nuzzling Jim’s cheek. “My dad was sick. I’d had time to…to prepare.” 

“It’s still not easy.” 

“No, it isn’t. And I’m proud of you for the way you’ve held it together this time.” Whether the man had really been Pike or not, Jim had watched his death, had actually seen him die in his arms. Leo had been a little afraid that Jim would seek retribution against the Excalbians, but Jim had evidently taken the words he’d spoken at the _Enterprise’s_ rededication ceremony to heart. 

“I have the best support network in the world.” Jim reached up to cup Leo’s jaw. “I have you.” 

“I love you, Jim,” Leo whispered. 

“I love you, too, Bones.” Jim captured Leo’s lips in a tender kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seriously. [You need to see this movie.](http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8562B85E8C40C450)


	45. Suitcase Packed

“Addie, please—” 

“No!” 

Slim closed his eyes briefly on hearing what was rapidly becoming an all-too-common occurrence. Most things had finally gone back to normal after the Excalbians, and, okay, Addie being stubborn and argumentative was normal. After all, she was three months off of her second birthday, and she was a Kirk, so she had what Louisa May Alcott had referred to in _Little Women_ as “firmness of character.” Even Slim could be stubborn when he wanted to be, although he’d learned pretty early on to temper it. 

The trouble was Jim. From the pieces he had picked up about his dad’s life, he guessed that Jim was afraid to push Addie too hard because he was afraid of ruining his relationship with her. And after Excalbia, he had been pretty emotionally fragile. (Really, it had been a year of extreme emotional fragility among the _Enterprise’s_ crew, and Slim was glad it was almost over.) But Addie was taking advantage of that and running roughshod over her father, and Jim seemed helpless to stop it. 

Leo was having trouble dealing with Addie, too. Their relationship seemed to mostly involve lectures and yelling and lots of the word _no_. And Slim knew it was breaking his stepfather. _He_ was starting to worry that Addie would look back on her childhood and her only memories of her papa would involve conflict.

After their movie night, Slim had thought it was getting better. It had helped that Spock and Uhura had started taking Addie one night a week; Uhura didn’t let her get away with anything, and while Spock was susceptible to a dimpled smile and a “p’ease, Unca ‘Pock,” he was better at remaining firm in the face of childish intractability. Slim had really started to believe that things would be all right. 

But Addie with her parents was nothing like Addie with her godparents. Slim suspected that largely had to do with the fact that Jim and Leo didn’t put their feet down quite as firmly as Uhura and Spock did. Leo had said he didn’t want Addie growing up spoiled, and certainly the one time he’d spanked her she had taken the command to heart, but he seemed almost afraid to do it again. 

Slim found himself spending less time with his sister, and he felt guilty about it, but he really couldn’t take it. He was reluctant to reprimand her in front of Jim or Leo, so he tended to only be around her when it was just the two of them. 

He was contemplating slipping out and heading to the mess hall in advance of the other two when Jim came out of Addie’s room, looking on the verge of tears. Without seeming to notice Slim, he collapsed into the armchair and buried his face in his hands. 

“Dad?” 

Jim started, raised his head briefly, and finally saw his son. “Oh…Slim,” he said, a little dully. “Everything all right?” 

“I was going to ask you that,” Slim said, glancing at Addie’s door. 

Jim sighed heavily, dropping his head again. “I can’t get her to put her socks and shoes on. I mean, I know in the grand scheme of things, it’s not that big a deal, but she can’t run around barefoot—or in her socks. But when I tried to put them on her, she kicked me in the face and started screaming.” 

Slim sighed, too. “Yeah, I heard.” 

“I’m sorry, Slim.” 

“It ain’t your fault, Dad.” Slim glanced at the door. “Want me to try?” 

Jim shook his head. “You don’t deserve to have her hate you, too. I just need a minute to regroup and then I’ll try again.” 

Slim was about to argue, but thought better of it. “Okay, Dad.”

Jim looked up, managing the ghost of a smile. “Whenever you say ‘okay, Dad’ in that tone, I know you’re biting your tongue. What is it?” 

Slim hesitated, wondering if his father would really want to hear what he had to say. Finally, he blurted out, “What’s Addie wearin’ today?” 

Jim looked startled, but answered, “Yellow dress.” 

“You’re tryin’ to get her in her tights an’ Mary Janes, then?” 

“No—socks and sneakers. Why?” 

“Try the Mary Janes. She probably won’t argue ‘bout that.” 

“Oh, God,” Jim muttered. “She’s not even two and she’s already obsessing about _shoes.”_

Slim smiled. “It ain’t that, Dad. Trust me.” 

“Okay…I’ll give it a shot.” Jim took a deep breath and stood up.

Slim drifted after his father as he went into Addie’s bedroom. She wore a short-sleeved yellow dress—a soft, buttery yellow rather than the brilliant gold of Jim’s uniform, but still yellow—and sat on her bed, her arms crossed over her chest and a petulant sulk on her face. 

“Okay, Addie,” Jim said cheerfully. “Let’s get your shoes on.” 

“No shoes,” Addie insisted. 

Jim moved the little white sneakers aside and dug out the black shoes with the little strap, which he held up. “Even if you wear these?” 

Addie’s lip withdrew slightly. She eyed Jim askance, obviously not ready to argue but also not willing to capitulate. When he picked up the socks, however, she immediately tucked her legs underneath herself. “No!” 

“Tights, Dad,” Slim said softly. 

Jim looked over his shoulder in surprise. “What?” 

“There’s a pair of black tights in the top drawer, they’ll fit over her diaper.” They were working on potty-training Addie, but she hadn’t yet progressed to being able to wear training pants. “Get those out.” 

Jim slowly extracted the tights and turned to Addie. “Want to wear these?” 

Addie looked over at Slim, who raised one eyebrow but said nothing. Slowly, she untucked her legs and lay on her back. Jim breathed a sigh of relief and wrestled her into the tights, then slid the shoes on her feet before standing her up. “Good girl, Addie,” he told her. 

Addie beamed. “Daddy,” she said, throwing her arms around his neck. 

Jim scooped her up and turned to Slim, gratitude in his eyes. “C’mon, you two, let’s go have breakfast.”

The rest of senior command was already in the mess hall when they arrived. Leo stood up, looking worried. “There you guys are—I was starting to think something had happened.” 

“Small crisis trying to get Addie ready this morning.” Jim smiled, although it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Anyone need a refill while we’re up?” 

Everyone shook their heads. Leo plucked Addie from Jim’s arms, settling her on his lap, as he and Slim headed to the food slots. 

“How’d you know?” Jim asked quietly as he punched in the commands for his meal. 

Slim paused in the act of collecting his own breakfast. “How’d I know what?” 

“How’d you know she wouldn’t fight the Mary Janes?” 

“Oh. She’s wearin’ yellow.” 

Jim stared. “That doesn’t exactly answer my question.” 

Slim looked up at his father. It wasn’t so far to look anymore. “As much as Addie hates wearin’ shoes—an’ she really does, less ‘cause she doesn’t like shoes an’ more ‘cause she likes arguin’—if she’s in a yellow or blue dress, or yellow or blue shirt an’ black pants, she’ll wear her Mary Janes without fussin’.” 

Jim opened his mouth, closed it, collected his food and Addie’s, and made his way back to the table. Slim followed, wondering what it was he’d said that had upset his father.

“Addie, you have to eat _something,”_ Leo was pleading when they returned. Slim bit back a groan. Another fight, _already?_

“No!” Addie turned her head away from the fork Leo was holding out to her. It was scrambled eggs, her favorite, so Slim knew she wasn’t refusing to eat it because she didn’t like it—she was just saying “no” because it gave her power. 

“C’mon, baby, it’s scrambled eggs,” Leo coaxed. “You love eggs.” 

Addie gave him a slightly shifty look. Slim knew that expression. He usually got it when he gave her a direct order, too. It was the look that said she wanted to do whatever it was he was telling—or asking—her to do, but that she was going to refuse simply because he told her to. “No,” she told him. 

“Athena, refusing to eat is illogical,” Spock said. He spoke calmly, but his eyes were concerned. “You require sufficient nourishment to support your—” 

“Spock, she’s not even two yet, she doesn’t understand what you’re saying,” Leo interrupted, sounding slightly irritated. 

Slim set down his tray. “You’d be surprised. She picks up a lot…hey, Addie, bet I can eat all my toast faster ‘n you can eat all your eggs.” 

“Nuh-uh!” Addie narrowed her eyes at him, then reached for the fork Leo was still holding. 

Slim ordinarily ate somewhat automatically, but this time he made a point of chewing ten times before swallowing, so that Addie could “win” their race without choking on her eggs. She kept her gaze fixed on him, a challenging look in her eyes. When she finished the last bite, she clapped her hands, still holding the fork. “Addie win!” 

“Good job!” Slim said enthusiastically. He caught Jim’s eye and winked. Jim mouthed _Thank you_ over the rim of his coffee cup.

Leo glanced at Scotty as Addie grabbed her apple juice. “Scotty, do you need Slim in Engineering today?” 

Scotty shook his head. “I put all the older engineers on Alpha today. We’re recalibrating the quantum pulse grid, and that’s dangerous and tricky. Sorry, laddie, ye can’t watch this one.” 

Slim nodded, then turned to his stepfather, anticipating the reason for the question. “Want me to take Addie today?” 

“Please? Carol could use a break, I think.” Leo glanced down at Addie. 

“Sure thing,” Slim said easily. “We’ll have a great time, right, Addie?” 

Addie smiled around the spout of her cup. 

The group dispersed a few minutes later, Leo heading to Med Bay, Scotty heading for Engineering, and the others heading for the bridge. Slim took Addie’s hand. “Okay, Addie. Do you want to play with your puzzle box, or do you want to go dance?” 

Addie’s brow puckered in thought. It was a very Leo-like expression. Finally, she said, “Puzza.” 

“Puzzle box? Okay. Come on.” Slim adjusted his grip on her hand and headed up to their quarters. 

She tried to pull her hand from his and run down the corridor when they reached the appropriate deck, but he tightened his grip on her hand. “Addie, no,” he said sternly. “Remember what Pa told you ‘bout runnin’ away.” 

“No wun,” Addie said dutifully. 

“Good girl.” Slim smiled at her. She smiled back as they reached their door.

Ten minutes later she was happily engaged in her puzzle. She was past the stage of putting everything in her mouth—mostly—but Slim still watched her carefully. Partly it was to make sure she didn’t accidentally get hurt, but partly he was watching _how_ she worked the puzzle. He, as a small child—as far back as he could remember, anyway—had approached puzzles from an engineer’s standpoint. He would study the whole puzzle from every angle, work out as much of it as he could before he touched a single piece. Addie’s method was more trial and error. She would pick up a piece, try to make it fit, and set it aside if it didn’t. She rarely thought to rotate or flip a piece, even though Slim could see that it would fit if she turned it in a certain direction. In Addie’s mind, if it didn’t fit the way she’d initially tried, it didn’t fit at all. It never occurred to her that there might be more than one way of doing a puzzle. 

_She’s sure no engineer,_ he thought. _Wonder what she will be?_

She was still a toddler, scarcely more than a baby. Nobody really thought about what she would be when she grew up. Sometimes Slim suspected that Jim and Leo were actively avoiding thinking about that. He could understand that, to a point. After all, virtually everyone who met Addie reminded them that she wouldn’t be little forever; they probably didn’t want to think about it more than necessary. But now, watching her methodically go through each piece to find one that might fit the slot she was trying to fill, Slim found himself wondering. 

She certainly had a forceful personality; she’d make a hell of a captain someday, if she decided to go that route. But she would have to start somewhere. Not everyone was fortunate enough to go straight from the Academy to command of a starship; most people started with a more basic position. So even if she decided to go the command route, she would have to select something to specialize in, something she wanted to do besides order people around. 

What else did she enjoy, what else did she do? Well, she was fond of the stars; if she could get through the science better than he could, she’d make a hell of an astrophysicist or astrologist. Or maybe she’d decide to be a pilot or a navigator, like Sulu and Chekov—put that love of the stars to immediate practical use. Then again, he thought wryly, as much as she loved to talk, she might be a communications officer like Uhura. Really, about the only two places on a starship he was sure she _wouldn’t_ fit were Engineering and Medical. Engineering was obviously out—she didn’t have the right mind for it, you could tell even at this age—and, somehow, he just couldn’t see her as a doctor or a nurse.

After what seemed like a long time, Addie held up the puzzle, beaming proudly. “Did it!” 

“Good job, Addie!” Slim enthused. He glanced at the chronometer, then added, “Do you know what we do to celebrate solving puzzles?” 

Addie stood up excitedly, still holding the box, and shook her head. Slim bent down and whispered, “We read a _story!”_

“’Towy!” Addie clapped her hands, dropping the puzzle in the process. Slim caught it—barely—and set it on the shelf. “What ‘towy?” 

“Hold on.” Slim picked Addie up and set her on the sofa. “You stay here. Big girls who solve puzzles all by themselves deserve special stories.” 

“’Kay,” Addie said happily, snuggling back against the cushions. 

Addie certainly had no shortage of PADDs full of stories and picture books, and she had not yet found what Leo referred to as _“the_ book”—the one book that, evidently, every child had, the book they insisted on having read over and over again until everyone who came in regular contact with them had it memorized and groaned when it came into view. But Slim didn’t go into Addie’s room to get them. Instead he went into his own room, got flat on his belly, and reached under his bed for the bag there. 

This was an incredibly dilapidated bag, held together with PVC tape in some places and inexpertly sewn patches in others. A few frayed fibers showed where the shoulder strap had formerly been attached. It had once been black, but had faded to a rusty brown except for slightly darker patches where one could see that the initials AMJ had been picked out in embroidery stitches long ago. 

Slim had carried this bag from foster home to foster home for as long as he could remember, stuffed in the bottom of his suitcase, the straps having given way before he was ever given possession of it. He had never shared it with anyone—not even his father. It was his prized possession…the only thing he had left of his mother.

Carefully, he worked the zipper open. He scanned the contents thoughtfully, then selected the largest object, about eighteen inches long by ten inches wide by two inches thick. He carried it into the other room as if it was made of glass—which, really, it might as well have been. It was in remarkably good shape, considering its age, but that didn’t change its age, nor its potential fragility. 

Addie’s brow furrowed as she saw Slim return. “Dat?” she asked, pointing with a chubby finger at the object. 

Slim picked Addie up and sat down on the sofa, settling her on his lap, leaning his back against the arm rest and stretching his legs out. “This is a book, Addie.” 

“Book?” Addie looked incredibly confused as she looked from Slim’s hand to the PADDs on the shelf above her. She pointed at them. “Book.” 

“No, Addie,” Slim said patiently. “Those are PADDs. They have books _on_ them. This is a _real_ book.” He ran a hand reverently over the cover. “Feel that, but be nice to it, okay?” 

Addie touched the book lightly. “Book,” she repeated. 

“Yes. This book is a very special book. It’s very, very old.” Slim smiled down at his sister. “It has lots of stories in it, but we’ll just read one, okay?” 

“Fwee,” Addie suggested. 

Slim laughed. “We’ll compromise. How about we read two?” 

Addie thought for a moment, then smiled. “’Kay.”

Carefully, Slim opened the cover. Just inside, on what he had been told was called the _endpapers_ , was a somewhat inaccurately-drawn map of the Earth, done in shades of orange, with dark brown words underscored with lines pointing to various points on the map. “See, Addie? These are where all the stories come from. They’re from all over the world—all over Earth, I mean. Where we come from.” 

“Eawf,” Addie repeated. 

Slim turned the pages slowly—they were thick and glossy, but he knew they were still potentially fragile. The book had been well-loved before it had ever passed into his possession, and he had read it fairly often. There was a page towards the back that had been mended with tape because he had accidentally torn it trying to escape a picture that had terrified him at the age of five. He skipped over the table of contents, which he knew by heart, and the introduction, which wouldn’t interest Addie, before stopping at the first story. The double-page spread had a large, colorful drawing depicting a man crouched high in the branches of a tree as dark, savage-looking men swarmed the base of it. 

“Here we go. ‘Ali Baba,’” Slim said. Clearing his throat, he began, “‘There lived in ancient times in Persia two brothers, one named Cassim, the other Ali Baba…’”

Addie settled back against his chest as he read. It was her favorite position when she was being read to, especially when it was by a man; Slim figured she liked feeling the rumble of their voices. The story was a long one, and by the time Morgiana had brought the old cobbler to sew her former master’s body back together in preparation for burial, Addie’s thumb had crept towards her mouth. Slim suppressed a smile and kept reading. 

The next story was an American folk tale, from the Mi’kmaq nation, located in Maine and the eastern parts of Canada (although the line on the map at the front had indicated the Great Lakes area instead). “Little Burnt-Face” was far shorter than the first story, covering only three pages, but it was a beautiful story with lovely artwork. Slim gentled his voice, rested his chin lightly on the top of his sister’s head, and read the beautiful myth, on its surface a Cinderella-type story about a girl whose elder sisters were cruel to her, but whose gentleness and kindness won out in the end. In actuality, the titular character represented the desert, scorched and scarred by the heat of summer, refreshed by the rain and the dew. 

By the time Little Burnt-Face and the Great Chief celebrated their marriage, and her sisters slunk home in disgrace, Addie had drifted off for her morning nap. Slim smiled at her fondly. He considered reading on—it had been some time since he’d read these stories, and the fourth one had always been a favorite of his—but somehow, it didn’t feel right. He wanted to share it with Addie. Carefully, he closed the book and set it on the shelf above his head. 

He had every intention of getting up and putting Addie in her cot, but she looked so comfortable, snuggled against his chest. Slim planted a light kiss to the top of her head and thought he’d just sit for a few minutes before he got up. It seemed to him that he closed his eyes for no more than a second, but he felt Addie shifting in his arms and opened them to see her yawning and rubbing at her eyes. Glancing up at the chronometer, Slim bit back an exclamation of surprise. 

They had both been asleep for nearly two hours.

“Hey, Addie,” he said instead, smiling down at his sister. “Did you have a nice rest?” 

Addie nodded, looking up at him with her big blue eyes. She pointed to the shelf. “Book?” 

Slim was surprised. Addie detested sitting still, usually. He decided she was probably intrigued by the novelty of a real paper book—another quality that would make her a good Starfleet member someday—and he was certainly not going to waste the chance to entertain her so easily. “Sure, we’ll read another story.” 

He pulled down the book and opened it. It fell open easily to the next story—unsurprising, as many times as he had read it, touched the picture, and even fallen asleep over its pages. Addie touched the picture lightly. “Dat?” 

“You’ll see, baby.” Slim cleared his throat. “‘The Emperor’s New Clothes.’” 

Addie listened to the story raptly. It was a short one, and it had her giggling, which indicated that she had got the point of the story, at least. When he finished, she clapped her hands. “More!” she demanded. 

“We’ve gotta save some for later.” Slim closed the book firmly, secretly pleased. “Don’t you want lunch first?” 

Addie watched as Slim put the book back on the shelf. She reached for it. “Book.” 

Slim stayed her hand gently. “No, Addie. Don’t touch.” 

“Book!” Addie insisted. She pulled her hand free of Slim’s and reached for it again. 

Slim slapped the back of her hand lightly. “No!” 

Addie withdrew her hand and looked up at him with a hurt expression, two big tears in her eyes. Her lower lip began to tremble. Slim made his voice as tender as possible. “You can’t touch this without my help, Pumpkin. It’s heavy and very, very old. It’s very special to me, too. Okay?” He wiped the tears away with the ball of his thumb. “Tell you what. Let’s go have lunch. If you eat _all_ your lunch _and_ behave in the hallway, we’ll read _three_ stories when we get back. How’s that sound?” 

Addie thought about that for a moment, then finally nodded, wriggling off of his lap to stand on the floor. “’Kay.” 

Slim stood up, slipped his shoes back on, and took Addie’s hand. “Come on, then.”

Addie didn’t pull at his hand like usual. She stayed right by his side, holding his hand tightly and concentrating with unusual seriousness on the walk. They reached the mess hall, and Slim led Addie over to the food slots. “Okay, Addie. Do you want chicken and rice, or spaghetti rings and meatballs?” 

“Sketty,” Addie answered immediately. 

Slim bit back a laugh. He’d called it “sketty” when _he_ was first learning to talk, too, at least as far back as he could remember. “You got it. Coming right up.” He punched in the order for Addie’s food, then for his own. “Hold my pants, Addie.” 

Obediently, Addie latched onto his pant leg as he picked up her meal in one hand and his in the other, then headed for a table. She climbed into a chair and propped herself up on her knees so that she could reach. Slim sat next to her and got a spoonful of the spaghetti rings. As he was holding it up to her mouth, she stretched out her hand. “Addie do!” 

Slim paused. Theoretically, Addie could feed herself; in practice, Slim usually did it, especially when she was eating something tomato-based. Otherwise he ended up needing to give her a bath. But she’d been awfully good all morning. “Okay, Addie, here’s the deal. You can do it yourself, but if you get spaghetti sauce all over you, I’ll have to give you a bath before we read any more stories. Okay?” 

“’Kay.” Addie took the spoon from Slim, then stopped. She looked at the plate, then at her clean shirt, then at her hand, before looking back at Slim and displaying four chubby fingers. “Fow?” 

“Four what?” Slim was slightly confused. 

Addie took a moment to consider her words. “No baff,” she said at last, pointing to her spaghetti, then held up four fingers again. “Fow ‘towy.” 

Slim stopped his jaw from dropping, but only barely. “Fair enough. If you don’t have to take a bath, we’ll read four stories when we get back.” 

Addie grinned ear to ear, then took a very careful bite.

Slim had decided to go with a salad, although he probably ruined the healthy benefits by smothering it in Thousand Island dressing. As he ate, he watched his sister. She leaned well over the table and concentrated very hard on each spoonful, opening her mouth as wide as she could and chewing thoroughly before taking another bite. When she reached for her juice, she paused, then carefully set the spoon down in the bowl. 

At last, she held up the bowl. “Addie done!” 

“Good job, Addie!” Slim said, with every ounce of sincerity he possessed. Her mouth was smeared with tomato sauce, but there wasn’t a drop on her clothes or the table around her. He stacked her dishes and his, then pulled out a packet of wet wipes and leaned over. “Here, let me wipe your face…” 

To his surprise, she burst into tears. He paused, halfway to her face. “Addie, what is it? What’s wrong?” 

Whimpering, Addie pointed to her mouth. Slim frowned—and then realized what her problem was. “Oh. _Oh._ Addie, it’s okay, you did good, you did really good. You didn’t make a big mess. I just need to wipe your face—like I wipe my face, see?” He wiped his own mouth with the wet wipe, not entirely for show—he could feel a couple flecks of dressing at the corners. “There. See? Addie’s a big girl. Addie can feed herself without making a mess. You don’t need a bath. If you’re still good on the way back to our quarters, you still get four stories.” 

Addie relaxed. She smiled and let Slim wipe her face and hands, then held his hand while he disposed of their dishes.

Once they reached their quarters again, Addie looked hopefully up at Slim. “Book?” 

“Yup. You did everything you were supposed to do, so we’ll read four stories.” Slim sat down on the sofa again. Addie climbed into his lap, bouncing slightly with excitement as he pulled down the book and opened it up. “This one is one of my favorite stories. ‘The Basilisk.’” 

He probably could have kept reading after four—Addie was definitely interested enough—but he also knew it was important to stick to the limits he had imposed. He’d said four stories and he had to mean it. Anyway, the stories he did read were relatively long ones. At the end of the last story, he closed the book carefully. “That’s four stories, Addie. We’ll read more another time, okay?” 

Addie looked ready to argue, but Slim raised his eyebrows slightly and she nodded. “’Kay.” 

“Good girl.” Slim kissed the top of her head and stood up, wincing at the cramp in his legs—he’d been sitting in one position too long. “I’ll be right back.” 

He went into his room and put the book away, then came back. Addie beamed up at him. “’Lim!” she said happily, holding up her arms. 

Slim scooped her up and kissed her cheek. “I love you, Addie.” 

Addie planted an open-mouthed kiss on his cheek in reply. “’Ove ‘ou, too.” 

“Do you want to go dance, or do you want to stay here and have music?” Slim asked her. 

“Moosic,” Addie said without hesitation. 

“Your wish is my command.” Slim set her down and bowed theatrically, which made her giggle. He pulled his harmonica out of his pocket and sat down on the sofa. 

Addie stood in the middle of the floor, clapping her hands. When Slim started playing, she bounced up and down for a minute, then began to dance, whirling and twirling and giggling in time to his music. He played through a set of peppy jazz pieces, nice and fast and with good rhythm. She didn’t miss a step. 

At last, slightly out of breath, he lowered the harmonica. “Yay, Addie!” 

“Yay, ‘Lim!” Addie clapped delightedly. “Mowe!” 

Slim smiled and picked up the harmonica again. This time, he played more of the “cowboy songs” that held his heart. He started out with some of the bouncier ones, then eased into the slower trail songs and the long, languid love songs. Addie leaned against his knees, her eyes drooping heavier and heavier. At last, as quietly as he could, he played a song he’d only ever heard called “Night Herding Song.” By the time he’d finished playing, Addie had fallen asleep on her feet. 

As carefully as he could, Slim scooped her into his arms. Her head lolled against his shoulder and her fingers wrapped in his shirt; she gave a soft sigh and smiled without opening her eyes. Not wanting to disturb her, he stretched out on the sofa again, letting her sleep against his chest. He stroked her back lightly and sang softly. _“Goodbye, old Paint, I’m a-leavin’ Cheyenne…”_

He wasn’t aware of how late it actually was, but less than three songs later, the door slid open, admitting Leo and Jim. Slim looked up and smiled. “Hey,” he said softly. 

“Hey, yourself.” Jim also kept his voice down. “I’m sorry for dumping her on you all day, but Carol was practically crying when I picked Addie up yesterday. Are you okay?” 

“Just fine.” Slowly, Slim sat up, then got to his feet. “Let me go put her down.” 

When he came out of Addie’s room, Jim and Leo were seated on the sofa. Both looked worried. “What did you do all day?” 

Slim shrugged, sitting down on the armchair. “She worked on her puzzle box for a while when we first got back—solved it, too. By then it was ‘bout time for her mornin’ nap, so I read her a couple of stories. She fell asleep after the second one. I dozed off, too—didn’t mean to, but I reckon I was just real comfy. When we woke up, I read her another story. She wanted me to keep goin’, but I talked her into havin’ lunch first. We came back here an’ read four more stories. Then I played my harmonica for her. She danced for a while, then started getting’ drowsy. Finally fell asleep…maybe ten, fifteen minutes ago.” 

Leo stared at him. “How the hell did you get her to sit still for _seven_ stories?” 

“I ain’t too sure of that myself,” Slim admitted. “I reckon it’s just that they were new to her. An’ she liked the pictures.” 

“Did she behave when you got lunch?” Jim asked. 

“Sure did. Stayed right by my side the whole time, an’ she fed herself an’ didn’t spill a thing.” 

“You didn’t have _any_ problems with her at _all?”_

“Not a one.” Slim didn’t consider her having tried to touch his book a “problem” per se; she hadn’t put up too much of a fuss, and she’d calmed down when he told her “no” and explained why.

“Teach me your secrets,” Jim said. He spoke in a joking tone, but there was a serious look in his eyes. 

Slim decided to listen to the eyes rather than the tone of voice. “Where d’you want me to start, Dad?” 

Jim glanced at Leo, then back at Slim. “This morning, when you knew how to get her dressed without fuss. How’d you know that about the Mary Janes?” 

“You’ve done that before, too,” Leo put in. “I saw you with her, on your birthday. You tricked her into thinking that pink shirt was red and got her to put on her shoes…” 

Slim couldn’t help but be a little surprised that neither one of them had picked up on it. “Uniforms.” 

“I’m sorry?” 

“She knows the uniform colors. If she’s wearin’ a blue or yellow dress, she’ll wear black tights an’ her Mary Janes, an’ if she’s wearin’ a blue or yellow shirt—or that one dark pink one that looks kinda red—an’ black pants, she’ll wear black socks an’ her Mary Janes. Because that’s a uniform. That’s how I’ve always tricked her into lettin’ me put her shoes on, by convincin’ her that she’ll be out of uniform an’ she’ll get a write-up if she doesn’t.” 

Understanding began to dawn in Jim’s eyes. “And you tricked her into eating by convincing her it was a race.” 

Slim nodded. “Right. I know it’s kinda mean, but sometimes you gotta trick her.” 

“How did you get her to do the puzzle?” 

“I asked her if she wanted to do that or dance. She picked the puzzle.” 

Leo frowned slightly. “What if she’d said something else?” 

“I’d have told her that wasn’t one of the choices.” Slim looked from Jim to Leo and back. “You can’t give her an open-ended question like ‘what do you want to do today’—you have to limit her to two choices.” 

“The story?” 

“It was gettin’ on towards her naptime, like I said, so I told her that people who solve puzzles get to read a story.” 

“But you said you read her two,” Jim pointed out. 

Slim chuckled. “She asked for three. I told her we’d compromise with two an’ she said okay. An’ like I said, she dropped off at the end of the second one. But the first thing she said when she woke up was ‘book.’ So I read her another one.”

“How’d you get her to behave at lunch?” Leo pressed. 

“Promised her more stories. I told her we couldn’t read another story until after lunch, then I said that if she ate all her lunch _and_ behaved the whole time, we’d read three.” Slim remembered the incident at the lunch table and added, “You’ll like this one. I gave her a choice between chicken an’ rice or spaghetti rings, an’ she picked the spaghetti, but said she wanted to feed herself. I told her if she made a mess—like she usually does—she’d have to have a bath before we could read any more stories. She agreed. Then she looked at her plate, looked up at me, an’ said ‘four.’” 

“Four what?” Jim asked, looking as bewildered as Slim had. 

“I asked her the same thing. She thought for a second, then said, ‘No bath, four stories.’” Slim didn’t bother imitating his sister’s baby voice. “I said that was fair enough. An’ you know, she didn’t spill a bit. Only thing I had to wipe was her mouth, an’ she got upset at first ‘cause she thought that meant she wouldn’t get her fourth story. I had to reassure her that gettin’ sauce on her mouth didn’t count against her.” 

Leo’s jaw dropped. “You’re telling me that our twenty-one-month-old daughter has not only worked out complex sentences, but _also_ figured out how to negotiate?” 

“That’s about the size of it,” Slim agreed. “An’ she stuck to it, too. If I’d told her that the sauce on her face meant no fourth story, she wouldn’t have fussed.”

Jim rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “So if I understand you right, there are three ways to get Addie to cooperate. Diplomacy, subterfuge, and negotiation.” 

Slim nodded. “Pretty much, yeah. An’ like I said, I ain’t had a problem with her.” He paused, then added, “One more thing, though. Try to understand her.” 

“What do you mean?” Leo asked. 

“I think I know that one,” Jim said. “It’s like her saying ‘four’. Sometimes what she says, especially when she only says one word at a time, doesn’t make sense. Try to figure out what it is she means, and if you can’t, ask her. Right?” 

“Right. She’s real smart, an’ she’s gettin’ better at expressin’ herself, but she’s still little. An’ sometimes she assumes you’re gonna understand her right off, especially if you say ‘yeah’ or ‘okay’ an’ nothin’ else.” Slim thought back for an appropriate example. “Like when we first heard you playin’ your guitar, Dad, an’ she kept pointin’ at me an’ sayin’ ‘guitar’ over an’ over. She didn’t know the word for ‘harmonica,’ so she associated ‘guitar’ with ‘music.’” 

_“Oh.”_ Leo smiled suddenly. “I get it. That’s clever, Slim.” 

Slim flushed at the praise. “Thanks, Pa.”

He spent the next hour watching Leo beat Jim at backgammon. Addie woke up from her nap and was excited to see Jim and Leo. She sat on Slim’s lap and teamed up with him in a backgammon match against Jim. 

“Want to roll the dice, Addie?” Slim asked her, holding them in his cupped hand. 

“Dice,” Addie repeated, taking them. She looked up at Slim. 

“Shake your fist like this.” Slim demonstrated. Addie copied the motion, but her hands were tightly clasped around the marble cubes and they didn’t shake. He chose not to mention this. “Now stretch your hand over the board and let go!” 

Addie complied. The dice bounced twice before landing, a six and a one. Slim decided to test his sister a little. “How many dots are there?” 

A frown puckered Addie’s forehead. She looked at the dice, then at Slim. He took her hand, stretched out her finger, and carefully pointed to each dot. “One, two, three…” he began. 

“Fow,” Addie said slowly as he moved to the next dot. “Fife. Siss. Seben.” 

“Yay, Addie!” Slim clapped his hands as best as he could without dropping her. “Seven dots!” 

Addie beamed. “Yay!” She clapped, too. 

Jim looked impressed, but it didn’t stop him from beating them.

As Slim put the board away, Leo got to his feet. “I think it’s time for dinner…Addie, you hungry?” 

Addie nodded. Leo held out his hand. “Come on, then. We’ll go eat and then it’ll be time for beddy-byes.” 

“’Towy,” Addie suggested. 

“Yes, baby, we’ll read you a story before bed, once you’ve put your pajamas on,” Leo assured her. 

Addie thought for a second, then looked up. “Two?” 

Jim hesitated. “If you’re a very good girl for Daddy and Papa and Slim, you can have two stories,” he said at last. 

“’Kay,” Addie said happily. She took Jim’s hand on one side and Leo’s on the other. 

Uhura and Carol were sitting at a table pretty close to the food slots. Slim gave them both a smile and a nod as he joined his family. Leo picked Addie up, settling her on his hip. “Okay, Addie. Do you want chicken nuggets or a grilled cheese sandwich?” 

Addie thought for a minute. “Nugget.” 

“Nuggets it is.” Leo punched in the order, winking at Slim. 

When they got to the table, Addie sat on Leo’s lap and waited patiently while he cut her chicken nuggets into small, bite-sized pieces. When he put the plate in front of her, she smiled up at him. “T’ank ‘ou, Papa.” 

“You’re welcome, Addie.” Leo smiled back at her before starting on his own meal. 

Carol’s jaw dropped as she watched Addie pick up the pieces carefully and chew each one before eating. “What did you _do?”_ she demanded. “I can’t ever get her to behave like that for me these days.” 

“Negotiation,” Leo told her. “We promised her that if she behaves, she gets two stories tonight. Slim tipped us to it.” 

“How’d you figure it out?” Uhura asked Slim. 

Slim shrugged. “Trial an’ error, mostly.” 

The two women exchanged looks, but said nothing.

Addie continued to behave very well. When they got back to quarters, Jim kissed the top of her head. “Good girl. Come on, let’s get your pajamas on and then we’ll read you two stories.” 

“Yay!” Addie clapped her hands. 

Slim grinned and headed into his own room to change out of his clothes. Since it wasn’t a fencing day and he hadn’t been in Engineering, he didn’t need a shower. 

Halfway through changing, however, there was a tapping on his door. “Slim?” 

“Come in,” Slim called, pulling his shirt over his head. 

The door slid open and Leo poked his head in, looking worried. “Slim, can you give us a hand here? We’re trying to understand Addie and it’s not working. I think she’s getting frustrated.” 

Slim followed Leo to Addie’s room. She had her arms crossed over her chest, and her lower lip jutted out. Jim looked as helpless as he had that morning. “Addie, I thought you wanted a story!” 

“Book!” Addie said insistently. 

“Look, right here, it’s Dr. Seuss.” Jim held out a PADD. 

Addie put up her hand to push it away, then stopped herself and shook her head. “No!” she protested. Slim realized there were actual tears in her eyes. “Book!” 

“Addie, I don’t know what you mean,” Jim said pleadingly. “Tell Daddy what you want.” 

“Book!” Addie repeated. She looked towards the door, saw Slim, and stretched out her arms imploringly. “’Lim, book!” she whimpered. 

Slim clapped a hand to his forehead, realizing that—finally—she had understood what they’d been trying to teach her for weeks. “Oh. Okay, Addie, I’m sorry, I forgot to tell Daddy an’ Papa. I’ll go get it.” 

“Go get what?” Jim asked, bewildered, but Slim was already halfway back out the door.

He crawled under his bed, retrieved the bag, and pulled out the book he’d been reading to Addie earlier, then came back in. Addie saw it and broke into a sunny smile. “Book!” 

Slim smiled back. “Dad, you mind if I—?” 

“No—no, not at all.” Jim, looking thoroughly confused, stepped aside to let Slim sit down in the chair. 

Addie crawled over to the side of the cot and leaned against the railing, craning her neck to see. Slim draped an arm around her shoulders, then opened the book, holding it carefully in front of both of them. “Ah, here we are. Now, Daddy promised _two_ stories, right?” 

“Uh-huh.” Addie wiggled as close as she could as Slim began to read. 

At the end of the two stories, both of which were fairly long ones, Slim closed the book and stood up. “Want Daddy or Papa to tuck you in?” 

“’Lim,” Addie said, sleepily. 

“Okay.” Slim tucked the covers around his sister and her stuffed tribble, then bent over and kissed her forehead. “’Night, baby.” 

“Nini, ‘Lim.” Addie’s long eyelashes fluttered closed.

Slim stepped out of the bedroom to find both Jim and Leo looking at him steadily. He dropped his eyes, biting his lip. “Sorry,” he mumbled. 

“Slim, where’d you get that?” Jim asked quietly. 

Slim held it out hesitantly. “I—I’ve always had it. It’s…it was my mom’s.” 

Jim, who had been in the act of taking the book from his hands, froze. “You’re sure?” 

For an answer, Slim flipped open to the title page. Opposite the words _Stories From Around the World,_ in bold black letters, a child’s careful hand had used an old-fashioned pen to write PROPERTY OF ALICE MARGARET JOHNSON. “I’m sorry for not tellin’ you ‘bout it. It’s just…I ain’t ever shown anyone these books. They’re all I got of her.” 

“You’ve got more than one?” Jim looked startled as he gingerly took the book out of Slim’s hands. 

Slim nodded. “This one, a copy of Rudyard Kipling’s _Just So Stories_ , a copy of _The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,_ a copy of _Black Beauty,_ an’ a copy of _Watership Down_ by Richard Adams—that’s the only one that ain’t technically a kid’s book.” 

“Where did she _get_ them all?” Jim murmured, turning the pages with care. “Paper books are awfully rare…” 

“I reckon they’d been in the family,” Slim said softly. “They’re all from the 1960s or 1970s.” 

Jim closed the book and handed it back to Slim. “I’m not mad at you for having them, Slim, and I’m not mad at you for keeping them a secret, either. I’m actually really impressed. This is in really good condition.”

Leo sat down on the sofa. “How many stories are in it?” he asked as Jim sat down, too. 

Slim took a seat on the armchair again, stroking the cover lightly. “Seventeen. Three—or four, maybe, I ain’t completely sure where the continental divide is—from Asia, three from the Americas, one from Africa, an’ the rest from Europe.” 

“Which countries?” Jim asked. He looked faintly amused. 

“The Middle East, Canada, Denmark, Poland, Mexico, Russia, Italy, Germany, France, Israel, India, Spain, China, the U.S.A., Nigeria, England, an’ Japan,” Slim answered promptly, having long ago memorized the table of contents. “In that order.” 

“What part of the US?” Leo asked, eyes twinkling. 

“My part. ‘Pecos Bill Meets Paul Bunyan.’ That one’s my favorite of favorites,” Slim confessed. 

Jim glanced at Addie’s door, then back at Slim. “You know…we’re due to start a new book tonight. I know you’ve already read the first—what, nine?” Slim nodded. “But…I’d like to read them with you, too. Do you mind?” 

Slim smiled. “Not at all, Dad. We could read the first nine tonight, maybe—it ain’t but eighty pages all told, an’ a lot of ‘em are pictures—an’ then startin’ tomorrow we could read ‘em together with Addie?” He raised his voice at the end slightly, indicating a question. 

“That sounds great.” Jim turned to Leo. “Bones, you want to join us?” 

“I’d love to,” Leo said without hesitation. 

The three of them went into Slim’s room together. Slim centered himself on the bed. Jim sat on one side, Leo on the other, and the three of them pressed close together, heads bowed over the book as Slim opened it to the first story. He looked up at Leo, who didn’t often join them. “Pa, would you start?” 

Leo looked touched. “I’d be honored.” 

As he began on the familiar story of Ali Baba, Slim settled back against his headboard, well content. What did he care if he’d read them all before, or even earlier that day? For the first time in a long time, he felt close to _all_ his family—even the mother he could no longer remember.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone is wondering...yes, _Stories From Around the World_ is a real book. Marguerite Henry did the introduction for it. And no, I don't know if "Little Burnt-Face" is ACTUALLY an allegory for the desert, but that's what the intro says.


	46. When I Said I Do

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks goes to [Joja](http://mckirkbyjoja.tumblr.com) for her invaluable response to my desperate cry of "WHAT THE HELL DO I DO FOR THIS CHAPTER?!!" It's Jim and Bones' anniversary! Cue the tooth-rotting fluff.
> 
> Also, [there is a playlist to go with this chapter.](http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAAlY07caq4AOrrxuYL_mICWeemFlSJ_t) (For now it's just on YouTube, but if I can make a decent cover, I'll make an 8Tracks list later.) The first ten songs are the versions that Jim and Bones dance to; the last one is the one Jim sings to Bones. I suggest listening to it while you read. Have tissues handy.

Since Bones had been the one to surprise Jim on the tenth anniversary of their becoming engaged, Jim took it upon himself to surprise Bones on their tenth wedding anniversary. The trouble was _how._

In desperation, he’d finally gone to Uhura and Chekov, sworn them both to secrecy, and begged for help. Between the three of them, they had concocted this plan. Despite the swearing-to-secrecy thing, Chekov turned out to be really, really bad at keeping secrets from Slim and Sulu; they had confessed to Jim and then refined his approach. It was safe to say that Bones was going to be surprised. 

What was impressing Jim the most was that they had put it together in a week. 

Ten minutes before Alpha shift was technically over, Jim ceded the conn to Spock and headed back to quarters. He changed quickly out of his uniform and into an outfit he hadn’t worn for ten years—a cornflower blue cotton button-up shirt that Bones had once said brought out the color of his eyes and a pair of tan khaki pants—stepped into his well-worn brown loafers, and brushed his hair as neatly as he could. He laid out an outfit on the bed, a PADD propped against the pillow with a very obvious note on it, and checked himself in the mirror before heading off.

When he reached his destination, he found Slim putting the finishing touches on the scene. Jim smiled. “That looks good, son.” 

Slim smiled back. “Thanks, Dad. I’ll grab Addie after my fencing lesson, and we’ll meet you back at quarters whenever y’all are done up here.” 

“Thanks,” Jim said again. He surveyed the room. “I wish I knew what this anniversary was. Like, I know the twenty-fifth anniversary is silver and fifty is gold and sixty is diamond, but I don’t know what the tenth anniversary is.” 

“Tin,” Slim said promptly. 

“Tin?” Jim repeated. 

“Tin. Or aluminum. I’ve heard both. But tin’s the more common.” 

“I’ve honestly never understood the significance of the various types of anniversary,” Jim confessed. 

Slim shrugged. “They’re just the traditional gifts you’re supposed to exchange on your anniversary. I reckon it’s because, once upon a time, that was what you were supposed to have enough money to buy at that point.” 

Jim raised his eyebrows. “I never thought about it like that,” he admitted. 

“I ain’t sure, mind. That’s just what I figure.” Slim shrugged. “Anyway, I better go ‘fore Pa shows up…good luck, Dad. See you later tonight.” 

“See you later, Slim.”

After Slim was gone, Jim tried to stop himself from fidgeting or pacing. It wasn’t, he told himself, that he was _nervous_ per se; he just wanted this to go right. And things he planned had a tendency to fall apart. Usually pretty spectacularly. 

But then, since this mission had started, his plans had all gone pretty well. Hadn’t they had a good time on their picnic, the four of them? Slim hadn’t gotten food poisoning, Addie hadn’t drowned, Jim hadn’t even injured himself. Things that had gone wrong had been missions, which you couldn’t call a “plan” by any stretch of imagination. There was no reason to believe this wouldn’t work. 

He stood right by the doors, patting his hair every so often to make sure it was staying in place. (Okay, so maybe he was a little nervous.) After what seemed like an eternity but was probably no more than fifteen minutes at best, the doors slid open with a soft swish and Bones stepped out. 

It took Jim’s breath away, for just a moment. He’d lain out Bones’ outfit himself—a pearl-grey button-up shirt, dark blue trousers, and black shoes—but it had been a long time since he’d seen Bones actually _wearing_ it. The pants hugged the curve of his hips as though he’d been poured into them, and the top two buttons of the shirt were undone. He looked faintly irritated, but still, Jim couldn’t remember the last time Bones had looked this good. 

“Jim?” Bones sounded equal parts confused and annoyed. 

Jim got himself under control and smiled, offering Bones his arm. “Would you care to accompany me, Doctor?” 

“Jim, what is this?” Bones asked, still sounding annoyed, although he accepted Jim’s arm. “I get back to our quarters to find a note from you sayin’ _Put this on and meet me on the Observation Deck…”_

“And you followed directions admirably. Bravo.” Jim winked, leading Bones into the room. 

“I mean it, Jim, I don’t know what the hell you—” Bones stopped dead, staring. 

Jim smiled, outwardly pleased and inwardly relieved at the effect of his efforts. “Like it?”

Bones was speechless, which had to be a first. Jim had turned off the already low lights in the room. In the center, up against the window, was a small table, draped in a midnight blue cloth that went all the way to the floor, and two chairs. You couldn’t have real old-fashioned wax candles burning on a starship—it was a safety hazard—but Slim had helped Jim to make three fake candles that glowed and flickered realistically, which were set in something Chekov had unearthed that at least vaguely resembled a brass candelabra. They cast a cozy glow over the table. In front of each chair was a plate, covered with a silvery dome, and an empty crystal wine glass. Jim had been really pleased to find those glasses. Next to the table was a bucket filled with ice, in which a bottle rested. Outside the window, more visible than usual, was the panorama of space, infinite stars twinkling against a backdrop of velvety black. Some distance away, a comet made its lazy way past them. 

Jim escorted Bones to the table, then pulled out one of the chairs with a courtly bow. “Have a seat,” he invited. 

Gingerly, Bones sat down, staring at the table in shock. Jim scooted him into the table, then walked over and picked up the bottle. He ran a thumb lightly over the label. “Chenin blanc, 2261. Good year.” 

That jerked Bones out of his trance. He looked up at Jim. “Where’d you get that?” 

“I kept a bottle back,” Jim said quietly. “Scotty told me that chenin blanc is supposedly at its best after ten years. I figured we’d see if that was true.” He popped the cork with an old-fashioned corkscrew. “May I pour you a glass?” 

Bones held up his glass. Jim filled it with a professional twist of the wrist, then filled his own glass and set the bottle down before taking his seat. He put a hand on the handle of the cover over his plate. “You ready?” 

“Ready.” Bones grasped the cover of his own plate. They looked at each other for a moment, then lifted their covers off in unison. Bones stared at his plate for a moment, then looked up. “Jim…” 

Jim smiled, a little shyly and uncertainly. “I hope you’re hungry, Bones.” 

Bones smiled back and picked up his fork and knife.

Jim breathed a silent sigh of relief and started cutting into his own plate. Both plates had a boneless pork chop, asparagus spears in a lemon-butter sauce, cranberry jelly, and a thick slice of hot, soft bread spread with butter. Thanks to the covers, they had stayed warm. 

For a few moments, neither of them spoke. Jim had to agree that the wine was perfectly aged, sweet and light and an excellent complement to their meal. After a while, however, Bones said quietly, “How long did it take you to plan all this?” 

“Six days,” Jim admitted. “And I had help. I figured…well, you surprised me last time. I figured I ought to do my part.” 

“Jim, you know love’s not about obligations.” 

“I know. But…well, I wanted to do something special for _you_ for once.” 

Bones laid down his fork, reached across the table, and laid his hand over Jim’s. “Every day you wake up beside me and tell me you love me is special,” he said softly. 

Jim blushed. “I do, Bones,” he said, his voice equally soft. “I love you as much as I did when I put that ring on your finger ten years ago—more. Every day I wake up and I see you lying next to me, and I wonder how it’s possible to love you any more than I did the day before, but I do. Every time you smile at me, every time you kiss me, every time you touch me—hell, every time you breathe in my direction, I fall a little more in love. I don’t know what I did to earn something as good as you in my life, but…” 

“I was thinking the same thing,” Bones said. “I don’t deserve you, Jim.” 

“You’re right. You deserve better.” 

“No, Jim, _you_ deserve better. You deserve someone who can give you the whole goddamned universe, and I—” 

Jim set down his fork with a sharp snap. “You _have_ given me the universe. You gave me something to hold on to, something to believe in when I had all but given up on everything. I joined Starfleet because Pike dared me to, but I stayed in Starfleet because you believed I would make it. You gave me a second chance. I was _dead,_ Bones, and you brought me back, because you loved me too much to let me go. You gave me a family. You gave me Addie, our little girl, and you accepted Slim without a moment’s hesitation and he’s _yours,_ Bones, he’s yours as much as he is mine, blood be damned. You made this—” he waved an arm at the stars passing by—“worth looking at. You didn’t need to give me the universe. You _are_ my universe.” 

Bones swallowed, hard. “And you’re mine, Jim. You’re my universe, my dream, my everything. And…and I’m so glad I met you.” 

“I love you,” Jim said, lacing his fingers through Bones’. 

“I love you, too,” Bones replied, squeezing back.

They kept their hands clasped together as they finished their meal. When both of them were finished, Jim stood up, pulling Bones with him. “We’re not done.” 

“Oh, we’re not, are we?” Bones raised an eyebrow, but he was still smiling softly. 

Jim smiled in response. “Computer, begin audio playlist one-one-one-eight. Volume sixty percent.” 

A moment later, music began playing into the room. Bones’ face lit up as the strains washed over them, and Jim looked up at him hopefully. “May I have this dance?” 

“This and every other.” Still holding Jim’s hand in his, Bones put his other hand on Jim’s waist. 

Jim rested his free hand on Bones’ shoulder. The music played softly as Bones led Jim into a two-step. It was one of exactly two dances they knew, the other being the waltz. Fortunately, those two styles covered just about every song on the admittedly short playlist Jim had put together. 

“Remember the last time we danced to this song?” Bones murmured in Jim’s ear. 

Jim wasn’t likely to ever forget. “Our wedding reception.” 

“I swear I don’t know how Uhura managed to put it together so quickly, seeing as we didn’t even know we were getting married that day until we actually did.” 

“I think it helped that she’d already put together the music playlist for the reception. Remember, we hadn’t been engaged for a week when she asked us what ‘our song’ was?” 

“Yeah, an’ you started singing through your nose, some God-awful song from the twenty-first century—what was it called?” 

Jim laughed. “‘Our Song.’ And, yeah, I never much cared for Taylor Swift, either. Thank God Uhura didn’t take that as my actual answer. I’d have hated dancing to that as our first song.” 

Bones smiled, but the smile vanished as he said, “Just think—if we’d gotten married a few years earlier, our first dance would’ve been ‘Till My Last Day.’” 

Jim tightened his grip on Bones slightly. The song had been one he loved playing for Bones when they were first together, when Bones had first found out Jim played guitar and sang. But after Khan, and Jim’s death in the warp core, they had agreed without much discussion not to play that one again. 

“This one’s more appropriate, anyway,” he said quietly. “It’s what I was saying earlier. The day we met, the night you first kissed me, the day you said you’d marry me, our wedding—I thought I loved you then. Someday I’m gonna look back on tonight and I’m gonna wonder how I ever got by with loving you so little.” 

“Jim,” Bones whispered, pulling Jim closer.

The Brad Paisley song ended and a Tracy Lawrence song came on. Jim rested his head on Bones’ shoulder. “I really wanted to give you a big, fancy wedding,” he confessed. “You deserve it. I meant to go the whole nine yards—your whole family, my mom and Boyce, the crew, all of us under the peach trees in Georgia or on the farm back in Iowa. I thought…I thought you’d like it better if you got married with solid ground under your feet, rather than in the middle of ‘disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence.’” 

“I wouldn’t have,” Bones said positively. “I did that once, remember? Joss in her grandmother’s ivory dress, me in a tux, standin’ under the peach trees in the spring. Saying our vows on solid ground didn’t make our marriage any more stable. But you—you’re starstuff, Jim. You belong to the stars.” 

“I belong to you,” Jim corrected him. 

Bones kissed his temple. “It was perfect, darlin’. Our wedding was absolutely perfect.” 

“Perfect?” Jim looked up at Bones, a wry smile on his face. “We were coming off one hell of a mission, one that almost got both of us killed. We made a spur-of-the-moment decision to have the ceremony then and there, and we were in such a hurry to get ready that I put my shoes on the wrong feet. We hadn’t even bought our wedding rings yet, so we had to perform the ceremony with our Starfleet Academy rings. Spock turned to the wrong page in the manual and started off reading the funeral service instead of the wedding service. Leslie wasn’t paying attention and flew too close to a planet, which made the whole damned ship shudder, while we were repeating our vows. Scotty mixed his wine with Scotch and threw up on Carol—I’m still not sure if it was because the combination reacted badly or just because it tasted so bad. And to top it all off, we were in the middle of cutting the cake when the ship suddenly went on red alert status and we all had to drop what we were doing and run to our stations. You call _that_ perfect?” 

Bones laughed, stroking Jim’s hair. “We beamed back aboard the ship after that mission, and your first reaction was to tell me you loved me so much that you wanted to prove it by marrying me immediately, as if putting a ring on my finger would anchor me to this life and to you. It didn’t matter how much pain you were in—you kept staring at me like I was a miracle, and I know I was looking at you the same way, because you _are_ my miracle. Our hands are so different—” he shifted the hand holding Jim’s so that their palms were pressed against one another—“but your ring fit like it was made for me, and vice versa. Spock actually got emotional while he was reading the service—and he said the right one in the end, so what does it matter that he started off burying us instead of marrying us? I never noticed the ship shaking—maybe it was partly that my knees were shaking so bad anyway, but I think it was just that I was holding your hands, and you always steady me, Jim, you keep me grounded and stable. Chekov’s toast was the most beautiful speech I’d ever heard in my life. And I’ll never forget the glow on your face when you explained to Starfleet Command that the reason you were on the bridge during an alert wearing your dress uniform instead of your working uniform was that you had just gotten married. Maybe it wasn’t a storybook wedding. But it was still perfect.”

Jim felt a warm, happy glow spread throughout his body. “You know what the most perfect part of it was, Bones?” 

“No, what?” Bones raised an eyebrow. 

“Hearing Spock declare us legally wed. Kissing you in front of the whole crew and knowing that you were mine and I was yours, for better or for worse.” Jim kissed Bones’ cheek. “Mom told me once that it didn’t matter what happened during the wedding, as long as you were married afterwards. That day, I finally understood what she meant.” 

“I love you so much, Jim,” Bones whispered. 

“I love you, too.” Jim smiled. “Happy anniversary.” 

Bones missed a step. He stared at Jim, then suddenly burst out laughing. He actually had to stop dancing, he was laughing so hard. 

Jim was bewildered. “What?” 

It took a moment for Bones to calm down enough to answer. “I completely forgot today was our anniversary. I couldn’t figure out for the life of me why you were being so sappy and romantic.” 

Jim started laughing, too. It was absolutely ridiculous and nigh-on unbelievable. And yet, it was so typical of them, too. “Seriously, Bones?” 

“Seriously. I must’ve lost a day somewhere.” Bones wiped his eyes with one hand. “Been a hell of a year.” 

“You can say that again,” Jim agreed. “And we didn’t exactly celebrate last year.”

“What were we doing this time last year?” Bones wondered. 

Jim tried to remember. “Uh…it was between the incident on Miri’s homeworld and the first time Nylund contacted us—you know, about the mining contract.” 

“Right. Addie was teething and Spock was gearing up for his _pon farr._ And we were still recovering from the after-effects of that virus, too.” Bones stroked Jim’s hair again. “That was too close for comfort.” 

“Yeah,” Jim said softly. “We’ve had a lot of close calls on this mission.” 

Bones opened his mouth to answer, but the next song on the playlist began, and the first words struck both of them. _Looks like we made it…_

“We made it, Jim,” Bones whispered, gathering Jim into his arms again. “Ten years of marriage. Almost fourteen years together. Seventeen years of friendship. Look how far we’ve come.” 

“I love you.” Jim put his arms around Bones’ neck. 

“I love you, too.” Bones bent down and captured Jim’s lips in a kiss. 

Jim closed his eyes, melting into the kiss. Bones pulled him closer, folding the two of them together as though they could meld like a deck of cards, like they were no more than two halves of the same whole. 

Which was the truth, albeit not the literal one. With Bones, Jim felt complete in a way he’d never felt before. His whole life, he’d been drifting, broken and alone. From the moment Bones had sat next to him on that shuttle and offered him the only thing he had left—his flask—he’d felt more grounded, more connected than he ever had before. And now—God, had it _really_ been seventeen years?—he couldn’t imagine life without his Bones. 

At last, they broke the kiss. Bones smiled tenderly at Jim, then took his hand again, putting his hand back on Jim’s waist. “Shall we go back to dancing, darlin’?” 

“I’d like that.” Jim smiled back.

There were ten songs on the playlist—a deliberate choice on Jim’s part, one song for every year they’d been married. Some were pretty generic love songs, of the sort that Jim had sung to Bones pretty much since they’d started dating, but there were one or two that were specifically about married couples. During “When I Said I Do,” Bones rested his forehead against Jim’s, closing his eyes as they danced. And he held Jim a lot tighter when “Anyone Else” started. 

When “One Day Less” played itself out, the room fell silent. Jim stepped back slightly. “One more surprise for you, Bones.” 

“You’re making me feel guilty, darlin’, I didn’t get you anything,” Bones murmured, but he looked touched. 

“You don’t have to get me anything. You’re enough.” Jim kissed Bones, then took his hand and led him over to the bench. His guitar was propped against the corner, just where Jim had told Slim to leave it. 

Bones raised his eyebrows slightly. “You wrote me a song?” 

Jim laughed. “I’m not _that_ talented. No, this is another old song, but it’s…it’s one I’ve never sung before, not for you. But…I mean every word in it. You’ve done this for me.” He tuned the guitar quickly, then sat down on the bench. Bones knelt down in front of him as he began to strum. After a few short chords, he started singing. 

It was older than any of the other songs, by a man named Sammy Kershaw. Bones’ smile disappeared during the first verse, which did sound like Jim was putting himself down, but once he hit the chorus, he could see understanding starting to dawn in his husband’s eyes. Jim kept his eyes fixed on Bones’ as he sang. _I ain’t as good as I’m gonna get…but I’m better than I used to be…_

When Jim at last finished the song, Bones was blinking back tears. “Jim, I…” he began, then stopped and shook his head. He reached up and gripped Jim’s hand tightly. “I always saw the diamond, Jim. I’m the one with all the dust.” 

“Never, Bones.” Jim set aside his guitar and slid off the bench, taking both of Bones’ hands in his. “You’re the best man I ever met. I’d have lived my whole life lost forever if I’d never known you. You were the first person I ever _wanted_ to not disappoint. You shone so brightly…I thought I could never live up to the kind of man you are. But I wanted to try.” 

“You’ve succeeded, Jim,” Bones said in a choked voice. “You’re a better man than I could ever hope to be. I love you so goddamned much.” 

“I love you, too, Bones. My Bones.” Jim surged forward and kissed Bones again, deeply and urgently. 

After a few moments, they broke the kiss, but they didn’t let go of each other. Instead, they cuddled into each other and just held one another, watching the stars go by. 

“Happy anniversary, Jim,” Bones whispered at last. 

“Happy anniversary, Bones.” Jim smiled up at his husband. 

Reluctantly, Bones got to his feet, pulling Jim with him. “We should probably clean up and go…unless there was more you wanted to do.” 

Jim shook his head. He kissed Bones one more time, for good measure, then packed his guitar up before crossing over to the table to help dispose of everything. They worked in silence, but a comfortable one. Once they had dropped everything where it belonged, they headed back to their quarters, their arms around each other’s waists.

As they stepped through the door, Jim stopped, a smile crossing his face. Slim and Addie sat on the sofa, Slim with his legs stretched out in front of him, Addie on his lap and snuggled against his chest. She was wearing a fuzzy blue footed onesie with stars and planets printed all over it and clutching her tribble. Slim’s hair was still wet from his shower, and he wore his favorite grey sweater and a pair of faded blue jeans that had been Jim’s before he’d put on muscle at the Academy. He had _Stories From Around the World_ propped up in front of them both. 

“‘Sigfried sat for a long time staring into the fire, thinking over all that he had heard.’” Slim smiled down at his sister. “The end.” 

He started to turn the page, but Addie covered his hand with hers. “’Gain, ‘Lim,” she said, looking up at him. 

“Again?” Slim repeated. “Don’t you want to hear a different story?” 

Addie gave Slim the big puppy dog eyes Jim could never resist. “’Gain. P’ease?” 

Slim chuckled. “All right, one more time.” 

Jim laughed, which made both Slim and Addie look up in surprise. Addie’s smile widened when she saw them. “Daddy! Papa!” 

Slim grinned crookedly. “Hey. Have a nice dinner?” 

“We did, thanks.” Bones came closer, holding Jim around the waist. “What have you two been up to?” 

“Oh, just reading. I think we’ve found _That Story.”_ Slim pronounced the words with capital letters. 

Jim looked over Slim’s shoulder and saw that he had turned back to the beginning of “Mimer, the Master.” He chuckled. “How many times have you read it tonight?” 

“Four,” Slim said ruefully. “An’ this one ain’t short, either.” 

Jim glanced at the chronometer and was startled to find that it was later than he had thought—they had been on the observation deck for almost four hours. “Tell you what, baby,” he said, directing his attention to Addie. “Why don’t you let Daddy and Papa tuck you and Gottlieb in, and then Slim can read the story again?” 

Addie thought about that for a minute, but Jim could see that she was truly tired. “’Kay,” she said at last.

Jim picked her up and carried her into her bedroom. Together, he and Bones pulled the blanket up around her, tucking her in. She stuck her thumb in her mouth and clutched her stuffed tribble, blue eyes fixed on Slim as he sat down and began to read. Bones put his arm around Jim as they stood and listened. By the time the story was over, Addie’s long lashes had fluttered shut and her breathing had evened out. 

Slim closed the book, leaned over, and kissed her forehead. “G’night, Pumpkin,” he whispered before tiptoeing out. 

Jim smiled at his son. “Thanks.” 

“No problem.” Slim smiled back. “Let me put this away and I’ll be right back.” 

“What are you planning?” Bones asked suspiciously. 

“Nothing,” Slim said quickly—too quickly. 

Now Jim was suspicious, too. He watched as Slim headed back into his bedroom. A moment later, he returned with both hands behind his back. Jim frowned. “What have you got back there?” 

Slim bit his lip, looking a little uncertain, then brought his hands around, revealing a box, perhaps fifty centimeters on each side, wrapped in shiny blue paper and tied with a gold ribbon. “Um. Happy anniversary.” 

Jim’s jaw dropped. “I—” he began, looking helplessly at Bones, who also looked stunned. He recovered at last and took the box. “Thank you, Slim.” 

Slim rubbed the back of his neck, the way Jim did when he was embarrassed. “It ain’t much,” he mumbled. “But I reckoned…well, ten years, that’s somethin’ special.” 

Jim sat down on the couch, Bones next to him. It took a little practice, but they’d done this sort of thing before, the first Christmas they’d been together when Bones’ favorite aunt had given them a joint present. Together, they untied the bow, then laid the paper bare and unsealed the box. Inside, nestled under layers of tissue paper, was a model of the _Enterprise._

Jim stared at it, astonished. It was a perfect scale replica, no more than half a meter long and surprisingly heavy. The saucer section was neatly labeled with the ship’s name and registration number, exactly in the positions they were on the actual vessel. The nacelles had small, circular pieces of blue glass to indicate where the warp engines were, and when he brought it up close to his face, he could see marks indicating sensors, phasers, and the photon torpedoes. 

“Slim…” Jim began, then stopped, having no idea how to continue. 

“Where did you _find_ this?” Bones asked, sounding awed. 

Slim flushed crimson. “Um. Actually, I…I sort of made it.” 

“You _made_ it?” Jim repeated incredulously. 

“Yeah. Uncle Scotty helped me with the solderin’, but…” Slim’s blush intensified. “I just thought…I dunno.” 

Bones turned the model around several times, then tapped it lightly. It rang faintly with a hollow sound. “It’s—is this made of _tin?”_

Slim nodded. “I know it’s dumb, but…well, traditionally, the tenth anniversary is the ‘tin’ anniversary, so…” 

“It’s not dumb, Slim, it’s perfect.” Bones handed the model to Jim, got up, and gave Slim a tight hug. “Thank you, son.” 

Jim’s heart swelled, the way it usually did when he heard Bones call Slim son. Slim hugged him back. “You’re welcome, Pa.” 

“This is getting pride of place.” Jim stood up and crossed the room to a single, solitary display shelf. On one end was a framed picture of Jim and Bones dancing at their wedding (before they’d been interrupted by Starfleet Command and a red alert); on the other end was a framed picture of the senior command standing in front of the _Enterprise,_ the day after all of them but Spock and Scotty had graduated from the Academy. The center of the shelf was bare. Jim set the tin model there. 

“That’s what the whole room’s been missing,” Bones declared. 

If Slim turned any redder, his face was going to catch on fire. “I’m glad you like it.” 

“Like it? We love it.” Jim hugged his son from the other side. “It’s amazing, Slim. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Slim swallowed hard and extracted himself from the group hug. “Uh, if y’all don’t mind, I’m gonna head on up an’ get dinner…Aunt Carol fed Addie while I was fencin’, an’ I ain’t eaten yet.” 

“Go on. Let me know when you get back and we’ll read the next chapter of _Black Beauty,”_ Jim told him. 

“I’ll knock.” Slim managed a smile. “See y’all later.” With that, he scooted out the door. 

Bones raised an eyebrow. “Are you challenging me to see if I can manage to debauch you before your son gets back from dinner?” 

“Nah.” Jim smiled up at Bones. “As much as I love that sort of thing…I thought maybe we could save that for another night. Tonight I just want to hold you, you know? Just _be_ with you.” 

“I’d like that.” Bones traced Jim’s jawline with a forefinger. “Come on, darlin’.” 

Jim let Bones lead him into the bedroom, then into the bathroom. He knew he didn’t have to worry about Bones jumping him or trying to get him aroused. While both of them enjoyed sex with one another, every once in a while it was nice to take it slow. And they respected one another. Jim had said he didn’t want to have sex tonight. Even if Bones _did_ want it, he wouldn’t press the issue. 

That was one of the many things Jim loved about Bones, one of the many things he honestly hadn’t expected about their relationship. Not because Bones was anything but a gentleman. Because Jim Kirk had been sexually active since he was thirteen years old, and in all that time he’d never had a partner who wouldn’t keep pressing if he said no, or who would stop right away if he said stop. Not until Bones. Bones had been the first person Jim could ever crawl into bed with who wouldn’t automatically assume they were going to have sex. He was the first person who had ever really taken care of Jim afterwards, too. Most of Jim’s partners didn’t want him in their beds any longer than it took him to satisfy them, and the ones who did mostly expected him to do all the aftercare. But from the very beginning, Bones had been gentle and tender with Jim, cuddling him, helping to clean up, and generally making sure he was okay. 

Maybe it made a difference when you were actually in love.

They climbed into the shower together. Maybe there was a little playful squeezing, a few steamy kisses, but for the most part the shower was a tender and intimate thing, helping one another to get clean, Jim shampooing Bones’ hair and Bones tenderly soaping Jim’s back in all the places he couldn’t easily reach and holding one another so they didn’t fall over. Jim felt warm in ways that had nothing to do with the water temperature. 

Finally, Jim shut off the water, stepped out, and grabbed two towels, tossing one to Bones before drying himself off. They changed into their pajamas and lay down on top of their bed, arms twined around one another. Jim rested his head on Bones’ chest and listened to the thumping of his heart, the steady rise and fall of his breathing, and the soft thrum of the ship as she went about her patrol of the sector. Bones stroked Jim’s head and back lightly. Jim hummed in contentment. 

“Don’t think I’ve ever had this wonderful of an anniversary,” Bones said at last. 

“I know I haven’t.” Jim smiled up at Bones. “Celebrating in space isn’t easy. Maybe next year we’ll be able to have shore leave so we can do things properly.” 

“Maybe,” Bones agreed. “But you know what, Jim? I don’t care where we celebrate our anniversary, as long as we’re together.” He ran his hand over Jim’s hair again. “And, you know, not in the middle of a mission, like on our fifth anniversary.” 

“That was…not pleasant,” Jim confessed. “The worst part of that was waking up in Med Bay and finding out that you and Spock had gone back down to Neural, and that we hadn’t been able to make contact with you.” 

Bones tightened his arms around Jim. “Worst part for me was having to go back down there and not knowing whether or not you were even still alive. I could cheerfully have killed Spock for that maneuver.”

Jim nuzzled against Bones’ chest. Bones was the only member of the landing party who had come out of that particular mission unscathed. And it wasn’t until afterwards that they had even realized it was their anniversary. “I’m just glad you were okay,” he whispered. “I couldn’t have handled it if you’d been hurt and I hadn’t been there. It’s why I had such a hell of a time while the _Galileo_ was missing…because I didn’t know where you were, or if you were alive.” 

“All I could think that whole mission was that I hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye,” Bones said quietly. “I had to keep reminding myself that it wasn’t Spock’s fault, and that if anyone could get us out of there, he could. And you’ll recall that he did.” 

“Of course he did.” Jim snuggled closer to Bones. “Can we talk about something else? Tonight of all nights, I really don’t want to think about how many times I’ve almost lost you.” 

“I don’t really want to think about it, either,” Bones said. He kissed Jim’s forehead lightly. “I love you, Jim.” 

“I love you, too.” How many times had they said that over the course of the evening, Jim wondered? At least a dozen. And yet it still wasn’t enough. Jim could say _I love you_ with every breath he possessed, from now until the end of time, and it still wouldn’t be enough to tell Bones how much he loved him. 

“How’d you pick those songs? I mean, I know we played half of ‘em at our wedding, but what about the others?” 

Jim smiled up at Bones. “Well, they’re all about married couples. Promises made, promises kept. They all make me think of you. ‘Remember When’…well, that’s obvious. That song was _written_ for us, Bones.” 

Bones raised an eyebrow. “You’re tellin’ me that almost three hundred years ago, a simple country music singer wrote a song for two men he didn’t even know were gonna exist yet?” 

“Well, I had an ancestor who was in his band,” Jim said seriously. “So maybe. But think about the lyrics. You look back on our life together—especially now that we’ve got Addie—and it’s us. And ‘Anyone Else’ is…Bones, you could’ve left any time, and nobody would have blamed you, least of all me. But you didn’t. You’ve stuck around.” 

“Of course I did, Jim. I love you.” 

“I love you, too.” Jim kissed Bones’ sternum. “I would think the reason why I picked ‘When I Said I Do’ and ‘One Day Less’ should be obvious.” 

“Yeah,” Bones agreed. He kissed the top of Jim’s head lightly. “I’m just glad you didn’t put ‘Love Me Like There’s No Tomorrow’ on that playlist. I thought you might have when I realized they were all songs that were…well, important to us.” 

“I don’t have to ask you for that, Bones,” Jim said softly. “And like I said, I don’t really want to think about losing you, not tonight.”

“That one song was cute, though—the one about ‘ring around the roses.’ What’s it called?” 

“‘Rebecca Lynn.’ I heard it for the first time while I was getting my latest tattoo.” 

Bones traced a finger over the tattoo on Jim’s shoulder, the one with the last line of “Song for a Fifth Child” on ribbons surrounding Slim and Addie’s initials and birthdays. “It was perfect. Kind of like everything else about today. Kind of like you.” 

“I’m not perfect,” Jim protested. 

Bones chuckled and sang in a low, slightly off-key voice. _“But you’re better than you used to be…”_

Jim smiled and cuddled closer into the circle of Bones’ arms. “I love you so much, Bones.” 

“I love you, too, Jim.” Bones tilted Jim’s chin up, then kissed him tenderly. “Never doubt that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone who may be wondering the significance of the title of Jim's playlist...this chapter takes place on (obviously) Jim and Bones' anniversary, Stardate 2271.322. In old Earth reckoning, November 18, 2271. 1118 is the month/day of their anniversary, American-style. Just a fun bit of trivia.
> 
> And yes, I have a document on my computer with the timeline of this story, including the precise stardate (using the nu!Trek method) of each chapter. If you're ever curious about the date of a chapter, just ask. I'd be happy to tell you.


	47. The Tholian Web

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is based on the episode of the same name by Judy Burns and Chet Richards.
> 
> And it hurts like a bitch.
> 
> The actual episode was painful enough, and the pain of it would only be exacerbated by the fact that Jim and Bones are married with a family...but then I added an _additional_ complication (kinda without meaning to).
> 
> So, enjoy!

Leo frowned at the viewscreen. They were definitely in uncharted space now. The _Defiant_ was technically the ship in charge of this sector; they had been patrolling and reporting in the same way the _Enterprise_ was. But then they had unexpectedly vanished. No trace had been discovered. Starfleet Command—not Nylund, for which everyone on board was thankful—had communicated with the _Enterprise_ and asked them to find out whatever they could. The whole bridge was tense. 

“Captain, I have lost the use of all sensors,” Spock said, straightening up. “Were I to believe these readings, space itself is breaking up around us.” 

“A major failure?” Jim asked, looking quickly from Spock to Scotty, who sat at the Engineering panel, to Slim and back. 

“Not in the sensors—I have run a complete systems check. The failure is mine. I simply do not how to interpret these reports.” 

Leo could tell how difficult it was for Spock to admit that. Before anyone could say anything else, however, Scotty turned around. “Captain, there may be no connection, but we’re losing power to the warp engines.” 

“How bad is it?” 

“Ye can barely feel it now, but it’s right abnormal all the same. I cannae find the cause of it.” 

“Dad? What’s that?” Slim asked, pointing. 

Leo followed Slim’s finger. There was a shimmering, pulsing object ahead of them. Something about it made Leo uneasy. 

“I don’t know.” Jim rested a hand on Slim’s shoulder.

The ship inched closer. Slim suddenly flinched, putting a hand to his ear like he heard a noise that pained him. Leo looked at him quickly. “Are you all right, Slim?” 

“Fine—fine,” Slim muttered, rubbing at the side of his head. “Just—just a headache. I’m okay…” He looked back up at the viewscreen. “I—I think that’s a ship.” 

Leo looked up. “How can you tell? It looks like a green blob to me.” 

“Just…a feeling is all.” 

Jim stared at Slim for a moment. Before he could say anything, however, Chekov piped up, “He’s right, Keptin.” 

Shaking his head, Jim turned to Spock. “Mr. Spock, what’s wrong with it?” 

“Nonexistence would be the term, Captain,” Spock replied. “There is virtually no radar return, mass analysis, radiation traces. We see it, but the sensors indicate it isn’t there.” 

“A mirage?” Leo said wryly. 

“Impossible, Doctor,” Spock said from his station. “A mirage is the result of atmospheric conditions combining in such a way as to—” 

“I was being sarcastic, Spock.” 

“Sarcasm is ill advised at a time like—” 

“Would the two of you kindly knock it off?” Jim interrupted. “Mr. Chekov, narrow the field a bit. See if you can bring up the identification number.” 

Chekov carefully punched the buttons on his console. After a moment, he said, “Identification number NCC-1764, Keptin.” 

“That’s the _Defiant_ , all right,” Jim said grimly. “Mr. Sulu, impulse engines only, close to transporter range. Lieutenant Uhura, open a hailing channel.” 

“I’ve been trying, sir,” Uhura said, looking over her shoulder, “but there’s no response.”

Leo bit his lip as Chekov shifted the viewing angle. The _Defiant_ showed no gaping holes, no signs of obvious damage. It was simply ghostly—and silent, hanging in space like a kid’s toy. 

“Transporter range, sir,” Sulu said after a few moments. 

“Thanks, Mr. Sulu.” Jim took a deep breath. “Right, we’re going over there. There must be _someone_ over there who can tell us why they went silent all of a sudden. Spock, you’re coming with me. Bones, you, too—they might need medical attention.” 

“Captain, may I recommend a fourth member for our party?” Spock suggested. 

Jim hesitated. “Mr. Chekov, when was the last time you formed part of a landing party?” 

Chekov looked back at Jim, startled. “Ze planet of ze Melkots, Keptin.” 

“I thought so. Well, since you’ve apparently got the best eyes out of any of us, you can come along, too. Don’t worry, Mr. Sulu,” Jim added quietly, as Sulu glanced over his shoulder nervously. “I’ll make sure he comes back in one piece.” 

Sulu nodded slightly, squeezing Chekov’s fingers as the navigator rose from his seat. Jim turned to Slim, who forestalled him. “I ain’t goin’ anywhere ‘til you tell me to, Dad.” 

“Good boy. All right, people, let’s do this. O’Neil to handle the transporter. Mr. Scott, you have the conn.” 

As Leo started to follow Jim out the door, he hesitated, glancing back at Slim, who was still rubbing distractedly at his temple and staring out the viewscreen. “I’ll have Gage bring you up something for that headache, Slim,” he offered. 

“Thanks, Pa,” Slim said absently.

Leo stopped by Medical Bay long enough to pick up a standard kit and to ask Gage to run up to the bridge with a couple of pills for Slim, then joined the rest of the away team in the Transporter Room. Chekov was adjusting the strap on his tricorder, looking a little nervous. 

Before Leo could say anything, Jim put a hand on the younger man’s shoulder. “It’ll be all right, kid,” he said quietly. “I won’t let anything happen to you.” 

Chekov relaxed completely and offered Jim a smile in reply. Leo marveled anew at the trust the crew showed their captain. If Jim told them they would be all right, they believed him. It was partly Jim’s charisma; he just exuded an atmosphere of confidence that people found it hard to argue with. But it was also that he spoke the truth, absolutely and without reservation. James Tiberius Kirk would never _let_ anything happen to any member of his crew. If anything _did_ happen, it would be in spite of everything he could do to prevent it. 

“Environmental suits,” Jim said, turning to include Leo and Spock in his gaze. “I don’t know what the situation is going to be over there, and I’m not taking any risks.” 

Leo didn’t argue. As much as he hated the bulky environmental suits—everyone did—he wasn’t going to protest if Jim thought they needed them. Getting into the contraptions took a while, but finally, they were ready. Jim checked the seals on Leo’s helmet, then Chekov’s, before mounting the transporters, with difficulty. “Let’s go,” he said, his voice slightly muffled by the confines of the suit. 

Leo maneuvered onto the platform and stood in his accustomed position, to Jim’s right, between him and Chekov. Jim gestured to O’Neil. “Energize.” 

O’Neil nodded in response and pressed the appropriate button on the console. A minute later they stood on the bridge of the _Defiant._

_“Bozhe moy!”_ Chekov exclaimed, eyes widening.

After fourteen years of knowing the kid, Leo knew what that particular exclamation meant, and he agreed with the sentiment. The lights were extremely low, some of the monitor lights nonfunctional, but there was enough light to illuminate the scene. There were four bodies on the bridge, two at their stations and two definitely not. A communications officer, somewhere around Chekov’s age, draped over her console; a yeoman sprawled on the floor next to her chair, her head in the officer’s lap. 

Worst of all, to Leo’s mind, was the captain and a junior officer. The captain slumped in his command chair, a phaser in one hand, the other twisted in the junior officer’s hair. The junior officer’s hands were locked around the captain’s neck. 

“Bones?” Jim said quietly. 

Leo walked over to that pair. He could see at a glance that there was no need to unsling his tricorder, but he did anyway, confirming his surmise. “His neck is broken, Jim.” He glanced at the navigator’s sleeves—two thick silver stripes, the mark of a commander. At a guess, the man had been the ship’s first officer. 

Chekov was staring at the pair, his blue eyes wide. “Has zere ever been a mutiny aboard a starship before?” he asked in a small voice. 

“There is absolutely no record of an occurrence like this, Lieutenant,” Spock said firmly. 

Jim scanned the bridge slowly. His eyes fell on the communications officer, and his lips thinned. “Caty,” he murmured. 

“I beg your pardon?” Spock frowned slightly. 

Jim crossed over to the woman, whose arms in death were still curled around the yeoman’s head, as if in her last moments she’d sought to protect her. “Lieutenant Catherine Riordan, age twenty-seven. She served on the _Enterprise_ during our last five-year, starting immediately after leaving the Academy. The _Defiant_ was looking for a new senior communications officer, and Uhura recommended Caty for the position. She was only an ensign at the time, but she’d shown unusual skill…I put her in for the promotion myself.” He swallowed hard, staring at the body. 

Leo put a hand on Jim’s shoulder, knowing what he was thinking. “It’s not your fault, Jim. She deserved the position…and she died in the line of duty.” 

“I know,” Jim said. “Still hard to think I sent her to her death, however indirectly.”

Spock was already examining the ship’s communication equipment. “Captain, the ship is still functioning. It is logical to assume that the mutineers are somewhere aboard. Yet the sensors show no sign of life anywhere on the ship.” 

“Odd,” Jim mused. He hesitated, then said, “Bones, go down to sickbay, see if there are any answers. Chekov, Spock, you two go check out Life Support and Engineering. Report back to me—I’ll be here. Be careful.” 

Leo wished he could kiss his husband, whose electric blue eyes were worried behind the face panel of the suit. Instead, he reached over and squeezed Jim’s hand tightly. “We’ll be back soon, Jim.” 

As they headed for the lift, Leo heard Scotty’s voice through the helmet’s communication system. “Captain, Mr. Sulu reports that he cannae get an accurate fix on the _Defiant,_ but it seems to be drifting away. Should he correct for range?” 

Leo and Spock exchanged glances. Since neither ship was under power, there was absolutely no reason for either one to be moving. This wasn’t the ocean, after all. Leo’s sense of unease grew as Jim’s voice answered, “Keep us within beaming range, but not too close.” 

“Aye, sir. Scott out.” 

Leo got out of the lift before the others, making his way through the eerily silent corridors to Medical. He entered and drew back, appalled. The bay was littered with bodies, many of them strapped down to exam tables, others obviously locked in combat. Resisting the urge to swear, he began running his tricorder methodically over the ones nearest to him. Sure enough, all of them had died violently—strangled, beaten, or otherwise injured. 

He found the ship’s surgeon in his office, and when he saw him, he stopped dead. “Jules!” he whispered. 

Dr. Julian Neels had been a fellow student of Leo’s, but not at Starfleet Academy—at medical school. He and Leo had met at orientation for new students and chummed up instantly. Leo had been a newlywed at that point, still flushed with the glow of his marriage to Jocelyn, and she’d taken to his friend at once. Julian had been a constant fixture at their house, whether it be for a party where Joss tried to introduce him to all her eligible friends or just the three of them. But then, the night they found out where their residencies would be—Leo’s at his home hospital in Georgia, Julian’s at San Francisco Medical Center—they’d gotten drunk and made a colossal mistake, on both parts. Leo still remembered the look on Julian’s face when they sobered up the next day and realized what had happened. They’d kept up the pretense of friendship until graduation, and Jocelyn had never known the difference, but there was always the gulf between them. Every once in a while, Leo had wondered where Julian had ended up after his residency. 

Evidently he had joined Starfleet.

Swallowing back his emotions, Leo nonetheless avoided touching the man as he called up the surgeon’s log. His old friend’s face filled the viewscreen, bringing a lump to Leo’s throat as he watched. 

“Medical log, stardate 2272.05,” Julian’s image began. Leo nodded to himself; that was about right, three weeks back. “Madness has struck the _Defiant_. I can give no other word for it. One by one, the crew has begun to go insane, attacking one another without reason or reservation. Seventeen crew members are dead. I have restrained the culprits—those who survived, anyway—but scans so far have produced nothing. No parasites, no pathogens, no possible invasive creature or organism causing this madness. I will keep looking, but—” His voice cracked, the way it had all those years ago. He brushed a hand over his eyes, then said quietly, “I have no guarantees that I will be able to cure this in time, before it takes the rest of the crew—or takes me.” 

The record blinked, and then Julian’s face returned, wide-eyed and ashen, sweat beading on his forehead. “Medical log, stardate 2272.05, supplemental. Life support has been turned off—air is running out. I won’t last much longer. Should anyone find this record, what little data I was able to gather is in the top left-hand drawer of my desk, on a blue PADD. It may be valuable, I don’t know.” He paused, took a few deep breaths, then added, “And the letter—there’s a letter—please make sure it—” 

The screen went silent. 

Leo was still staring at it when he heard Chekov’s voice come over the helmet. “Chekov reporting, Keptin. All dead in Engineering and Life Support as well.” 

“Right. Get back up here.” Jim’s voice was grim. “Bones?” 

Leo pulled himself together and reached for the drawer Julian had indicated. “More bodies, Jim. Proximate causes of deaths, violence—in short, most of them killed each other.” 

“Could a mental disease possibly have afflicted all the crew at once?” 

“It may still be here, sir,” Chekov’s voice said, sounding a little weak. Alarm bells began clanging in Leo’s head. “I feel wery funny myself—headachy, dizzy.” 

Leo found the PADD Julian had mentioned. Underneath it was a long, white, old-fashioned envelope. Leo’s heart almost stopped when he saw the name printed on it, but he forced himself to speak normally as he tucked both into a pocket of his suit. “I can’t answer that question. The medical log indicates that even the ship’s surgeon didn’t really know what was going on.” He reached towards Julian’s body with his tricorder, knowing he owed it to the man to get the truth—especially now. “The best I can do is take some readings and—what the hell!” 

“Bones, what is it?” Jim asked anxiously. “What’s happening?” 

Leo stared at his hand in shock. It was a second or two before he was able to answer. “Jim, this ship’s beginning to dissolve!” he shouted. “I just put my hand right _through_ a corpse—and then through the wall next to him.” 

“Get back up here on the double,” Jim said, his voice unusually sharp. 

Leo needed no second urging. In the doorway, however, he hesitated for a brief second, then whispered, “Godspeed, Jules,” before he was out and half-running towards the lift.

As the doors opened, admitting him back onto the bridge, Jim threw him a grateful look and wrapped an arm around his waist before activating communication with their ship. “Kirk to _Enterprise_. Mr. Scott, stand by to beam us all back.” 

“I can’t, Captain. Not all at once, anyway.” 

Leo froze at Scotty’s words. Jim’s jaw tensed visibly. “What do you mean? What’s going on over there?” 

“Nothing that we can understand.” Scotty’s voice was grim. “The _Defiant_ is fading out, and it’s—well, as the laddie put it, something is ripping the innards out of our own ship. It’s jamming our transporter frequencies. We’ve only got three operational, and I can’t be sure about those. One of ye will have to stay behind.” 

_Not again,_ Leo thought desperately. _I can’t beam from a derelict ship to the_ Enterprise _without Jim again._

Spock was already speaking. “Request permission to remain, Captain. I could be completing the data.” 

“It’s more important to get the data you already have back to the _Enterprise,”_ Jim answered. “Don’t argue. I’ll probably be right behind you.” He turned to Leo and hugged him tightly. 

Leo hugged him back. “You damned well better be,” he muttered. “I love you, Jim.” 

“I love you, too, Bones.” Jim stepped back, then pressed the tips of his fore- and middle fingers against Leo’s. Leo recognized it for what it was—a Vulcan kiss, the closest they could get to one in the environmental suits. He swallowed hard as Jim moved away from the trio. “All right, Mr. Scott. Beam the landing party back aboard.” 

Leo kept his eyes fixed on Jim as the beams surrounded them and they vanished.

They rematerialized on the _Enterprise._ Leo stepped off the platform instantly, fumbling with the catch on his helmet. Chekov was right behind him, staggering slightly. Leo remembered that he had said he felt headachy and dizzy and made a mental note to check him out—as soon as Jim was safely back aboard. 

“Mr. O’Neil, energize,” Spock said crisply as he stepped down. 

O’Neil pressed the appropriate buttons. But before Leo could even get his helmet off, he froze in place at the man’s sudden cry. “Sir, I had him—but he’s gone! The _Defiant_ is gone!” 

Scotty shouldered O’Neil roughly out of the way. His hands flew over the console, frustration evident on his brow. Spock joined him, scanning the numbers, his helmet under his arm. Scotty looked up at him. “See anything I don’t?” 

“Apparently not,” Spock replied. “Everything is negative.” 

Leo fought back the panic threatening to overwhelm him as he managed to get his own helmet off at last. “But he’s got to be there _somewhere._ If the transporters won’t grab him, what about one of the shuttlecraft? There’s got to be some way of picking him up.” 

“Doctor, there is no present trace of the captain,” Spock replied evenly. “The only possible action is to feed the computer our data and see what conclusions can be drawn.” 

Leo took a deep breath to calm himself, knowing that would have to be done on the bridge. “I have what little information J—the ship’s surgeon was able to collect before his death. I’ll take it back to my office and see if I can figure out what happened over there—unless you’d rather I go with you?” 

“I believe your skills are best used elsewhere.” 

Leo bit back the retort that rose to his tongue. He was being overly sensitive and he knew it. Spock wasn’t dismissing him—he was stating a fact. 

_It’s like Taurus II all over again,_ he reminded himself. _Spock was being logical, not cruel. And he was right—he got you home safely. Trust him this time and he’ll get Jim home and safe._

“All right, Mr. Spock,” he said aloud. “If you need me, call.” 

“I will.”

Leo pulled the PADD and the envelope out of his pocket, careful to conceal the latter, and got out of the environmental suit before heading back to Medical. His nurses and orderlies gave him a quick nod as he passed. He returned it, then went into his office and sat behind his desk. By rights, he should have picked up the PADD and started immediately studying the data there, but instead, he ignored it, staring at the white envelope, and the name written across the front in Julian’s distinctive, neat, rounded hand.

_Dr. Leonard Horatio McCoy._

Leo turned the envelope over several times. Finally, he licked his dry lips and slit the flap. Julian had been one of the few people who still wrote letters with pen and paper—Leo had teased him about it a time or two—and he pulled out the folded sheets with trembling hands. The top sheet was dated 2255.222—mere weeks before Leo had joined Starfleet. A lump formed in his throat as he began to read.

_Dear Leo,_

_If you’re reading this letter, it means I’m dead. I know it’s a possibility. It’s always a possibility, for anybody, but it’s especially possible for me. In case I do die without ever seeing you again—which is highly likely—I just want you to know a few things._

_I told you once that the reason I resisted Jocelyn’s not-so-subtle efforts to set me up with some of her eligible girlfriends was because I was gay. That’s perfectly true. Women do not delight me. What I didn’t tell you was the reason I kept putting up with it. I was never ashamed of who I am. I wouldn’t have minded Joss knowing I was gay. What I would have minded was her inevitable attempts to set me up with any eligible gay men she might have known—assuming she knew any. It wasn’t that I was resistant to being set up in the abstract. It was that I had already fallen in love with someone._

_You._

_I tried to fight it, Leo. I tried to fight it for a long time. I knew I had no right—I knew you belonged to Jocelyn. And the two of you were so happy. I promised myself I would never be “that guy.” Even if you could have feelings for me—and at the time I believed you never could—I swore I would never break up your marriage, or worse, destroy our friendship with an indiscreet word. The day I confessed to you that I was gay, and you told me you were bisexual, was simultaneously the best and worst day of my life. The best, because I realized that I could have had a chance with you; the worst, because you were taken. As the old song says, I came along one promise too late._

_And then came that night. I should have known better. I shouldn’t have encouraged you to come drinking with me. I shouldn’t have invited you to spend the night with me, Joss being out of town visiting her mother. I shouldn’t have brought out the Scotch when we were already drunk. And, God help me, I should have stopped myself before we went as far as we did._

_Don’t try and take the blame on yourself, or even to share it with me. Yes, I know that you wanted it as much as I did…I know that you, as a married man, should have known better. I also know that I was very much in the driver’s seat that night. And I’ll tell you something, Leo, something I never told you back then and something I probably could never actually say to your face. I wasn’t as drunk as you were. I still had enough awareness to know that what we were doing was a bad idea, and that I ought to stop. You didn’t. In a way, I suppose I took advantage of you. You were too impaired to consent properly. And the fact that you’d never gone that far with a man…I hurt you. I hurt you badly, and we both know it._

_So, yes, I haven’t contacted you since graduation. There’s a good reason for that. I was afraid you might do something stupid…or that I might. I wasn’t sure how Jocelyn would react to you telling her—you did tell her, didn’t you? I was also hoping that distance would cure me of loving you. It didn’t. I still love you, Leo, and I’m pretty sure now that I always will. Maybe it’s not the passion I felt back then. Maybe we wouldn’t have lasted very long if we had tried to make a go of it. But I can’t help but regret that we never got to try._

_I don’t have much to leave right now. But whatever I do have, I’m leaving to you. I made my will just before I graduated. Not from medical school. I came out to do my residency, lasted all of six weeks, then gave it up and decided to join Starfleet. I can’t imagine you anywhere but on Earth, so I thought I would try getting off-planet for a while. I don’t know if it will work, but it’s all I can think of._

_I got my orders. Tomorrow I start as a junior doctor on the U.S.S._ Defiant. _She’s up for a three-year mission, botanical surveys and the like. If this mission cures my broken heart, you’ll never see this letter, because I’ll come to see you the second we’re back on Earth and I have shore leave, so I can tell you some of this in person. Otherwise…well, maybe it’s better this way._

_Yours,_

_Dr. Julian Barrett Neels._

There was another piece of paper. Leo’s hands were shaking as he started to look at it, when the intercom chirped. “Security guards to the bridge. Dr. McCoy, will you also report?” 

Leo froze. _Chekov_. He’d forgotten about the man’s headache complaints. If he’d been struck by whatever had struck the crew of the _Defiant…_

He leapt to his feet, leaving the letter where it was, and bolted for the corridor. As the lift ascended, he forced himself to calm down; it wouldn’t help matters if he was panicky. 

The doors opened on the bridge. Leo took in the scene at a glance—Chekov crumpled on the ground, Sulu and Slim both white as sheets, Spock rubbing his neck absently. “He jumped you?” he asked, somewhat rhetorically. “My fault. I should have checked him the minute he said he was feeling funny, but…there was just so much else going on.” He thought guiltily of the letter he’d been perusing, then refocused his attention on Chekov as the doors to the lift slid open behind him, presumably admitting the security detachment Spock had requested and Leo had somehow beaten to the bridge. “Anybody notice any spasms of pain?” 

Sulu and Slim both nodded. “From his expression, I think it was both his head and his stomach,” the former volunteered in a soft voice. 

“Ah.” Leo rubbed his jaw. “What about his behavior? Hysterical? Frightened?” 

“He looked more angry than frightened,” Uhura volunteered from her station. “But there was nothing to be angry about…” 

“Nevertheless,” Spock said, “there were all the signs of a murderous fury. After what we saw on the _Defiant,_ it is doubly disturbing.” 

“I’ll say it is,” Leo muttered, feeling a pang of guilt. _Oh, Jim, I’m sorry for failing your crew._ “Guards, take him to Med Bay. I’ll see what I can find out from observing this thing from its first stages.”

Slim took a deep breath and looked up at Spock. “Uncle Spock, on the other subject—what makes you think Dad is still alive?” 

Leo was prepared to be angry with Slim for doubting his father was still alive when he realized what Slim was actually asking. He wasn’t challenging Spock; he was asking how Spock’s logical brain knew Jim was still alive. It was something more than childish faith to hang on to. 

Spock answered without batting an eyelash. “The captain was locked in the transporter beam when the _Defiant_ flickered out, Thomas. It is possible he was saved the shock of transition.” Before Leo could exhale with relief, Spock continued, “If we do not catch him again at the precise corresponding instant in the next interphase, he will die. There is no margin for error. His environmental unit can supply air for no more than another three point two six hours.” 

“Mr. Spock,” Sulu called from his station. “A vessel is approaching on an intercept vector.” 

Spock turned instantly for the command chair. Leo caught Slim’s eye; the boy nodded, clasping his hands behind his back and taking up a position halfway between the chair and the Engineering panel, where Scotty sat. As Spock began issuing orders, Leo left the bridge. 

He reentered Med Bay to find McCall supervising as the guards strapped Chekov down to a bed. Leo really hated to do that to the poor kid—especially remembering how he’d been forced to restrain Sulu in a similar manner just six months before—but he had no choice. “Right, Dix, keep an eye on him,” he told his nurse. “I’m going to check over Dr. Neels’ observations and see if that can at least give me a starting point.” 

“Yes, Doctor.” 

Leo returned to his office and forced himself to ignore the second part of the letter—he’d wasted enough time. Instead, he picked up the PADD and activated it. 

The fact that the background was a picture of Julian and Leo on his back porch in Savannah with their feet up, drinking mint juleps, didn’t help his state of mind, but he forced it aside and called up the data and observations. As the medical log had warned, they were sketchy and incomplete, but they did at least form a starting point. According to Julian, the symptoms had begun only after the _Defiant_ had reached this point in space. The madness had spread quickly and rapidly. 

Since none of them had gone out of the ship—indeed, there was nothing to go out _to_ —Leo seriously doubted it was a pathogen. He came out thoughtfully and walked over to Chekov’s bedside. The younger man was still senseless.

“Dix, run a brain scan,” Leo ordered his nurse. “I want to see if this is neurological.” 

McCall nodded and went to get the machine. It was incredibly fast, but to Leo it seemed to be dragging on and on. At last, it beeped, giving him a reading. 

Leo looked at the numbers. His lips flattened into a thin line. “Dammit, why’s it always the kid?” he muttered, glancing at Chekov. Why did everything have to hit Chekov first and hardest? Not just disease, but this. If those numbers meant what he thought they meant… 

A headache stabbed at his forehead. Leo fought back against the surge of panic threatening to rise up. _It’s just a tension headache,_ he told himself firmly. _It’s not the first sign of the madness. It can’t be. I refuse to give in._

“Doctor? What is it?” McCall asked tremulously. 

Leo called up the numbers again and turned the screen so she could see. “It’s neurological, which is what I was afraid of. The space around us is distorting the molecular structure of his nervous system, including his brain. It’s like the water-binding catalyst that struck all those months ago, but worse…” 

“So we’re just gonna _die?”_

At the cracked, half-hysterical voice, Leo turned, frowning, to see Gage standing behind him. His eyes were wild, and sweat was beading on his forehead. Leo felt a sudden twinge of panic. “Gage, calm down, we’re not—” 

“You’re gonna let us _die!”_ Gage shouted, surging forward. 

He caught Leo off-guard, knocking him to the ground, his hands closing around Leo’s neck. However, Leonard McCoy was twenty years older, a bit heavier, and in a lot better shape than John Gage. He managed to pry Gage’s fingers back enough that he could draw breath to yell, “Dix!” 

Thank God, Dix knew him well enough to know what he needed. She lunged forward and jabbed a hypo against Gage’s shoulder. There was a brief hiss, and Gage’s eyes rolled back in his head as he collapsed. 

“Thanks,” Leo said grimly, getting up. He dragged Gage to a nearby bed and applied the restraints.

“Doctor,” McCall said, her voice trembling slightly, “he does have a point. _Are_ we all going to end up like—like this?” 

“No,” Leo assured her. “Not if I can help it. Once we have the captain back aboard, we can clear out of here, and that should fix everything.” _I hope,_ he added silently. 

“When _will_ the captain be back on board?” McCall pressed. 

Leo checked the chronometer. It had been about two hours since they had lost the _Defiant_ …and Jim. Surely that was enough time to get him back. He crossed over to the intercom. “McCoy to bridge. Has the captain beamed back aboard, Mr. Spock?” 

“No, Doctor,” Spock’s voice replied. Leo felt something go cold inside him. “And the interphase period has been passed. We will have to wait for the next one.” 

“But he hasn’t got enough air for that!” Leo protested, fighting down the panic once more. If the cycle took two hours, and Spock—whose estimates were never wrong—had said Jim only had enough air left for three…if they had to wait much longer, Jim would die. “And there’s been another case like Chekov’s. I had to confine one of my orderlies to sickbay.” 

“Have you still no clues as to the cause, Doctor?” 

Leo fought back the unreasonable anger he felt at Spock’s words. Ordinarily his annoyance at Spock was mostly for show, but ever since they’d come within range of the Defiant everything had been irritating the hell out of him. It was only the fact that he knew it was because of what he’d just observed in Chekov—and suspected he would also find in Gage if he scanned him—that enabled him to keep it under control. 

“I know exactly what the cause is,” he said, hearing the tightness in his voice. “And I can’t do a damned thing to stop it. The molecular structure of the central nervous system—including the brain—is being distorted by the space we’re in. Sooner or later the whole crew will be affected.” What he had to say next went against everything he wanted, but he forced himself to add, “Unless you get the _Enterprise_ out of here.” 

Leo heard a faint shout in the background, and then the whole ship lurched. McCall stumbled, cracking her hip against a biobed. Leo cursed under his breath and strode towards the door. “I’m going up to the bridge. If anyone else shows signs of fight, sedate ‘em and strap ‘em down. And if you suspect anything in yourself, for God’s sake knock yourself out.” With that, he was gone.

He kept his face set in as Vulcan-like a mask as he could as he strode through the corridors. They were in the middle of a battle. He didn’t want to leave Jim—God knew he didn’t want to leave Jim—and if there were any way of rescuing him, Leo would have been first in line to volunteer, even if it meant he had to fly a shuttle himself. But he was also realistic. The entire _Enterprise_ was in danger. Jim would never have allowed that. The safety of the ship’s crew came first and foremost. And while Jim didn’t believe in a no-win scenario, he also believed in pulling away and reassessing the odds. If they left this area now, if they all had clearer heads, they could _think,_ dammit, they could put together a decent plan and save Jim. But there was no point in fighting a battle. They would just all get killed. 

And Leo had to admit that there was a very good chance Jim was dead. 

He emerged onto the bridge. Scotty was not on the bridge; Slim sat at the Engineering panel instead. Spock sat bolt upright in the command chair. On the screen was a strange pyramidal ship, a tetrahedron with a pulsating light from within. Clearly, this was the enemy vessel; just as clearly, it was shooting at them. 

“Spock, what’s the use of this battle?” Leo asked. He meant for it to come out as a reasonable question, but it came out harshly, like a challenge. “We’ve already lost the captain. Take the ship out of here.” 

Slim shot Leo a quick, unidentifiable look, but Spock, intent upon the screen, didn’t answer. The pyramidal ship zigzagged closer. 

“Fire!” Spock snapped out. 

The _Enterprise_ fired at the same time as the other ship. There was a gonglike sound, and the bridge shook, throwing Leo to the deck. When everything went still, he heard Spock’s voice overhead. “A standoff. Mr. Scott, status?” 

“Converters burnt out.” Scotty’s voice over the intercom was more gravelly than usual. “We’ve lost drive and hence ability to correct drift. Estimate four hours in replacement time.” 

“By that time, we’ll have drifted right through that—that gateway out there.” Sulu’s voice sounded borderline terrified.

“Are you satisfied?” Leo snapped, picking himself up. “Spock, why did you do it?” 

“To stay in the area for the next interphase required disabling the Tholian ship,” Spock answered immediately. 

Leo spread out his hands helplessly. “But you’re ignoring the mental effects! How can you risk your whole crew on the chance of rescuing one officer—who’s already presumed dead? Jim wouldn’t have done that!” 

“Doctor, now is hardly the time for such comparisons,” Spock said stiffly, looking over at him. “Get down to your laboratory at once and search for an antidote for those mental effects. Since we must remain here, that is your task, as mine is to command the _Enterprise.”_

Leo was speechless with rage. He turned towards the lift doors. As he did, he heard Slim’s soft voice. “Mr. Spock, request permission to assist Mr. Scott with repairs on the converters. Maybe I can help him get done a little more quickly.” 

“Granted,” Spock said, his own voice softening slightly. 

Slim caught up to Leo and joined him in the lift. As they began descending, the boy said quietly, “Pa…d’you really think Dad’s dead?” 

“I don’t know, Slim,” Leo admitted. “I don’t know what to think. But he only had three hours of air left, and it’s been two.” 

“I know, that’s why the Tholians fired on us. ‘The renowned Tholian punctuality,’ Uncle Spock called it.” Slim’s lips twisted wryly as he said this. 

Leo hesitated. “Slim—what’s going on? I missed…everything, it seems.” 

Slim took a deep breath. “Okay. The Tholian Assembly annexed this part of space, or they say they did, anyway. They gave us one interphase cycle to get Dad and get out. When we didn’t, they opened fire. Now the ship’s damaged an’ we ain’t goin’ anywhere ‘til it’s fixed. Assumin’ we don’t all get killed.” 

“Dammit, why didn’t Spock just _go?”_ Leo burst out angrily. “I told him—the longer we stay in this area, the crazier everyone is going to go. He’s put the whole damned crew at risk to save one man—that’s not Spock’s style at all, even if it _is_ Jim! What the hell is wrong with him?” 

“I ain’t sure you didn’t just put your finger on it, Pa,” Slim said quietly. “Who’s to say he ain’t just goin’ crazy differently than humans do?” 

Leo stared at his stepson until Slim prompted, “This is your floor, Pa.” 

Shaking his head, Leo headed off.

He had a hunch he wanted to follow up on. In his laboratory, he had a substance that he had worked with before, one that was well-known for blocking nerves. It was deadly, but if he diluted it enough, there was a point when it would only deaden certain nerve endings…the nerves that were getting rearranged, the nerves that were causing people to become violently unstable. 

_Including me,_ he added grimly to himself. 

He hadn’t been working for very long when the shipwide intercom system came to life. “Attention, USS _Enterprise._ There will be a memorial service for Captain Kirk in the ship’s chapel in ten minutes. All personnel are invited to attend. Spock out.” 

Leo choked back a sob. Hearing Spock say that had just killed the last of his hopes. Jim was gone, completely and irrevocably. This damned sector of space had cost him his husband, the love of his life, as well as the old friend he’d never thought to see again. Losing Julian had been bad enough, especially losing him only to find out that he’d still loved Leo, but to lose Jim… 

That was it. Leo was a widower, a single father. He had to pull it together, had to keep going for their sakes…for the sake of Jim’s memory…but right now it was hard to think about drawing his next breath, let alone living another day. 

Only a week before, they’d celebrated Addie’s second birthday—not with a party, she was still too little to understand, but they’d cuddled her and given her presents and read her stories and been a family. Three weeks before that—about the time the _Defiant_ fell mad—Leo and Jim had celebrated Jim’s thirty-ninth birthday by spending the entire day in bed together. And _had_ it only been two months before then that they had danced on the observation deck, celebrating their tenth anniversary? 

Too many celebrations coming on top of too many tragedies. In less than two weeks it would be the fourteenth anniversary of the destruction of Vulcan. Three weeks after that and it would be thirteen years since Pike died, thirteen years since Jim’s first death. They had always known they were living on borrowed time, but Leo had always thought they would have more time than this.

Slowly, Leo trudged out of his laboratory. He didn’t know how he could stand going to Jim’s memorial service, but he also knew that he had to be there. Spock would be delivering the eulogy, but he still had to go. 

First, though, he needed to make a stop. He remembered Jim telling him once, early on in their first tour, when they’d come back from an away mission that had nearly cost them both their lives, about something in his desk drawer. 

_If I’m ever declared dead—_

_Dammit, Jim, don’t_ say _that._

_But if I_ am, _Bones, if I ever get lost on a mission and declared dead, there’s a tape in my desk drawer, the top one, you know the one. You and Spock both need to watch it. It’s…it’s important. Promise me you’ll make Spock watch it, no matter what’s going on._

_…I promise._

Was it even still there? Leo had no idea. But he knew he had to check. 

He went back to their quarters. It physically pained him to go in, knowing that Jim would never enter them again. Opening the desk drawer slowly, he found the tape…and the black velvet case containing Jim’s medals. He was a highly decorated officer—he’d even been the first recipient of the Christopher Pike Medal of Valor—and he’d deserved a hell of a lot better than to die like this. 

Leo placed the tape in the machine and the case on the table. After a moment’s hesitation, he opened the case, exposing the medals. He had one or two questions for Spock. 

Swallowing against the stubborn lump in his throat again, he headed down to the chapel.

The memorial service had already begun. Spock was in the middle of eulogizing Jim. Leo stood in the back of the room, blinking back tears as he listened. The message was short, sweet, and to the point—very military, very precise—and Leo knew that he would have a quiet, private memorial service of his own with the senior command as soon as they were out of Tholian space, because this had almost nothing to do with Jim. 

And yet, short as it was, it was still interrupted. Immediately after Spock told the two dozen assembled people that they needed to accept that Jim was dead, a crewman let out a strangled, hysterical yell and lunged forward, clearly bent on attacking someone. Leo moved swiftly despite his personal pain, catching up to the crewman before anyone else could get close and jabbing him with a sedative. Two security guards silently collected the man and took him out of the room, presumably to Med Bay. 

“I shall not attempt to voice the quality of respect and admiration which Captain Kirk commanded,” Spock said quietly. “Each of you must evaluate the loss in the privacy of your own thoughts.” 

Leo bit back words of anger as the crew members silently filed out. He saw Slim walk out, his shoulders hunched, and noticed Ensign Cayne slip her hand into his. He saw Scotty following them, looking haunted. He saw Carol walk by carrying Addie, who was quietly crying, and felt a pang of guilt that he couldn’t be there for his daughter right now. However, as the last people passed him, he walked up to Spock. 

“There is a duty to be performed in the captain’s cabin,” he said, as evenly as he could. “It requires both of us.” 

“Then it will have to wait,” Spock replied. “My duties require my immediate return to the bridge.” 

Leo dug his fingernails into his palms and forced himself to remain calm. “The captain left a message tape. It was his order that it be reviewed by both of us should he ever be declared dead—as you’ve just done.” 

“It will have to wait for a more suitable moment,” Spock said, heading into the corridor. 

Leo felt his temper flare up at last. “Why?” he snapped at Spock’s retreating back. “Afraid it’ll change your present status?” 

Spock turned around sharply. Leo knew that had been a low blow and an unworthy one, but right now he didn’t care. He was hurting and he wanted to spread it around. “The mental and physical state of this crew is your responsibility, Doctor. As I have said, its command is mine.” 

Leo stood his ground, barely. “Not while there is a last order remaining to be obeyed.” 

Spock paused, then deflated slightly. “Very well. To the captain’s quarters, then.”

Since Leo had been the first to refer to them that way, he didn’t bother correcting Spock that they were in fact family quarters—that Leo lived there, and Slim and Addie. He didn’t think Spock would turn them out of their rooms, but he wasn’t going to press it, not now that he’d twitted Spock to this point. Instead, he silently led the man that under other circumstances he considered a friend to the quarters. 

When they reached it, Leo didn’t immediately play the tape. Instead, he stared into the open case, looking at all of Jim’s medals. He’d been there at every single ceremony, always so proud of his Jim… 

“He was a hero,” he said softly, “in every sense of the word. Yet his life was sacrificed for nothing.” He looked up at Spock. “The one thing that would have made his death meaningful is the survival of the _Enterprise._ You made that impossible.” 

“We are here for a specific purpose,” Spock said, his voice icy cold. 

“Maybe not the same one,” Leo admitted. “I came to find out, among other things, really why you stayed and fought.” 

Spock closed the case with a firm movement. “The captain would have remained behind to rescue a stranded crew member, all other things being equal. I do not consider the question closed.” 

“Jim would never have risked the ship—or his children,” Leo said pointedly, anger flashing in his eyes. “And what do you mean, the question isn’t closed? Do you think he might be alive after all? Then why did you just declare him dead—to secure your own captaincy?” 

“Unnecessary. I am already in command of the _Enterprise.”_

“It’s a situation I wish I could remedy,” Leo said bitterly. He wasn’t angry about Spock being in command—really he wasn’t. He did trust Spock’s judgment and ability to command. The man had proven time and again that he was an able commander. He was just angry that Jim was gone. 

“If you think that I remained just to fire that phaser and kill James Kirk or this crew, it is your prerogative as Chief Medical Officer to relieve me of duty,” Spock said, every word distinct, the anger barely held in check. “In the meantime, I suggest that you play the tape you referred to, so that I can get back to my duties on the bridge and you can resume finding an antidote.” 

“All right.” Realizing he’d gone too far, Leo turned back to the viewer and flipped a switch.

For the second time that day, the image of a dead man appeared before Leo. Jim was a fair bit younger in the recording than he was in truth, and Leo realized that he must have made this tape before the first five year mission, if not very early on during it, and never updated it. Obviously it wasn’t something he considered needed changing. 

“Bones…Spock,” Jim’s voice said, quiet but serious. “Since you’re viewing this tape, we’ll assume that I am dead, that the tactical situation is critical, and that you two are locked in mortal combat. It also means, Spock, that you have control of my ship, and are probably facing the most difficult decisions of your career. I can only offer one piece of advice, for what it’s worth. Use every ounce of knowledge and wisdom you’ve got, but temper it with intuitive insight. I believe you have that quality. But if you can’t find it in yourself, then seek it in Dr. McCoy. Ask his advice. If you find it good, take it. 

“Bones…” Jim’s eyes grew sad for a moment. He cleared his throat and continued. “You heard what I just said. Help him if you can, but remember that he is the captain. His decisions, when he reaches them, are to be obeyed without further question. You might find that he is capable of both human insight and human error, and they’re the most difficult to defend. But you two worked well together during the incident with Khan, while I was on the _Vengeance._ You know that Spock is deserving of the same loyalty and confidence that you’ve given me since the day we met. He’s the only one I trust with your life, Bones. 

“As to the disposal of my personal effects—” 

Leo switched off the screen, not needing to hear any more—he had Jim’s will, after all. But Jim’s words had accomplished what Leo’s own self-reproach could not. He looked up at Spock and saw on the commander’s face a reflection of many of his own feelings. They stared at each other for a long moment, no longer challenging. 

Finally, Leo said softly, “I’m sorry, Spock. It hurts, doesn’t it?” 

Spock didn’t answer. He merely looked at Leo for a long moment, then dropped his gaze and left the room.

Leo stayed where he was for a moment, closing his eyes and fighting back the tears. Jim had said those words more than ten years before, and maybe he’d assumed that by now, they wouldn’t be necessary—that Leo and Spock would have worked together without question or complaint the way he expected them to. But both of them were in pain. They’d needed Jim’s reminder. 

As he stepped out into the corridor, he heard a stifled scream. Turning sharply, he saw Carol running towards him, her eyes wide, only half dressed and very close to panic. She saw Leo and stopped, gasping, trying to get words out, but she obviously couldn’t speak. Her knees buckled suddenly, as if she was experiencing a sharp pain, and she grabbed the rail for support. Behind her, Leo saw the terrified eyes of his daughter, stumbling to keep up. 

“Dr. Marcus!” he called, his own voice sharp with fear as he hurried over to steady her. “What’s the matter?” 

“I—Doctor, I’ve just seen the captain!” Carol gasped out. 

“Yes, he’s just left,” Leo said, feeling a twinge of pain. 

“No, not Mr. Spock. Captain Kirk. He’s alive!” 

Leo was afraid to let himself hope, especially since he guessed that Carol was succumbing to the madness herself. “I’m afraid not. But of course you saw him. We’d all like to see him.” _Especially me,_ he added silently. 

Addie reached them at last, her blue eyes wet with tears. “Daddy,” she whimpered, pointing over her shoulder. “Papa, Daddy.” 

Carol clutched at Leo’s shirt, but she seemed much calmer. “I know what you’re thinking, but that wasn’t it. Addie and I were looking in the mirror in my quarters, and we both saw him. He was—shimmering a bit, glowing in a way. He looked somewhat puzzled—and like he was trying to tell me something. I _did_ see him. Tell Mr. Spock. He’s alive, he’s alive, he’s _alive…”_

She sank insensible into his arms.

Leo lifted her, staggering a little under his weight, and looked down at Addie. “Baby, come with Papa, okay?” he said, choking a little. 

Addie stuck very close to Leo’s side as he carried Carol up to Med Bay. He laid her on the biobed, then picked Addie up and cuddled her close. Addie looked up at him. “Daddy,” she whimpered. 

“Daddy—Daddy isn’t coming back, Addie,” Leo said brokenly, hugging his daughter more tightly. “He’s gone.” 

“Daddy,” Addie said insistently. 

She had every ounce of the Kirk stubbornness. Leo didn’t argue, merely rested his chin on the top of her head. He crossed over to the intercom and pressed the button. “McCoy to bridge.” 

“Spock here.” Spock’s voice was unusually subdued. 

“Mr. Spock, Dr. Marcus has just reported an unusual incident.” Leo repeated the sum and substance of what Carol had told him. “I doubt there’s any veracity to it, but I felt you should be aware—just in case someone starts talking about it.” 

There was a short pause. “Thank you, Doctor. Spock out.”

With Addie on his hip, Leo knew he couldn’t go back to his lab—not yet. There were too many dangerous chemicals in there. Instead, he checked over Chekov, Gage, Carol, and the crewman who had caused the disruption during Jim’s memorial service. Chekov was beginning to come around, struggling feebly at his bonds, and Leo warred with himself whether to sedate him or leave him be. By rights, he ought to keep the kid under until he was sure he had a cure. Nobody on the _Defiant_ had shown signs of breaking their bonds, but then, he had no way of knowing whether or not they had been sedated beforehand. 

At last, he decided to leave him be. “Easy, Mr. Chekov,” he said quietly to the navigator. “It’s going to be okay.” 

Chekov actually stopped his struggles, but he glared daggers at Leo, his anger no less than Leo’s own anger had been towards Spock earlier. “Zat’s just what ze keptin said,” he practically spat. 

Leo bit back a moan of pain. Ducking his head, he moved away, feeling Chekov’s accusing eyes boring into his back. 

Over the next twenty minutes, there was a steady stream of patients being brought in, usually dragged by at least two other crew members. Leo set Addie on an exam table out of the way and told her sternly to stay put. Perhaps because she was still missing Jim, perhaps because of the steel in his voice, she obeyed without complaint. Leo just wished she had her tribble. 

As he was contemplating going to get Gottlieb after all, he heard Slim’s voice from the doorway. “Pa!” 

Leo whirled around to see his stepson and Simril staggering into the room. Between them they bore the limp form of Ensign Cayne. “What the hell?” Leo exclaimed, pointing to one of the few remaining biobeds. 

“She tried to attack Mr. Scott,” Simril said in a tight voice as he and Slim carefully got the young woman onto the biobed. “We had to stun her…” 

“You did the right thing,” Leo assured them. “Had you noticed anything unusual beforehand?” 

Slim shook his head. “If I had, I’d have tried to get her to come up here sooner.” He looked anxiously up at Leo. “She’s gonna be all right—ain’t she?” 

“Of course she will,” Leo said firmly. “We all will. You two better get back to Engineering—Scotty’s gonna need all the help he can get repairing those engines.” 

“Especially now that his best engineer is incapacitated,” Simril agreed with the ghost of a smile. “C’mon, Slim.” 

Slim nodded. He cast one last glance over his shoulder, and then he and Simril were out the door.

Leo was about to head back to his lab when the intercom stopped him. “Spock to McCoy. Please report to the bridge.” 

Without a moment’s hesitation, Leo snatched Addie off the exam table and bolted for the lift. 

It usually took him about five minutes to get to the bridge. He made it in two. As he stepped out of the lift doors, he heard Scotty talking to Spock—and Sulu, who obviously wasn’t needed at the helm at the moment, the ship being dead in the water, so to speak. “—transporter effect. He seemed to be almost floating. And I think he saw me. He was breathing pretty heavily—and then hey presto! He winked right out.” 

Leo made a guess at what Scotty was talking about. It didn’t take a genius, especially in light of Carol’s story. “Scotty, are you feeling all right?” 

Scotty didn’t seem to be surprised to see him. “Aye, I think so. Tired, maybe.” 

“So are we all,” Leo said, secretly relieved. Scotty didn’t seem to be succumbing to the madness—yet. “Make sure to see me if you have any other symptoms.” 

“Right, I will.” 

“Dr. Marcus told a similar story right before she fell unconscious,” Spock reminded Leo. “Perhaps we ought not to discount it entirely. Yet in critical moments, in times of stress, men sometimes see what they want to see, even if they are not ill.” 

“Are you saying that the men are seeing the captain because they’ve lost confidence in you?” Leo asked. 

Unlike earlier, he wasn’t deliberately challenging Spock—he was genuinely asking. Nevertheless, Spock stiffened marginally. “I am making no suggestions, but merely stating a fact.” 

“Well, the situation is critical, all right,” Leo said, glancing up at the viewscreen. The Tholian ship was still out there, and had been joined by another. The two crystalline pyramids were moving back and forth across space, forming strings of energy or something that was weaving into an enormous web. “There have been more assaults on the lower decks. And if Scotty here’s being affected, that’ll finish whatever chance we have of getting the _Enterprise_ out of here.” 

“I wouldnae say that,” Scotty said with the faintest trace of a smile. “That laddie of yours is a sharp one.” 

“It is illogical to trust the safety of the entire crew to a fifteen-year-old boy, however remarkable.” Spock sounded incredibly fatigued.

Leo felt a stab of mingled sympathy and guilt. He’d been so angry over losing Jim that he’d neglected to consider the fact that Spock was his friend. Just because he didn’t care about Jim in precisely the same way Leo did, that didn’t mean he didn’t care at all. What was it Jim had quoted on the planet of the Melkots? _You mistake my decision not to feel as a reflection of my not caring, when I assure you the truth is the precise opposite._

“Spock,” he said softly. “I’ve done a lot of things, said a lot of things, I shouldn’t have done or said today. Can you forgive me?” 

Spock looked up at him for a moment. In a quiet voice, he said, “I believe if the captain were here, he would say, ‘Forget it, Bones.’” 

The last three words were said in a voice so similar to Jim’s that Leo went numb for a second, staring at Spock in astonishment. He must have blacked out for a moment, because the next thing he knew Spock was holding him up and Uhura was bouncing Addie, making soothing noises as the little girl wailed with terror. 

“Addie. Addie, I’m okay,” Leo said, fighting off the last waves of dizziness and trying to straighten. Spock understood what he was doing and eased off, letting him stand on his own. 

Addie sniffled and looked up at Leo, tears still running down her face. “Papa?” 

“I’m okay, sweetheart. See?” Leo forced a smile and kissed her forehead. Addie popped her thumb into her mouth and leaned her head against Uhura’s chest, looking absolutely miserable.

Spock sat back down in the chair, gingerly, as if it physically pained him to do so. “Have you any further leads on an antidote, Doctor?” 

It took Leo a second to realize what he was asking. “A small one,” he said. “I’ve been toying with the idea of trying a chlortheragen derivative. But I’m not ready to try anything so drastic, yet.” 

“Why not?” Spock asked, reasonably enough. 

“Well, for one thing—” Leo began, intending to remind Spock that he couldn’t work with dangerous chemicals around his daughter. 

“Mr. Spock,” Sulu said suddenly, his voice hushed but his eyes wide. “Look behind you.” 

Spock turned. Leo felt the breath driven from his lungs at the sight. 

“Daddy!” Addie cried, picking her head up. 

Standing behind the chair was a shimmering specter, seemingly caught in a transporter beam, but the color and consistency of a soap bubble. It was unmistakably Jim, full sized, there and not there. His eyes locked with Leo’s, but he didn’t seem to be able to move. 

He raised a hand to his throat, and his lips moved soundlessly. Leo could read his lips, however—and even if he couldn’t, he knew his husband well enough to read the silent plea in his wide blue eyes. _Bones—hurry!_

And with that, the figure vanished. 

“Daddy!” screamed Addie. She stretched out her arms to where the specter had been, then burst into sobs. 

“Doctor,” Spock said, with renewed energy, “I suggest you get on that antidote, _now.”_

“On it.” Leo also felt more able to move now than before. That was no hallucination caused by incipient insanity. That was _real._ Jim was out there somewhere, trapped between states, and the crew needed to be at their best to save him. He started for the lift, then paused, glancing back at Addie, still in Uhura’s arms. 

As before, Spock seemed to understand his thoughts. He stood from the chair, crossed over to Uhura, and took Addie from her. “With your permission, Doctor, I think it would help if Athena remained on the bridge.” 

Even if he had wanted to argue, seeing the way Addie snuggled into Spock’s arms, wrapping her fingers in the front of his shirt, Leo couldn’t bring himself to tear her away. “Thank you, Mr. Spock,” he said quietly, and then he was gone, heading for his lab at top speed.

Now that he knew what he was aiming for, he went straight for the chlortheragen. No more pussyfooting around. He knew exactly how to dilute it, too. The question was how _far_ to dilute it before it was both safe and effective. 

“All right, Jules,” he mumbled to himself, staring at the flask in front of him. “This was your baby. Help me out here.” 

And he began to work. 

He could almost sense another presence in the room with him, but when he turned to look, there was no one there. Logic said that if it was anyone, it was Jim attempting again to pierce the veil between where he was and where he wanted to be. But Leo couldn’t shake the sensation that Julian had heard his pleas, and that he was encouraging Leo’s progress, helping him to refine and perfect the experiments they’d done in medical school for the hell of it into something useful. 

At last, he had a row of flasks in front of him with a noxious-looking substance in each one, the color and consistency of the ancient Earth fuel known as gasoline. 

“Julian,” he muttered, holding one up, “this had damned well better work.” 

_Alcohol_ , a voice seemed to whisper in his ear. Leo tensed, because it really did sound a hell of a lot like Julian’s voice. _Mix it with alcohol._

Leo had a bottle of Saurian brandy in his office, but closer at hand—and bigger—was the bottle of rum he had in the lab for experimental purposes. He pulled out the jug, grabbed a glass, hesitated, and then mixed a half-glass of rum with what he judged to be a single dose of the chlortheragen derivative. 

“Here’s to you, Jim,” he said aloud, and then knocked the drink back in one gulp. 

It burned going down; he’d never come to appreciate the taste of rum. He choked and sputtered, slamming the glass down on the table, and leaned forward. If he’d just poisoned himself, he might have doomed them all to die…or at the very least, he himself was dead without getting to tell Jim goodbye. 

In an instant, however, his head cleared, the headache that had been nagging at him drained away, and when he straightened, he knew that it had worked. Everything was exactly right. He had remembered Julian’s work correctly, had distilled it properly, and it really _did_ work best mixed with alcohol.

Energized, he prepared enough glasses for all of his patients, then headed back into Med Bay. “Dix! Williams! DeSoto!” he barked. 

The two nurses and remaining orderly hurried forward, looking hopeful. “What’s the word, Doctor?” Williams asked. 

Leo held out the tray. “Help me pass these out. It’s the antidote we’ve been looking for.” 

DeSoto handled Gage—unsurprising, as they’d been friends for a while, even working as paramedics together before joining Starfleet, as the garrulous Gage had once told him—and the handful of people near him. Williams and McCall worked their way around the room. Leo personally attended to the small cluster that included Carol, Cayne, and Chekov. 

The navigator struggled slightly—maybe he should have sedated him first—but eventually Leo forced the cocktail between the man’s lips. He let out a yell that startled the people around them, screwing his eyes up tightly. Then, slowly, Chekov relaxed. A few minutes after the others were sitting up, rubbing at their wrists, Chekov’s long lashes fluttered open. “Doctor?” 

Leo sighed with relief. “Chekov. How are you feeling, kid?” 

“Much better, Doctor.” Chekov’s eyes widened. “Do you think Mr. Spock will forgive me for trying to hurt him?” 

“He already has, Mr. Chekov. You weren’t in control of yourself and he knows it.” Leo was undoing the restraints as he spoke. “Rest here for a minute—Dix, bring water for everyone, they’re probably dehydrated—and then you’d better get back on duty. They’re going to need you on the bridge.” 

“Aye, sir.” Chekov sat up slowly, wincing.

Leo prepared four more glasses, one without the rum, then headed up to the bridge. Scotty and Spock were standing by the computer, Spock with Addie still cuddled to his chest; Sulu sat at his station, twitching nervously, while Uhura tapped her foot at her own station. Both stood when they saw Leo come in. 

“Drink up, me hearties, yo-ho,” Leo said dryly, presenting the tray to Spock and Scotty first. “Compliments of the house. To your good health and the health of your crew!” 

“What is it?” Spock asked, picking up the nearest glass to him and drinking it anyway. 

Leo couldn’t help feeling a surge of respect for him; he had no way of knowing that Leo hadn’t just handed him a goblet of belladonna and nightshade. “Generally, it’s an antidote-cum-preventative for the paranoid reaction. Specifically, it’s a derivative of chlortheragen.” 

Scotty froze with his hand halfway to the glass. “If I remember aright, that’s a nerve gas used by the Klingons. Are ye trying to kill us all, McCoy?” 

“I said it was a derivative, not the pure stuff,” Leo pointed out. “In this form it simply deadens certain nerve impulses to your brain.” 

Scotty made a face. “Any good brand o’ Scotch’ll do that for ye.” 

“As a matter of fact,” Leo said, hiding a smile, “it works best in alcohol. But it does work. It even brought Chekov around, and he’s been affected the longest of anybody.” 

Scotty took the glass nearest to him and knocked it back in a single go. He pulled another face as he set down the empty glass. “It’ll no’ become a regular tipple with me,” he grumbled. “I’ll be getting back to my machines.”

Spock nodded, crossing back to the command chair. Uhura walked over. “Why is this one a different color—and so small?” she asked, pointing to the glass that had only the antidote in it. 

“I told you, it works best in alcohol, so I mixed the others with rum,” Leo told her. “That one’s the straight stuff. No sense in preventing the paranoia and killing someone in the process.” He took the glass and held it out to Sulu. 

“Thank you,” Sulu said gratefully. He drank it, then made a face even worse than Scotty’s. “Ugh. I’d almost rather have the paranoia.” 

“No, you wouldn’t,” Chekov said, coming onto the bridge with his usual sunny smile. “Trust me.” 

Sulu turned to the navigator and wrapped him in a wordless embrace. Spock almost smiled. “Your absence was keenly felt, Lieutenant.” 

Chekov smiled at him, too, then slipped to his position. Sulu and Uhura, too, returned to their posts. Leo set the tray aside as Spock continued, “To begin with, give me an estimated time for the completion of the Tholian tractor field.” 

Leo hadn’t realized that was what it was. Chekov’s fingers flew over the keys. “At ze enemy’s present pace, two minutes, sir.” 

“Mr. Sulu, I have the computers programmed to take us through the interspatial gateway,” Spock said. “Stand by to resume the helm as soon as we emerge on the other side—wherever that may be.” 

“Aye, sir, standing by,” Sulu said with a nod. 

Spock pressed a button on his chair. “Transporter Room.” 

“Scott here,” Scotty’s voice replied promptly. 

“Ready for interphase in seventy-five seconds.” 

“Aye, sir, standing by.”

Without conscious thought, Leo moved to his accustomed space, beside and slightly behind the captain’s chair. Spock glanced up at him, and there was almost a flicker of gratitude in those dark eyes. Leo raised an eyebrow and tilted his head slightly, silently telegraphing a question. _No hard feelings?_

Spock responded with a slight nod and another of those almost-smiles. _None._

“Mr. Spock,” Sulu said, leaning back slightly to talk over his shoulder without taking his eyes from the viewscreen, “the Tholians are getting ready to close their web. It looks like it’s contracting to fit the ship.” 

“Counting down to interphase,” Chekov said, his eyes fixed on the display in front of him. “One minute.” 

“Mr. Scott, do we have full power?” Spock asked. 

“Only seventy-six percent, Mr. Spock,” Scotty replied. 

“Can the computer call on it all at once?” 

There was the briefest of pauses. “Aye, she ought to stand it.” 

“Thirty seconds,” Chekov said. 

Suddenly, Leo tensed. On the viewscreen in front of them, a tiny figure popped into being, directly in their path. 

“Daddy!” Addie cried from Spock’s lap. 

Spock tightened his grip on Addie, restraining her from getting up, as Chekov yelped, “He’s early!” 

Leo bit his lip hard, praying that this wouldn’t ruin everything. The webbing in front of them began to slide across the screen in a heavy mesh. Behind it, the stars slid, too. 

“Tractor field activated,” Sulu said, his voice tense. “We’re being pulled out of here.”

“Try to maintain position, Mr. Sulu,” Spock said. His voice had resumed its usual Vulcan calm. Leo found himself clinging to that. If Spock could be calm in this sort of situation, so could he. It seemed that Julian’s potion—he persisted in thinking of it as Julian’s even though he had made the final adjustments—had done the trick. Everything was back to normal, among them at least. 

Suddenly, the computer drew on every ounce of power it could. The ship throbbed around them. Leo gripped the back of the captain’s chair out of instinct, hoping to keep himself from falling yet again. Heavy tremors shook the deck, making everyone cling to their seats. 

The web vanished. 

“We broke through!” Chekov cheered. 

“No, Mr. Chekov, we went out through the interdimensional gateway,” Spock told him. “Since we went through shortly after interphase, we should still be in some part of normal space. Compute the distance from our original position.” 

“Um—two point sewen two parsecs.” Chekov looked over his shoulder, his smile gone and worry stamped on his features again. “But zat’s well out of transporter range!” 

“You forget, Lieutenant, that we have a shortcut,” Spock said. “Mr. Spock, are you still locked on the captain?” 

“Aye, sir, though I dinnae understand how.” 

“You can beam him in now—we have broken free.” 

“Aye, sir.” There was a split-second’s pause, during which Leo held his breath. Then Scotty yelled triumphantly, “Got him! But he’s unconscious. McCoy, this is your department.” 

Leo was already starting for the door as Spock said, “I will be down directly. Mr. Sulu, take over.”

With Addie still in Spock’s arms, the two men headed to the Transporter Room as quickly as they could. Scotty had Jim propped up against the wall and was struggling with the straps on his helmet. Leo was at his side in an instant, popping the seals. The second the helmet was removed, Jim gave a huge gasp and began breathing more or less normally. 

Leo, too, sighed with relief. “He’ll be fine—just breathing stale air, and probably trying to hold his breath for too long in between breaths. I’ll get him to quarters, and he’ll be around quickly enough.” 

Scotty nodded. He helped Leo to remove the rest of Jim’s environmental suit, but there was no need for him to assist Leo in lifting Jim himself. Leo scooped his husband into his arms as if he weighed no more than Addie. For all his teasing, complaining that Jim was getting heavy, this was one burden he didn’t mind carrying. 

“I’ll send Slim up to ye as soon as the work’s done,” Scotty told Leo. “He, Simril, and Cayne work so well together that I wager they’ll have everything repaired before I get down there.” 

Leo managed a faint smile. “Thanks, Scotty.” 

He took Jim back to their quarters. Spock accompanied him. Addie was mercifully silent, as if she understood her father needed rest. Carefully, Leo lay Jim down on their bed, then opened a drawer, pulled out an epinephrine hypo, and pressed it to his thigh. It did the trick, and a moment later, Jim’s eyes popped open. 

For a minute, none of them said anything. He looked up at Leo and Spock and Addie, and they looked back at him. Finally, Leo said in a faint whisper, “Welcome home, Jim.”

Jim’s smile—the smile he’d been afraid he would never see again—lit up the room. “Thanks, Bones,” he said, a little weakly. “You know…I had a whole universe to myself after the _Defiant_ was thrown out. There was no one else in it at all. Somehow I could sense it.” 

“That must have been disorienting,” Leo said, wincing inwardly. Jim was more introverted than extraverted, although he was closer to being considered an ambivert, but being _completely_ alone would probably have been more than disorienting—it would have been almost unbearable. 

“Very,” Jim agreed. “I kept trying to get through to the ship. I think I succeeded at least three times. I’ve gotta say, I like a crowded universe much better.” 

Leo stroked Jim’s hair lightly. “And I like a universe with you in it much better.” 

“Daddy,” Addie said, speaking at last. 

Jim tried to sit up. Leo helped him, propping him against the headboard. “I’m right here, princess.” 

Spock placed Addie on Jim’s chest. “It is good to have you back, Captain,” he said quietly. 

“Any problems while I was gone?” Jim asked, stroking Addie’s hair. 

“Only such minor discrepancies as are inevitable when humans are involved,” Spock said, poker-faced. 

Leo couldn’t resist adding, “Or are involved with Vulcans.” 

“I see.” Jim smiled slightly. “Well, let’s get to work. Or back to work.”

“Jim, you need rest,” Leo said, glad to be back on safer ground. “You nearly suffocated. I can’t in good conscience let you back on duty until tomorrow.” 

“May I suggest, Doctor, that you remain with the captain?” Spock suggested. “To…monitor him closely?” 

Leo gave Spock a grateful look—then remembered the letter he hadn’t finished. Quietly, he said, “Spock, could I ask you one favor?” 

“Certainly, Doctor.” 

“On the desk in my office, there’s an envelope and a few pieces of paper. Would you bring those to me, please? Or send an orderly with them, or something?” 

Spock nodded and withdrew. Jim looked up at Leo. “What is it, Bones?” 

Leo hesitated. “Something I think you need to see.” 

Addie fell asleep on Jim’s chest—she’d probably missed both of her naps that day, and she was emotionally wrung-out. Leo picked her up and took her to her bedroom, laying her down and covering her neatly. By the time he stepped out, Spock had returned with the envelope and the papers. 

“Thanks, Spock,” Leo said, accepting them. 

“My pleasure, Doctor.” Spock inclined his head again. “I will see you in the morning.” With that, he was gone.

Jim sat up as Leo returned. “Bones, what is it?” he asked again. 

Leo sat down next to Jim. “The ship’s surgeon on the _Defiant_ …his last entry in the medical log specified that there was a PADD in his drawer that had what little data he’d gathered on the madness, as well as an envelope that he wanted to make sure was delivered.” 

“This was the envelope?” 

“Yeah.” Leo hesitated. “It was addressed to me, Jim. Julian Neels and I…we knew each other.” 

Jim’s eyebrows shot up. “From Starfleet Academy?” 

“No…from before that. I didn’t know he was in Starfleet.” 

“How did you know him?” 

Silently, Leo handed Jim the letter he’d read earlier. He still had the other piece of paper, the one he hadn’t read, in his hand, but he didn’t look at it. Instead, he kept his eyes fixed on Jim while his husband scanned the words. 

At last, Jim finished. He stared at the paper a moment longer, then, slowly, raised his eyes to look at Leo. “You had an affair,” he said quietly. 

“I had a fling,” Leo corrected him. “A one-night stand. ‘Affair’ presumes emotional connection. Yeah, Jules— _Julian_ —was a friend of mine, and yeah, maybe if he’d come along before I met Joss I would have dated him. But what we had—what we did—we were drunk, Joss was out of town, and…hell, I don’t know, Jim. I didn’t mean to cheat on my wife.” 

“I know, Bones,” Jim said with a small sigh. “I know you’re not that kind of guy. I know you’d never hurt anyone willingly, but…” He handed the letter back. “Why didn’t you tell me?” 

“I did. Remember? The first time you topped? You asked me if I’d ever done it that way before, and I said yeah, but I’d been drunk the first time, so I hadn’t been able to really enjoy the experience. And afterwards, when you asked me, I did tell you. I just…neglected to tell you I was married to Joss at the time.” Leo sighed. “I’m sorry, Jim. I should have told you, but…” 

“It’s okay,” Jim said firmly. “I’m not mad at you.” He leaned his head on Leo’s shoulder. “And I don’t blame Dr. Neels for still being in love with you. I can’t imagine anyone falling _out_ of love with you—I don’t know what Jocelyn was thinking.” 

Leo put his arms around Jim automatically, holding him close. “I wanted you to see that. Not because I wanted to hurt you or anything, but—I wanted you to know the truth. I never felt that way about Jules. He was my best friend before I met you, and for that he’ll always have a special place in my heart…but I didn’t love him. Not like I loved Joss, and not anywhere _near_ like I love you.” 

“I love you, too.” Jim snuggled into Leo, then noticed the other paper in his hand. “What’s that?” 

“There was a second part to the letter. I haven’t read it yet, but…” Leo looked down at Jim. “I want you to read it with me. I want to share it with you. Please.” 

“Of course.” Jim kissed Leo lightly. 

They put their heads together and read. This one was dated 2258.358—Christmas Eve. It would have been their first Christmas together, the second one they’d spent in Georgia with Leo’s family.

_Dear Leo,_

_I’m not going to rewrite everything I wrote in the other letter. Assuming I don’t work up the courage to come see you in person—and I probably won’t—I still want you to know everything. But now that I’ve been back on Earth for three months, and I’ve had time to digest everything I’ve heard, I wanted to write more._

_I can’t believe it. You, in Starfleet? Not only in Starfleet, but on the flagship of the fleet, the CMO? It almost made sense when I heard you were “involved” with the ship’s captain, but I couldn’t picture Jocelyn at the command of a starship. I still can’t. Then I had a drink with Phlox—he’s a character, isn’t he?—and a few well-placed questions brought me up to speed._

_The reason I didn’t try to find you right away is because I was indulging in a pity party. Jocelyn divorced you—right before I left Earth!—and I wasn’t there. There’s a small part of me that thought, maybe, if I hadn’t left—maybe if I’d stayed—you and I could have made a go of it. But instead I was gone…and you fell for someone else. Once again, I came along one promise too late._

_Except I ran into Christine Chapel. She was a first-year student the year I graduated, and we knew each other from the clinic, so we fell to chatting and she mentioned she’d been on the_ Enterprise _, but was transferring because of a failed attempt to seduce the captain. She admitted that she’d been an idiot, but since he “had a reputation” at the Academy she thought he might have at least given her a night or two._

_I got worried about you when she said that, thinking that you’d wound up with someone else who was going to break your heart, but then she said something that’s burned itself into my brain. She said, “I should have realized the difference between casual dating and what he and McCoy have. You ought to see them together, Julian. It’s something else. The way Kirk looks at him…like he’s the only person in the universe. And they’re hardly ever in the same room without touching in some way. I don’t think they’ve actually been together for very long—a year at most—but whatever they’ve got, it’s something special. I just hope I can find that someday.”_

_So obviously, I don’t need to worry about you. You’ve found someone who will never hurt you, someone who would never let you down. And I’m happy for you, Leo. I really am. If you’re reading this letter—five, ten, twenty years down the road—and you’re still with him, I won’t be surprised. Or angry. I’m glad you’ve got someone like James Kirk in your life. Maybe I’ll find my own Kirk out there, somewhere._

_But it’s not you._

_I’m glad the whole galaxy found out what a hero you are, Leo. The hero I’ve always known you were. You saved the Earth. You saved us all. You deserve that ship, you deserve those rewards. You deserve Kirk._

_I’ll always love you. But if I see you out there in the stars someday…well, I won’t forget myself again. I’ll do anything to make you happy—even stand by and watch you be with someone else._

_Love always,_

_Julian._

“I wish I could have met him,” Jim said softly, cuddling against Leo’s chest. “He seems like a rare friend.” 

“He was,” Leo agreed, feeling tears prick at his eyes. “I think you would have liked him. I know he would have liked you. And he’d have loved Addie.” 

“Hard not to.” Jim smiled. He cupped Leo’s jaw and kissed him tenderly. “I love you, Leonard Horatio McCoy,” he whispered. 

Leo kissed him back. “I love you, James Tiberius Kirk. I always have. And I always will.”


	48. What's He Like

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably the longest chapter to date that isn't an episode adaptation, so be warned.
> 
> And yes, all of the books mentioned in this chapter are real books.

Slim was lounging on the armchair with his feet propped on the coffee table, absorbed in a so-called “young adult” novel from the early twenty-first century, when the door slid open and Jim came in. 

“What’re you reading?” 

Slim smiled to himself. It was pretty much the standard question he got asked these days—if his father came in and saw him with his nose buried in a PADD, he would always start the conversation by asking what he was reading. And Slim, when he wasn’t in Engineering or out with his friends, read a lot. He was only allowed to help in Engineering every other day, and Alpha shift wasn’t quite over yet, so since Carol still had Addie and he was alone for the afternoon, Slim had decided to read. 

_“The Titan’s Curse,”_ he answered. “Third in a series. What’s up, Dad?” 

“We’re coming in to a starbase,” Jim answered, sitting down on the arm of the sofa. “Actually, it’s a space station, a fairly new one. Station J-Twelve.” 

Slim marked his page and set the PADD aside, figuring his dad probably wanted him to come watch them approach or something. But all he could think to say was, “Yeah?” 

Jim smiled. “Yeah. And we’ll be here for a day or two. I’m granting the crew shore leave. It’s…it’s basically a giant indoor city, I’m told. Mostly shopping, but there’s a holoplex and a couple of recreation facilities—parrisses squares, tennis courts, that kind of thing.” 

Slim didn’t know what parrisses squares was, but he didn’t want to ask. “It sounds awesome, Dad.” 

“I thought you’d like it. But what I came to say…Bones and I have talked it over, and we thought…” Jim took a deep breath. Obviously this was nerve-wracking. “We thought you might want to go over with your friends instead of waiting for us.”

Slim stared. “What?” he said dumbly. 

Jim shrugged. “I probably won’t be able to take my shore leave until tomorrow at the earliest—someone’s got to stay and monitor the skeleton crew, make sure people come back on time, that sort of thing. Spock and Scotty and I are taking turns to do that, but I’m going to go pretty close to last for my shore leave. You, on the other hand…you don’t have anything tying you down here. Technically, you’re a passenger, not a crew member—you’re not tied by duty rotas as to when you can go ashore. But I’d prefer you not go over there completely by yourself. On the other hand…most of the engineers, especially the ones on Alpha, will be taking the first shift. I thought maybe you’d want to go with them instead of hanging around here being bored.” 

“I ain’t been bored on the _Enterprise_ yet,” Slim pointed out, which was true enough. “But I’d love to go—if you’re sure you don’t mind.” 

“It’s okay for you to go.” The way Jim rephrased the question told Slim exactly how hard this was going to be for him. “Like I said, if you wanted to go find one of your friends, see if they’d like to go over with you…” 

“I’d love to,” Slim said again. “Thanks, Dad.” 

Jim smiled. “I’ll make an announcement when we dock, letting people know the shift of who can go when. That’d be the time to find your friends, I would say.” He stood up, then paused. “Oh, before I forget…” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a brown wallet, which he handed to Slim. “I realize we never actually sat down and worked out an allowance for you, but Bones and Scotty and I worked out what you’ve more or less earned in the time you’ve been on the ship, between helping in Engineering, watching Addie, and the secretarial and diplomatic work you’ve done. It comes to about five hundred credits, all told. The card’s in there.” 

Slim was staggered. In his life, he’d never had that much. “Dad, I—I can’t accept this,” he protested. 

“How else are you going to pay for whatever you do over there?” Jim smiled, ruffling Slim’s hair. “Just try to keep track of what you’re spending. Don’t go crazy, you know? And you’ve earned it. It’s not like I’m just handing you money for breathing. You worked your butt off.” 

“I like it.” 

“I know you do, but you should still get something out of it. I’ll see you later, kiddo.” 

“See you, Dad,” Slim said softly. He stared at the wallet as Jim left the room. Finally, he tucked it into the pocket of his jeans, then picked up his PADD again.

Just as the story’s main character squared off against the Big Bad, the intercom clicked to life and Jim’s voice filled the room. “Attention, USS _Enterprise._ This is Captain Kirk speaking. We are now docking at Space Station J-Twelve. All off-duty personnel who desire to may beam over to the station for shore leave. However, no one person may spend more than six hours _total_ on the station. We will be here for the next thirty-six hours, so use your time wisely. Excessive time on the station, or failure to report for duty shift, will result in disciplinary action. Kirk out.” 

Slim set his PADD on his shelf and stood. He got his shoes on, then headed off in search of one of his friends. 

It didn’t take him long before he ran into a pack of Alpha shift engineers stepping off the lift. He stood aside to give them room and smiled when he saw Audra. “Hey,” he said, raising his voice a little to be heard. 

Audra saw him, returned the smile, and stepped out of the pack. “Hey,” she said, blushing slightly. “You planning to—no, sorry, you’ve got to wait for your dad, don’t you?” 

“Nope,” Slim said. He blushed slightly, too. “Dad said I could go over with—with friends if I wanted. I was wondering if—if you wanted to go to the station with me? Maybe you an’ Port,” he added quickly, to make it seem less intimidating—for which one of them, he didn’t know. It wasn’t, he told himself, like he was asking her out on a _date._ They were just friends. 

“I’d love to.” Audra’s blush was getting stronger. “I ain’t sure where Port is, but…” 

“You called?” Porter stepped out of the crowd. He was looking much better recently, since they’d passed the nebula. He’d been welcomed into their little circle, and while he still tended to be a loner more often than not, he sometimes made a fifth at Fizzbin, or hung out with Slim and Audra when Sulu and Chekov were wrapped up in each other. Slim was glad to count him as a friend. 

“We’re headin’ over to the station,” Audra told Porter. “Want to come along?” 

“I’d like to get out of my uniform first, but sure.” Porter looked at Slim in surprise. “The captain’s letting you go without him?” 

“Yeah,” Slim answered. “Surprised me, too.” 

Porter laughed. “Be back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.” 

“Ditto,” Audra told Slim. 

“I’ll be here.”

A few crew members nodded to Slim as they passed him. In the last year, he’d gotten a bit more comfortable with the younger ones, although he wouldn’t necessarily consider them his _friends,_ per se. Some of them were starting to see him as a—a colleague, _maybe,_ but more likely just as “not an annoyance.” Then again, in some cultures, that _was_ a friend. He remembered reading once that the Finnish word for one’s significant other was a gender-neutral term that translated into Standard as “one I don’t hate as much as the others.” 

Porter was the first one back. Slim had never seen him out of uniform and was startled to see him wearing an outfit remarkably similar to the one he was wearing. Slim wore a flannel shirt in squares of black and blue-grey, faded blue jeans, and the sneakers he’d last worn on the picnic he’d gone on with his family. Porter wore a red-and-black flannel shirt, dark jeans, and tan hiking boots. 

“Nice boots,” Slim said, for lack of anything better to say. 

Porter smiled crookedly. “Don’t tell anyone, but they were Allyn’s. We had the same size feet. I stole them from her when mine wore out, back before we started at the Academy.” 

Slim chuckled. “I think it’ll be a while ‘fore I can steal my sister’s shoes.” 

Porter laughed. It was a great sound to hear. Slim couldn’t help joining in. 

“What’s so funny?” 

Slim turned and felt momentarily breathless. Not that Audra was wearing anything particularly exciting—she’d also put on jeans, plus a denim button-up shirt and a pair of brown shoes somewhere between sneakers and dress shoes—but it looked good on her. Her hair, which was usually coiled in a tight braided bun on the back of her head, was still braided but loose, hanging down to her waist. 

“Nothin’,” he said, trying to sound casual. “Just bein’ silly.” 

“Got it.” Audra grinned. “You two ready?” 

“Ready,” Porter and Slim chorused.

They took the lift up to the Transporter Room. People were beaming out in batches of eight at a time—all the transporters could handle at once. They took their places at the back of the line, patiently waiting their turn. 

“Next!” 

Slim didn’t know three of the female crew members in their batch, but he recognized Watanabe and Solari as they stood hand-in-hand on their respective spots. Porter leaned over and whispered, “Wonder if they’ll find something dangerous enough for them on a space station?” 

Slim snorted softly. His father probably believed—or wanted to believe—that he didn’t know about things like that, but Solari and Watanabe’s sex life was the worst-kept secret in Engineering. Everyone knew why it had taken Solari so long to realize she had Rigelian fever. Porter didn’t like her, and Slim could understand why—Solari’s reluctance to talk to Leo had cost Allyn her life. For the same reason, Audra was barely more than cordial to her. Slim just thought it was lucky Solari usually worked Gamma shift. 

“Energizing,” called the technician. 

The transporter beam surrounded them. Slim felt a thrill run down his spine. He knew Leo hated the transporters (although he said they were marginally preferable to shuttles, which he still didn’t like _at all_ ), but the only time so far he’d ever used one, Slim had rather enjoyed the experience. 

They rematerialized in a room that was almost the inverse of the one they had left—everything dark grey, with brilliant scarlet carpeting, instead of white. The technician saluted. “Welcome to Space Station J-Twelve.” 

Slim returned the salute. He stepped down and offered Audra his hand—unnecessarily, he knew, but he also knew it was the gentlemanly thing to do. She accepted, smiling. Porter stepped down on Slim’s other side, and the three of them headed into the station proper.

Once they stepped out of the Transporter Room, Audra stopped, squeezing Slim’s hand tightly. “Holy hell,” she breathed. 

Slim agreed. Lapsing into the accent of his birth without conscious thought, he said, “I ain’t never seen so many people in all my born days.” 

The hallway where they stood made the corridors of the _Enterprise_ look like maintenance tunnels. There was a high ceiling, so high up Slim almost couldn’t see it, and the streets were teeming with people. Signs everywhere seemed to direct them to various locations, mostly written in Standard, but there were several examples of Vulcan calligraphy, scattered here and there. 

“Where do you want to start?” Porter asked. 

Slim glanced at Audra, perfectly happy to let her take the lead. She shrugged. “I ain’t never been to a space station before.” 

“Me, neither,” Slim said. 

“Amble?” Porter suggested. 

“Amble,” Slim and Audra agreed in unison.

Ignoring the people rushing past them, the three began walking slowly down the corridors, taking their time. Slim found that he was enjoying himself. Most of the places they passed had missing walls for doors, so you could look in and see everything sold; others had huge display windows. There were things Slim had never seen before—cloths with mystic symbols he could only guess at the meanings of, exotic artifacts, restaurants with smells emanating from them at once tantalizing and repulsive. At one point, they passed a restaurant and saw a couple at the window served a platter of what Slim at first thought were small eggplants—until they all started wiggling. 

“Eugh!” Audra turned away quickly so the couple wouldn’t see her expression. 

“Different strokes for different folks, I figure,” Porter said. “I’m sure there’s some place around here that serves home cooking—you know, _our_ home cooking. There’s everything else, that’s for damned sure.” 

“Where are you from, Port?” Slim suddenly realized that, in all the months he had been getting to know the ensign, he’d never asked the most basic questions about his past. Really, none of them talked about their pasts much, which he supposed made them perfect friends. Leave the past where it belonged—behind them. But now he was curious. 

“Canada,” Porter answered. “I’m Canadian.” 

“Frank Zhang or Anne Shirley?” As soon as the latter question was out of his mouth, Slim wished the floor would open up and swallow him whole. Leave it to him to make the obscure geek references. 

Before he could apologize or clarify, however, Porter stopped and stared at him. “You’ve read the Heroes of Olympus?” 

Slim stopped, too, feeling a grin steal across his face. “Yeah—wait, you’ve read them, too?” 

“Oh, man, I wore out my PADD reading them when I was a kid! Greek or Roman?” 

“Greek. Definitely Greek. Son of Hephaestus, right here.” 

“Really? I always thought of myself as Roman myself, but I guess that’s partly because I _loved_ Frank and—” 

“Guys,” Audra interrupted. “Either one of you want to explain what you’re talkin’ about?” 

Slim blushed, but gave her the briefest summary he could. “Twenty-first century children’s book series. Technically there were two—the Percy Jackson and the Olympians, and then the Heroes of Olympus. Heroes was the second series, written for kids a little older. It involves the Greek and Roman gods bein’ real, an’ still bein’ around an’ havin’ kids. Percy’s the son of Poseidon.”

Audra blinked. “You’re gonna have to explain that better.” 

“If we’re going to talk about this, I need food first,” Porter informed her. “But to answer your initial question, Slim, Frank.” 

“Okay, you want to explain _that_ one?” 

“Frank Zhang was a character in the second series,” Slim explained. “He lived in—I think it was a bit north of Vancouver. Anne Shirley was the main character in _Anne of Green Gables_ an’ its sequels. She lived on Prince Edward Island, on the eastern side o’ the country.” 

Audra looked amused. “You couldn’t have just said ‘what part of Canada’ or ‘east or west’? You _had_ to make the geek reference.” 

Slim blushed again. “It sorta…slipped out.” 

“And since you’re the only one who didn’t get it…” Porter spread out his hands. 

“Shut up.” Audra bopped him on the shoulder lightly. 

The three of them laughed. Then Slim’s nose twitched. “I smell barbecue. Come on.” 

Audra moved eagerly, but Porter hung back. “Barbecue,” he said uncertainly. “Isn’t that shredded pork bits soaked in—mayonnaise and vinegar and—?” 

Slim shuddered. “Gods forbid.” 

“That’s _Carolina_ barbecue,” Audra said, wrinkling her nose. “We’re talkin’ _real_ barbecue here, Simril. _Western_ barbecue.” 

“It’s brown-sugar based,” Slim explained. 

“Okay, I’m sold,” Porter agreed, falling into step with them.

Slim hadn’t had barbecue in ages. His mouth was watering long before they found the restaurant. It was small, tucked away in a corner. A lot of people stopped or slowed their paces, sniffing the air and smiling, but there was only one person inside, a forlorn-looking man in a stained white apron. 

He perked up well enough when the three of them took a seat at a table by the window, hurrying over to them with three menus. “Welcome to Ramblin’ Fred’s Barbecue! What can I get y’all to drink?” 

“Got apple fizz?” Audra inquired. 

“Sure do, little lady.” 

“Then I’ll have one, please.” 

“Same here,” Slim said. 

“Make it three.” Porter raised a finger. 

The man grinned broadly. “Know what you’re eating?” 

“I’ve never had western barbecue before,” Porter admitted. 

“Then I’ll give y’all time to decide.” The man bustled off. 

It took no more than a single glance at the menu for Slim to decide on exactly what he wanted. Porter’s eyebrows shot up when he set the menu aside. “You know what you’re getting already?” 

“They have brisket,” Slim said, pointing at the entry. “I _love_ brisket.” 

By the time the man returned with their drinks, all of them had decided. Audra ordered a pulled pork sandwich, and Porter went with the ribs. While they waited for their food, they sipped at their drinks, and Slim and Porter took it in turns to explain the plots of the books featuring Percy Jackson and his friends. 

“So that’s why you say you’re a son of Hephaestus,” Audra mused, stirring her drink lightly with the straw, making it hiss. “I c’n see that. How ‘bout you, Port? What would you be?” 

“I think I’d be a son of Vulcan,” Porter replied. “Vulcan was the Roman version of Hephaestus, and like I said, I always thought of myself as more Roman than Greek. Partly because of Frank and Hazel—and Reyna, to a point—but also because I was always more warlike. I do better as part of a team, not so well on my own.” 

“I’m kinda the opposite,” Slim said. “Maybe it’s partly how I grew up—I reckon I’m a lot like Leo, actually, ‘cept I ain’t as funny—but until I met y’all, I worked better on my own.” 

“Yeah,” Audra said, grinning. “I’d say we make a pretty good team.” 

“I’d say so,” Porter agreed.

The man reappeared just then with three steaming platters, the smells of which made Slim’s mouth water. “Here you go,” he said, beaming as he served them. “Tell me, if you don’t mind—what brings y’all here?” 

Porter eyed the ribs. “Do you mean _here_ as in the station, or _here_ as in this restaurant?” 

“Both.” 

“We’re at the station because our ship docked here for a day and a half,” Porter answered. “Refueling, restocking, that sort of thing. We’re _here_ because of them.” He pointed at Audra and Slim, then picked up the first rib. 

“You two like barbecue?” The man seemed really pleased at that. 

“Sure do,” Audra replied. “We grew up with this stuff, sorta. We’re both from Oklahoma.” 

“Oklahoma! Well, no kiddin’!” The man scratched the top of his head. “I’m from Oklahoma m’self. What part?” 

“Oklahoma County,” Slim answered. “My mom was born in Arcadia, an’ I grew up in foster care ‘round there.” 

“Same for me,” Audra said. “’Cept it was my daddy who was from Arcadia. I ain’t too sure where Momma was from.” 

“Now ain’t that jes’ the thing!” The man sounded surprised. “I’m from Oklahoma County myself—Oklahoma City.” He held out his hand. “Fred Claiborne.” 

“Slim Kirk.” Slim accepted the man’s hand. “Uh—Claiborne. As in—” 

“Billy Claiborne? Direct descendant.” Fred squinted at Slim. “Kirk. As in Jim Kirk?” 

“He’s my dad,” Slim said, nodding. 

“I’ll be jiggered!” Fred slapped his thigh. “You ain’t his sister, then—his sweetheart, maybe?” 

Both Audra and Slim blushed at that. “No, we’re just friends,” Audra said quickly. “I’m Audra Cayne.” 

“You’re kiddin’.” Fred smiled broadly and bustled away.

Porter looked after him, then back at Audra. “Why don’t I like the sound of that?” 

Slim, too, was feeling uneasy. “Maybe we should just eat quick.” 

“Yeah.” Porter took a bite of the rib he was holding. His eyes rolled back in his head. “Mmmph! _Dii immortales,”_ he mumbled around the bone. “This is _heavenly.”_

“Told you,” Slim said, managing a smile. 

“What’s—whatever it was you said?” Audra asked, pausing with her sandwich halfway to her mouth. 

Slim speared a piece of brisket. _“Dii immortales._ It’s…basically the Ancient Greek version of ‘oh my God.’ They use the phrase a lot in the Percy Jackson books. That or ‘gods of Olympus.’ Or ‘holy Hera,’ although Leo says ‘holy Hephaestus’ a lot.” 

“So you two are using _exclamations_ from those books? Looks like I’m gonna have to read ‘em.” 

“You totally should,” Porter told her. “They’re well worth the read.” 

Conversation lulled for a while as they ate, maybe a little more quickly than they should have. The brisket was a little drier than Slim would have liked, but overall it wasn’t bad. He stole a forkful of pork off of Audra’s plate, and it was better, and Porter foisted a rib on him, which was, as he’d said, heavenly. As they were licking the sauce off their fingers and wiping their faces with napkins, Fred returned. 

“Dessert, folks?” 

“No, thanks, just the checks,” Porter told him. “We’re all paying for our own, so—” 

“No, no, this one’s on me,” Fred said firmly. “I never charge Okies, not that I get many of them.” 

“Okay, but I’m not an Okie—I’m Canadian.” 

“Well, you can be an honorary Okie for a day.” Fred beamed. “Seriously. I wouldn’t take a credit from any of you. Just tell people how much you liked my barbecue, yeah?” 

“No worries there,” Porter said, smiling. He stood up, signaling to Audra and Slim with his eyes. They got hastily to their feet. “Well, we’ll be going now. Nice to meet you, Mr. Claiborne.” 

“Oh, before you go—” Fred smiled casually at Audra. “You said your last name was Cayne. Are you by chance Dorsey Cayne’s daughter?” 

Audra froze. “Yessir, that was my daddy’s name.” 

“Hell of a thing. I met him once. Well, y’all have a good day.” Fred smiled again and vanished.

Slim didn’t say anything until they were several stores away. “Audra, you okay?” 

“Yeah—yeah.” Audra rubbed the back of her neck. “Just startled me is all. I ain’t sure I liked that fella.” 

“I’m not, either,” Porter said in a low voice. “You know what, I’m going to backtrack and say something to…I don’t know. The captain, maybe, or somebody in security on the station. Just…something about that wasn’t right. You two go ahead.” 

“Maybe we should go with you,” Audra said. “I reckon…I feel a little like he was threatenin’ me.” 

“We don’t all need to go.” 

“Look, there’s a bookstore right over there,” Slim said, pointing to the store he could see at the corner, one of the few without a wide open front. “You two go find someone to talk to—they ain’t gonna take me seriously. Well, Dad might, but he’s still back on the ship. I’ll be right in there an’ meet y’all when you’re done.” 

“You sure?” Audra asked, biting her lip. 

“Positive.” Slim smiled crookedly. “I’ll see you in a bit.” 

“We’ll watch you go in,” Porter promised. 

Slim nodded understandingly, then made his way to the corner, darted across the crowded corridor, and entered the bookstore.

Instantly, the noise of the outside died away. The lighting was lower, warmer, almost buttery. And while up front were rows and rows of PADDs and stations for hooking up existing ones, Slim could see in the back that there were actual shelves of paper-bound books. His heart leapt. 

“Welcome to Weldansbooks,” said the man behind the counter, an elderly-looking man, who didn’t even look up from his PADD. “Let me know if you need any help.” 

“I will, thanks.” Slim didn’t think he would. He moved towards the back of the shop, reminding himself as he did that he only had five hundred credits and he would have to make it last. He couldn’t go _too_ crazy. Besides, he only had so much space in his room. 

The smell of the books was intoxicating. Slim stood still for a moment, eyes closed, feeling a blissful smile cross his face. His worries about Fred Claiborne faded away into almost nothing. Surrounded by books, Slim Kirk was perfectly happy. 

He opened his eyes and began browsing. They were arranged alphabetically by author, which was the _only_ way to organize a bookshelf, in Slim’s opinion. And right up at the top left corner was a copy of _Watership Down,_ identical to Slim’s. There was another book by Richard Adams next to it— _Plague Dogs_ —but even if Slim could have reached it, he wasn’t particularly interested. 

The shelf immediately on eye level with him, however, did draw his attention. The books all seemed to be written by a man named Jeffrey Archer, but the title that first caught his eye was _Shall We Tell the President?_ Slim drew the book off the shelf, startled to discover that it had a skin on the cover made of something tougher than paper but not quite plastic, something that could be removed. Best of all, it had a summary of the book on the flap holding it in place. Thrilled by the discovery, Slim began to read. Before he had finished, he was already tucking it under his arm, intending to purchase it. Other books by the same author looked interesting, but Slim decided to hold off on them until he had read this one. If he liked it, he could probably pick up a PADD with the others at some point.

He was getting to the end of the A’s when he heard a soft curse next to him. Turning, he saw an older woman, slightly shorter than him, with silver hair caught back in a braid, scowling as she stood on tiptoe, trying to reach a book on the top shelf that was just out of her reach. 

“May I help you, ma’am?” he asked courteously. 

The woman turned to him, still scowling. Her expression morphed rapidly to one of surprise, however, and she gaped at him for a moment. Finally, she shook her head rapidly and said, “Uh—yeah. Could you grab that book for me—the one with the green-and-gold spine?” 

Slim located the book easily. He, too, had to get up on his tiptoes, but he was able to get his fingers around the book and pull it down. As he turned to hand it to her, his eyes fell on the title. _“The Wonderful Wizard of Oz!_ I love this book!” 

The woman’s eyes lit up. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah. I have a PADD with all of his books on it—all of his Oz books, I mean.” 

“I do, too, but when I saw they had an actual, physical copy…” The woman smiled down at the book. There was something wistful in her expression. “This is a really special book to me. I—my son and I used to read it all the time. When one of us was sick, or upset, or something like that.” She looked up. “I don’t suppose you read it with your mother, do you?” 

Slim shook his head. “I—I don’t really remember her, ma’am. She died when I was a baby.” 

“I’m sorry to hear that,” the woman said, and she really did look upset. “Was she sick?” 

“No, ma’am,” Slim confessed. “She was Starfleet—well, almost. She was still a cadet, but…she was on the _Farragut_ during the destruction of Vulcan.” 

The woman’s eyes radiated sorrow. “I see. So you’re…fourteen?” 

“Fifteen,” Slim corrected her. “And a half—well, bit more ‘n that. I’ll be sixteen in four an’ a half months.” 

“Your father must have had it difficult, raising a son on his own for fourteen years.” 

Slim hesitated. “I was—actually, I was in foster care. My dad didn’t know ‘bout me until two years ago.” Almost exactly, he realized. Now that he thought on it, it had been exactly two years since the morning his dad had come back to the apartment after a meeting with the admiralty and informed them that they had a chance to go into space together. “I’ve been with him since then, though, him an’ my stepfather.”

The woman smiled warmly. “Are they stationed here, then?” 

“Oh, no, ma’am,” Slim said quickly. “No, they’re on the _Enterprise._ They got special permission to take my sister and me into space with them.” 

“I see.” The woman didn’t seem particularly surprised, but she did look a little wistful. “I wish I’d had that option when my boys were young.” 

“How old are they now?” Slim was genuinely curious. 

“My older boy died when he was fifteen,” the woman said quietly, looking down at the book in her hands, “but if he’d lived, he would have been forty-five later this year. My baby just turned thirty-nine.” 

Slim’s stomach twisted. “I’m so sorry, ma’am. I can’t imagine…” 

“I hope you never have to know,” the woman replied simply. “How old is your sister? Is she your twin?” 

Slim shook his head. “She just turned two a couple weeks ago.” Right before their encounter with the Tholians, in fact. “Um, technically, I reckon you could say she’s my half-sister, but…I don’t really think ‘bout that too often.” 

The woman smiled again. “That’s wonderful to hear, young man. Tell me about her. What is she like?” 

Slim smiled as well. He loved talking about Addie, and it wasn’t often he got the opportunity to brag about her to people who’d never met her—in fact, he’d _never_ had the chance. “She’s real sweet. Well,” he amended, “she’s goin’ through a phase right now—after all, she _is_ two—but when she’s not bein’ stubborn, she’s real sweet. She is stubborn, though. Pa says it’s a family trait—from both sides, really. She’s a chatterbox—she’s only just learnin’ to make sentences, but she’ll talk your ears off if you let her. An’ she’s beautiful. She’s the prettiest little girl I’ve ever seen.” 

“I can tell you love her. My Sam never talked about his brother that way.” The woman laughed, but there was a flash of pain in her eyes as she spoke. 

“Is that your older boy’s name? Sam?” Slim asked. 

“It was really George, Junior, but we called him Sam—that was his middle name.” 

Slim inwardly cursed himself for his slip with tenses. “I reckon that makes sense.”

The woman turned back to the bookshelves. “You know, I’ve been stationed here since they _built_ this station, almost seven years now, and I’ve never had the chance to come into this store. Ironic that today of all days is when I’m able to get in here.” 

“Why is that, ma’am?” Slim asked, then immediately added, “If you don’t mind my askin’.” 

“I don’t mind at all,” the woman said with a light laugh. “And this is my last night on the station. I’ve been transferred to Starbase Six, and my shuttle leaves tomorrow at noon.” 

Slim didn’t know if _I’m sorry to hear that_ was the appropriate response, but he doubted it. Instead, he asked, “What do you do?” 

“In Starfleet, you mean? I’m a xenobotanist. Starbase Six has an extensive botanical garden—it’s where most of the agricultural missions bring seeds and seedlings collected from their exploratory missions—so I’ve been asked to refine and research the gardens, figure out what they have and what it can do. I’m sure it’ll prove that ninety percent of them are no more than ornamental, but…well, that’s the exciting part of my job, at this point.” 

Slim thought fleetingly of the grandmother he’d never met. “I reckon you don’t get to go onto new planets much, then.” 

The woman shook her head. “Not anymore…do you plan to join Starfleet, young man?” 

“Yes, ma’am, as soon as I’m old enough to take the entrance exams.” 

“Then let me give you some advice. Unless you’re actually in command, never let them promote you above commander. If they offer you a higher position, turn it down. Because unless you are actively at the conn of a ship, once you hit the rank of captain, they pull you off of space duty and ground you, put you on a planet or a starbase, and at that point you can pretty much guarantee you’ll never see any of those strange new worlds you joined Starfleet to explore in the first place. Once you’ve been grounded, it won’t be long before you’re a desk-bound admiral, out of touch with the real state of things in the galaxy and making decisions at random based on the space _you_ knew ten, twenty years ago. This is a galaxy in flux, young man, things are changing every day, and as starships chart more and more of the Alpha quadrant the Federation changes with it. When the people in charge try to make decisions on what a starship can or cannot do based on how _they_ interacted with people the last time they were in space, it only creates tension. The brass these days has too many men like George Stocker, who’s never served on a ship in his _life,_ and not enough men like Jonathan Archer, who was with Starfleet from the beginning until the day he died.”

Slim hesitated. Cautiously, he said, “Then if you’ll excuse me, wouldn’t it make more sense for someone who’d actually served on a starship to accept a promotion?” 

The woman paused, looking at him in a new light. “That does make sense,” she allowed. “However, it doesn’t really apply to those who were never in active command. You can’t hold the rank of captain and serve as a ship’s Chief of Security, for example, unless you’re serving under a commodore, and I only know of two of them who are currently at the helm of a starship—Bob Wesley and Matt Decker.” 

“Commodore Decker is dead, ma’am,” Slim corrected her. “He died near ‘bout a year ago.” 

“He did?” The woman’s eyebrows shot up. “How do you know?” 

“I was there,” Slim admitted. “It’s kind of a long story…” 

“Oh.” The woman was quiet for a moment. “I knew Matt, you see. Not well, but he was from the same town as I am. Did he…die quickly?” 

Slim thought back to the incident, remembered the scream of the _Constellation_ as it died—remembered, too, that as painful as it had been, it hadn’t lasted long. Decker likely hadn’t lasted even as long as the shuttle he’d stolen, but even so…“Yes, ma’am.” 

The woman studied him for a moment. “Now, I wonder what you mean by that?” 

“Ma’am?” Slim was slightly confused. 

“You said he died quickly. Do you mean that the moment of death was quick, or do you mean that the entire build-up was quick?” The woman smiled slightly at the look on his face. “In other words, his death itself may have been quick, but did he have a lot of time to dwell on it, or was it begun and over before he really knew it?” 

Slim swallowed guiltily. “I…he knew what he was doing,” he confessed, a little guiltily. “He gave his life in the line of duty—he sacrificed himself to stop a threat to the galaxy. It…it had already taken the lives of his crew.”

“I’ll have to pull those records,” the woman murmured. “But…thank you for letting me know.” She pointed at him. “And you remember what I said about letting yourself get promoted too far. Are you planning to command a starship?” 

“No, ma’am,” Slim said promptly. 

“Then don’t you give into temptation and let them promote you above Commander. Never let yourself be removed from your intended purpose.” The woman hesitated, looking him up and down. “What do you plan on doing, by the way? Security?” 

Slim blushed. “Engineering.” 

“That’s a good choice, too.” The woman smiled and looked back at the bookshelves. “I’m sure there are books here on engineering—the only problem is that they’d all have to do with twentieth or twenty-first century engineering. Nothing that would have anything to do with a modern starship. The best you might find is something on Zefram Cochrane and the first FTL vessel.” 

“I’m not actually looking for books on engineering. I have a lot of those. I’m really looking for pleasure books.” Slim held up the book he’d already chosen. “I’ve got a few p-books—they were my mom’s—but…” 

“I understand,” the woman said, nodding. “Jeffrey Archer? You like political fiction?” 

“Never really tried it,” Slim admitted. “But I like readin’ books that were written in the eras they’re about, you know? It ain’t exactly historical fiction, but it gives me a better sense of history.” 

“I know what you mean. I have everything David Baldacci ever wrote. I was hoping they might have something here, but…” The woman sighed regretfully. “Do you like historical fiction, though?” 

Slim hesitated. “Depends. I don’t much care for historical fiction that has to do with wars, you know? But I like other stuff. Like that twenty-first century woman who wrote ‘bout Tudor England, you know who I mean?” 

“Philippa Gregory,” the woman said, nodding. “I liked her. Did you ever read Robin Maxwell? She wrote some good literature about that time period.” 

“No, I ain’t never heard of her,” Slim admitted. 

“Let’s see if we can find her.” The woman moved down the rows of shelves, and Slim followed her. Sure enough, right in the middle of the M’s was a single copy of _To the Tower Born_ by Robin Maxwell. The woman plucked the book and handed it to Slim. 

This one wasn’t hardbound like the other book. It had a soft, flexible cover, made of the same durable material as the cover on _Shall We Tell the President?_ When Slim turned it over, he saw a summary written on the back and scanned it. The book dealt with the “lost princes,” the sons of Edward IV rumored to have been murdered by their uncle, Richard III. It was a mystery of nearly eight hundred years, as no one had ever been able to prove conclusively the fate of the little princes.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said gratefully, tucking the book under his arm. Then, feeling as if he ought to return the favor, he added, “What are you looking for?” 

“I’m not quite sure,” the woman admitted. “Partly I’m just browsing. Partly I’m looking for something for my granddaughter.” 

The gallant thing would be to say that the woman didn’t look old enough to have grandchildren, which was true. But she had already told Slim that her oldest son would have been forty-five later that year— _Leo’s age_ , he thought suddenly—and that would have been the opportunity to tell her that she didn’t look old enough to have a child pushing the half-century mark, which was still true. So instead, he asked, “How old is she?” 

“She’s two, so maybe you can help me out. What sort of books does your sister enjoy?” 

Slim hesitated. “Truthfully, ma’am, Addie ain’t met a story she didn’t like. Her favorite is an ol’ German myth called ‘Mimer, the Master.’ But really, she just likes bein’ read to.” 

“Have you read to her from those p-books you got from your mother?” 

“Oh, yeah. That’s where ‘Mimer, the Master’ is—it’s in a book called _Stories From Around the World.”_

“Hmm.” The woman turned to peruse the shelves. “Oh, look, children’s books. If you had to pick one of these books for your sister, which one would you get her?” 

There was a single shelf, jam-packed with narrow books. Slim frowned as he looked at them, tilting his head to read the names on the spines. Finally, he said, “It’s hard to say. I reckon my sister’d like _Rikki-Tikki-Tavi_ —I know she likes the _Just So Stories_ , so I reckon Rudyard Kipling ain’t a bad bet. But she also likes fancy artwork, an’ I know Graeme Base does real nice pictures—one of my teachers read us _Animalia_ when I was in kindergarten. I reckon most little ones do, so for your granddaughter, I’d probably go with one of his books.” 

“Hmm,” the woman said again, pulling down the first Graeme Base book and carefully paging through it.

Slim decided to leave her to her perusal and moved back down the stacks, scanning the spines and trying to decide how many more books he would let himself get. He was contemplating a copy of an intriguing-looking book called _Cut & Run_ when a shadow fell over him. 

Expecting Porter and Audra, Slim turned around with a smile. “How did it—” he began, then stopped, eyes widening. Standing behind him were two of the biggest, burliest men he’d ever seen, men who appeared to have been carved out of boulders rather than created by more conventional means. (And boy, would Spock have remonstrated him for illogic if he’d voiced that aloud.) 

“Slim Kirk?” said one, in a voice that seemed to come from the depths of Hades. 

“That’s me.” Slim’s voice hadn’t creaked or squeaked in months, but it suddenly jumped an octave. He swallowed hard and repeated in a slightly steadier voice, “Yes, that’s me.” 

“You’re under arrest,” the man said, grabbing Slim’s upper arm. 

_“Arrest?”_ Slim repeated, feeling the color drain from his face. “What for? What did I do?” Was it a crime here, he wondered in bewilderment, for anyone under the age of eighteen to be unaccompanied? 

“You know bloody well,” growled the other man, seizing Slim’s other arm and forcing him to drop the books. “Come on, no funny business.” 

Funny business was the last thing on Slim’s mind, and he was too frightened and worried to ask any more questions. He stumbled along between the two men, who never released their grip on his arms.

Apparently people being arrested, or frog-marched between two security guards, was a fairly common occurrence on Station J-Twelve; at any rate, no one gave Slim or his escort so much as a glance. Slim couldn’t have said for the life of him where he was being taken. His mind was somewhat jumbled, a confusion of regret over having dropped the books and worry over whether or not his friends would be able to find him and, over everything, a continued repetitive chant of _Dad’s gonna kill me._

And despite what the man had said, he had no idea what he was being arrested for. 

They reached a part of the station where Slim doubted many people went. It didn’t take much of a stretch of the imagination to realize that it was the brig. The two men marched Slim through a set of doors, past a couple of desks, and down a corridor until they reached a cell. One of them punched a quick code in, and then they thrust him through it. He overbalanced and fell to his knees, hearing the swish of the cell door closing behind him. 

“Slim! You okay?” 

“Fine,” Slim said, scrambling to his feet. Audra stood in front of him, her face pale, her eyes red-rimmed. There was a bench that ran along the back wall and part of the way up the two sides of the cell, and Porter sat on one end of the bench, hunched forward over his knees. 

“You sure?” Audra asked anxiously, taking his arm and leading him over to the bench. “They didn’t hurt you?” 

Slim rubbed his upper arms reflexively. “Little sore, but nothin’ that won’t heal.” He looked over at Porter, who was sitting opposite the spot he’d chosen. His lip was swollen, and a crack ran down the middle of it, blood trickling down it. “What happened to you?” 

Porter probed at his lip lightly with his tongue, wincing at the obvious pain. “Wouldn’t tell the guards where you were.” 

“What?” Slim was genuinely bewildered. 

“The guards kept asking where our ‘young companion’ was, and at one point they asked for you by name,” Porter expanded. “I wouldn’t tell them. The Chief of Security got annoyed and belted me across the mouth, then asked again. I still wouldn’t tell them. Don’t know how they found you, but…”

Slim tried to figure this out, but it just made his head buzz. “Why did they arrest us, anyway?” 

“I don’t know, but…” Porter glanced at Audra. 

She spread her hands out, palms up. “We came to tell the Chief of Security that we were worried ‘bout what Fred Claiborne had said, but no sooner’d we got our names out when he said, ‘Oh, yes, Mr. Claiborne’s already commed us ‘bout you.’ Next thing we knew we were under arrest.” 

“So he _was_ threatenin’ you.” Slim bit his lip. “Why, though?” 

“I ain’t got the foggiest idea.” 

“Neither do I,” Porter said quietly. “Whatever it is, though, I think it has to do with your father…Auds, I hate to ask, but do you remember what your dad did?” 

Audra tensed briefly, but she obviously understood what Porter was asking. Slowly, she nodded. “Large-animal vet. Cattle, mostly.” 

“Nothing wrong with that.” Porter ran a hand through his hair, which was finally starting to grow back into the curls he’d shaved off after Allyn’s death. “Maybe I was wrong, but why would he have asked about your dad if it wasn’t something to do with that?” 

Slim hesitated. “Maybe it ain’t your dad. Maybe it’s your mom.” 

“I don’t even _remember_ my ma,” Audra practically wailed. “I don’t even know what her name was. ‘Sides, she ain’t from Arcadia, I remember that. I just don’t know where she _was_ from.” 

“It’s probably all just a misunderstanding,” Porter said calmly, holding out his hands in a reassuring gesture. “The guards will do some cross-checking, maybe talk to the captain, and everything will be sorted out in no time.” He suddenly turned pale. “And then all we’ll have to worry about is a chewing-out from the captain for getting you in trouble.” 

Slim shook his head. “You didn’t get me in trouble. It ain’t your fault. Anyway, Dad yellin’ at us beats sittin’ in a cell on a space station, right?” 

“You’ve got a point there,” Porter admitted. “Well, all we can do is wait.”

“I wish I knew what time it was,” Audra fretted. “We ain’t got but six hours _total_ to spend over here.” Consciously or unconsciously, she imitated the inflection of Jim’s voice on the shipwide announcement. 

“It ain’t been near that long,” Slim reassured her. “Three at best.” 

“I’ve still got my chronometer—they didn’t exactly search us before they tossed us in here.” Porter reached into his pocket and pulled out the small device, then did a double-take. “That’s it? We’ve only been here eighty minutes.” 

Slim was surprised, too. It seemed like they’d been there so much longer. The meal alone…but no, they’d eaten quickly, hadn’t they? And it wasn’t like they’d gone very far from the transporters. So that was a good thing—they wouldn’t be restricted from coming back here, assuming they wanted to, which at this point Slim seriously doubted they would. On the other hand, that would mean there was no logical reason for anyone to come looking for them. 

“What do we do now?” Audra asked, dropping at last onto the bench next to Slim. 

Porter shrugged. “I guess we wait.” 

The minutes dragged by. After a long silence, Slim, at Audra’s urging, began reciting “Mimer, the Master,” which he’d read so many times to Addie that he found his fingers automatically twitching when he reached the last line on a given page. He had no idea why the story appealed to Addie so much—it was convoluted and involved and had a lot of flowery language, the pictures were all in dark greens and browns, and there wasn’t really an end to it, or even a particularly coherent plot.

He had just finished and was about to ask Porter or Audra to take a turn telling a story when they heard the sound of footsteps coming down the corridor and a voice, obviously in the middle of explaining something. “—would say something like that to throw off investigations. They could be dangerous—” 

“My late husband was a Chief of Security, Lieutenant,” another voice interrupted. Slim sat up straighter, recognizing the voice of the woman he’d been talking to in the bookshop. “He taught me how to defend myself _quite_ well, thank you.” 

“Yes, Commodore.” 

_Commodore?_ Slim hadn’t realized the woman was so high-ranking, although he acknowledged that he probably should have guessed from her impassioned speech about promotions. 

He scrambled to his feet, the other two following him, as the speakers came up to the clear wall at the front of the cell. The woman had obviously gone back to her quarters and changed into her uniform—a grey jacket and skirt, a crisp military-looking hat, pips on the shoulders, and wide silver stripes on the cuffs. Inexplicably, she carried a black bag slung over her shoulder. Her braid was clipped up off the back of her neck, and her expression was stern as she looked at the three prisoners. However, she locked eyes with Slim for a moment, and he guessed that, despite appearances, she was on their side. 

“What are your names?” she snapped, looking around. 

Porter stood at attention. “Ensign Porter Simril, ma’am.” 

“Ensign Audra Cayne, ma’am,” Audra said, forcing her accent under control. 

Slim fought to do the same. “Thomas Kirk, ma’am.” 

“No rank?” 

“No, ma’am, I’m not a member of Starfleet yet.” Slim realized that the commodore was acting like they had never met and knew he needed to do likewise. 

The commodore turned to Porter, obviously the oldest of the three. “What ship?” 

“The U.S.S. _Enterprise,_ ma’am,” Porter answered. 

“I see.” The commodore nodded, then turned to the security guard. “I will escort these three back to their ship myself and see that they are afforded the punishment deserved by their crimes.”

“But Commodore—!” the guard protested. 

“I know the captain of the _Enterprise_ personally,” the commodore interrupted. “He will treat these three appropriately, believe _me_. And heaven knows this station doesn’t need the expense of dealing with three prisoners.” 

“But by yourself?” 

The commodore smiled thinly. “I think I am fully capable of handling three _children_ on my own, no matter how dangerous.” 

Porter and Audra both stiffened, but Slim, remembering that her “baby” was nearly forty, figured they weren’t much more than children to her. The guard bowed. “As you wish, Commodore.” He turned to the three and fixed them with a beady eye. “Don’t you give the Commodore any trouble, now!” he growled. 

None of them responded. They simply followed meekly behind the commodore. The guard trailed after them, presumably to keep them from making a break for it. Slim wouldn’t have even if he’d been alone. He trusted this woman, beyond all reason, and besides, he wanted nothing more than to get back to the _Enterprise_ at this point. 

They reached the transporter, which was strangely empty, but then Slim saw a number of red-shirted security guards and guessed that they had cleared the area for “prisoner transfer.” The commodore pointed to the platform, indicating that Slim and his friends should get on first, then followed them. She nodded crisply to the technician. “Energize.” 

Within moments, the four of them stood on the deck of the _Enterprise._ Slim’s heart plummeted into his shoes when he saw Spock standing beside the console, his face blank as usual. Of course, the station’s security must have commed the ship to inform them that they had prisoners coming aboard. 

“Commodore,” Spock said with a nod. “Welcome aboard the _Enterprise.”_

“Thank you,” the commodore said, stepping down and jerking her head sharply for the other three to follow her. “I do not address the captain of the ship?” 

“No, Commodore, I am Commander Spock, the ship’s first officer. Captain Kirk is temporarily indisposed due to an injury.” 

Slim paled, and it seemed to him that the commodore stiffened, very slightly. “I trust the injury is nothing serious?” 

“Quite superficial, Commodore,” Spock replied. “His daughter bit him.”

Slim resisted the urge to groan and roll his eyes. The commodore simply nodded. “I see. Well, then, as your ensign here needs to have an injury attended to as well, perhaps we could proceed straight to your Medical Bay? I could then speak directly with your captain and sort out this issue.” 

“Certainly, Commodore. I will escort you personally.” Spock glanced over her shoulder at the trio. He tensed when his eyes fell on Slim, who knew better than to say anything or do anything to protest his innocence. There was only one way to prove he hadn’t done anything, and it wasn’t by saying anything here and now. Instead he ducked his head and trailed after Spock and the commodore as they left. 

“Thank you for the escort, Mr. Spock,” the commodore said after a few minutes. “I’m sure I would never have found Medical on my own.” 

“Have you ever been aboard a _Constitution_ -class starship before, Commodore?” 

Slim, glancing up, saw a slight smile cross the commodore’s face. “Not a completed one. But I took several tours of the _Enterprise_ while she was under construction.” 

Spock inclined his head slightly. “If circumstances permit, I should be honored to provide you with a tour of the _Enterprise_ once this business is concluded.” 

“Thank you, Mr. Spock. I may very well take you up on that kind offer.” 

They reached Med Bay a few moments later. Evidently most of the staff had been given the day off; there were only four people in the room. Gage was reorganizing the cabinets of hypos. DeSoto was making the beds. Jim sat on an exam table, massaging his hand and talking quietly to Leo, who stood next to him with his arms folded over his chest and a serious expression on his face. 

“Captain,” Spock said blandly. “We have a…disciplinary problem.” 

“We do?” Jim looked up. He froze at the sight of the small group. Slim felt about two centimeters tall. 

He opened his mouth, but the commodore held up a hand, forestalling comment. “Is there any way we could speak privately?” Her eyes flickered briefly towards the orderlies. 

Leo was the first to recover. “Gage, DeSoto, you’re good. Go sign yourselves off duty.” 

“You got it, Doc,” Gage said immediately, closing the cupboard. “C’mon, Roy.” 

DeSoto glanced apprehensively at Slim, but followed Gage out of the room.

The commodore watched them go, then turned to Porter. “You’d best sit down, young man—you need that lip looked at.” 

“Yes, ma’am.” Porter edged around the commodore and took a seat. 

Leo examined his lip. “Who’d you get in a fight with?” He sounded resigned. 

“It wasn’t… _exactly_ a fight,” Porter said cautiously. 

Jim, who had been staring at the commodore, finally found his voice. “What the hell is going on?” 

“This young man here—” the commodore gestured at Slim—“was browsing and minding his own business when two security guards turned up, placed him under arrest, and marched him out of the store. Naturally I thought something seemed off, so I put on my uniform so they would take me seriously and marched over to Security to find out what was going on, whereupon I was informed that these three are _apparently_ dangerous criminals. Which is obviously ridiculous,” she added, cutting off Spock, “so I told Lieutenant Wilcutt that I would bring these three back to your ship personally for ‘punishment,’ by which I obviously meant ‘figuring out exactly what is going on here,’ and by the way, James Tiberius Kirk, I did _not_ raise you to use that kind of language.” 

Slim blinked, feeling like he had just run into a tree. Jim shook his head. “Sorry, Mom.”

Audra gave a small squeak of surprise, then quickly clapped a hand to her mouth, blushing bright red. The commodore smiled and winked at her before turning back to Jim. “I was hoping I’d get to see you again, Jim, but this wasn’t exactly how I imagined it. Come here, baby.” 

She held out her arms. Jim hopped off the table and threw his arms around her neck. She hugged him back. “I’ve missed you, Jim.” 

“I’ve missed you, too, Mom.” Jim pulled back and turned to Spock. “Mr. Spock, allow me to present my mother, Commodore Winona Kirk…Mom, my first officer.” 

“He was gracious enough to introduce himself,” Winona told Jim. “And of course these three introduced themselves…by the way, Jim, you didn’t tell me I had a _grandson_ too.” 

“The last time I talked to you, I didn’t _know_ you had a grandson,” Jim told her. “It’s…a long story.” 

“Mmm, Thomas told me some of it. Or—?” Winona turned to look at Slim. “When the guards arrested you, they addressed you as ‘Slim Kirk,’ and at first I thought they’d said ‘Jim,’ which I must admit gave me a bit of a turn. But you introduced yourself as ‘Thomas’ in the cell. Which is it?” 

“My full name is Thomas James Kirk,” Slim explained. “But I’ve always been called Slim, long as I can remember.” 

“Hold still, Simril,” Leo said gruffly, picking up the regen. “So you didn’t _exactly_ get in a fight. I’m guessing that has nothing to do with why you three were in a cell on a starbase?” 

Porter looked helplessly at Slim and Audra. The question in his eyes was clear: _How can I answer if I’m supposed to stay still?_ Audra took a deep breath. “I re—I believe it has something to do with me, sir.” 

Jim sat down on the table again, gesturing for his mother to sit next to him. Winona did, crossing one leg over the other. “Explain, Ensign Cayne,” he said. “What happened?”

Audra twisted her fingers together. “We—the three of us had lunch at a barbecue restaurant, sir. The proprietor was chatting with us…Slim and I mentioned that we were from Oklahoma County, and he told us he was from there as well. As we were leaving—he insisted on giving us our meals for free—he asked me if I was Dorsey Cayne’s daughter…” 

“Who is Dorsey Cayne?” Spock interrupted. 

“My father, sir,” Audra answered. 

“I meant, Ensign, what significance does he have? Is there any particular reason the proprietor of this restaurant should have asked if you were related to him?” 

“I don’t know, Mr. Spock. He _said_ he’d met my father once, which is possible—he was from Arcadia, and the proprietor was from Oklahoma City—but something about the way he said it worried me. So—” Audra stopped and bit her lip lightly. 

Porter, still making an effort to keep his lip still, pointed at himself, then flicked his forehead in a gesture that reminded Slim of an old-fashioned striking of a match. Leo drew back with the regen. “Go ahead, Mr. Simril, say whatever it is you need to say.” 

“It was my idea, sir,” Porter said. “I decided to backtrack and let somebody know what the proprietor had said. Ensign Cayne offered to accompany me, but I didn’t think we all needed to go…” 

“So I went into the bookstore,” Slim put in. “That was my idea—I figured it was a small space, there was only one way in or out, and if I stayed in one place they’d be able to find me more easily when they were done.” 

He quailed inwardly, not sure what his father would say, but Jim only nodded. “Sensible. And therefore probably the exact opposite of what I would have done. All right, Ensign, what happened then?” 

Audra took up the explanation again. “We went to Security, Captain, but when we gave the man at the desk our names, he didn’t even let us begin to explain before he said he’d been expecting us, and the next thing we knew we’d been placed under arrest. He kept asking where our ‘young companion’ was, and we wouldn’t tell him. Finally, he hit Ensign Simril across the face.”

“He did what?” Jim’s voice held a quiet fury. 

Winona’s eyes snapped with anger, too. They were blue, Slim noticed, in hue somewhere between Jim’s and Chekov’s. All she said, however, was, “I don’t blame you for telling them where he was at that point.” 

“All due respect, Commodore, I didn’t,” Porter replied. “I—I may have used some rather unprofessional language in suggesting where the guard could go instead, but even had I been inclined to tell them where Slim was up to that point, I certainly wouldn’t have after that.” 

Jim swallowed hard. “Then how the hell did they find you?” he muttered. Then he flushed and added, “Sorry, Mom.” 

“Thomas, where was this bookstore in relation to the restaurant?” Spock asked. 

“Not that far,” Slim replied. “Just across the corridor, on the next corner.” Anticipating Spock’s next question, he added, “You could easily have seen one from the other, long as there weren’t too many people in the way.” 

“Then it is likely that it was the proprietor of the restaurant who gave Thomas’s location away,” Spock said, turning back to Jim and Winona. 

“Which leaves us with the initial question,” Winona said. “What possible reason could there have been for arresting the three of you?” 

“If it has to do with your father…Ensign Cayne, I know you grew up in foster families, too, but what did your father do?” Jim asked, turning to Audra. 

Audra looked mildly frustrated. “He was just a large-animal vet, sir. Worked a lot of the ranches in Oklahoma County.” 

“And your mother?” Winona prompted. 

“I don’t know, Commodore,” Audra answered. “I don’t know what she did, or where she was from, or even what her name was. She left before I could remember her—my father told me she simply wasn’t ready to be a mother.”

“A check of your file ought to give us that information,” Leo said, setting aside the regen. He moved over to the computer and began punching in buttons. After a few moments, he turned around. “Your personnel records indicate that your mother was Marjorie Lynn Claiborne, hailing from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. On your birth certificate, she listed her profession as ‘bartender.’” 

“Claiborne?” Slim and Porter repeated in unison, looking not at one another but at Audra, who had gone white as a sheet. 

“That name is familiar to me,” Spock said slowly. 

“Billy Claiborne. Tombstone. Showdown at the O.K. Corral,” Jim said shortly. 

“Of course. One of the two survivors. Could your mother perhaps have been a descendant, Ensign Cayne?” 

“If she was, then she’s related to the proprietor of Ramblin’ Fred’s Barbecue—and, subsequently, so am I,” Audra said softly. “He introduced himself as Fred Claiborne, and when Slim asked, he said he was a direct descendent of Billy Claiborne.” 

Spock frowned. “If that is the case, then I find Mr. Claiborne’s actions highly illogical. What reason could he have to falsify charges against a newly-discovered relative?” 

“I don’t know, but there’s got to be a reason.” Jim rubbed the back of his neck. “There’s something going on over there I don’t like. I know we were scheduled for thirty-six hours of shore leave here—and I know the crew deserves it—but something about this whole situation worries me. I’m not putting anyone else at risk. Spock, how long will it be before restocking is complete?” 

“At present rate of progress, Captain, five hours.” 

Jim nodded. “We leave in six. Total time to be spent aboard the station is reduced to four hours maximum. Make the announcement, will you, Spock?” 

“Immediately, Captain.” Spock nodded to Winona, then left.

Jim turned reluctantly to Winona. “Mom, I’m sorry we can’t stay longer, but—” 

“Don’t worry about it, Jim. As I told Slim here, I’m leaving in—” Winona glanced at the chronometer—“thirteen hours anyway. I’ve been transferred to Starbase Six. And I should probably get some sleep beforehand. But we can at least spend an hour or two together, if your duties will permit.” 

Jim stood up. “Simril, Cayne, I’m sorry you weren’t able to spend more time on the station, but under the circumstances, I would rather you didn’t go back over there. I’m satisfied you didn’t do anything wrong, but it’s obvious they’re not.” 

“Understood, Captain,” Porter said, standing up. 

Slim thought wistfully of the bookstore, and the purchases he hadn’t been able to make, but said nothing. Audra swallowed. “Permission to go, sir?” 

“Granted…Bones, is Simril cleared to go?” 

“You’re cleared,” Leo confirmed. “If you have any more problems, just come back.” 

“I will, Doctor. Thank you.” Porter clapped Slim on the shoulder. “See you ‘round, Slim.” 

“See you.” Slim smiled at his friends as they left.

Winona raised her eyebrow. Her coloring was similar to Jim’s, but slightly different at the same time; she had a different shape to her face and eyes, but that expression was obviously inherited from her side of the family rather than her husband’s. “How old are they, Jim?” she asked. 

“Simril is twenty-three, came straight from the Academy. Cayne will be twenty-one in…when’s her birthday, Slim?” 

“A week after yours ‘n a week before Addie’s,” Slim answered promptly. “She’s already twenty-one.” 

“My mistake.” Jim smirked slightly, and Slim found himself blushing, darn it all. “Anyway, she graduated the Academy early, but this is her first tour, too. They’re both in Engineering, which is how Slim here knows them—he helps out from time to time.” 

Winona turned to Slim with a warm smile. “Now that we’ve got all that official stuff out of the way…it’s nice to meet you, Slim.” 

“It’s nice to meet you, too, m—” Slim stopped. She’d just said they weren’t being official, so should he really call her _ma’am?_ “Uh, what would you like me to call you?” 

Winona looked slightly startled. “You know, I—I never really thought about it…what does my granddaughter call me?” 

“Grandma. Well,” Jim amended, “she’s having trouble with doubled consonant sounds, so she usually says _Gamma,_ but…” 

“Either one works.” 

Slim swallowed, then smiled. “It’s nice to meet you…Grandma.”

Winona ruffled his hair affectionately. “He favors you at this age, Jim. It scared the bejeezus out of me when I saw him in that bookstore—oh, that reminds me.” She unzipped her bag and pulled out a bundled package. “You said Jim found you two years ago?” 

“Well, I didn’t exactly find him,” Jim confessed. “CPS put us together. But yeah, two years.” 

“Then I’ve missed two birthdays and two Christmases—well, technically I’ve missed fifteen of each, but two of each that I would have known about you.” Winona handed Slim the package with a grin. “I know this can’t make up for it, but…happy birthday, merry Christmas, happy birthday, merry Christmas.” 

Slim blushed again. “Thanks, Grandma.” 

Leo smiled, his eyes crinkling upwards. “Go on, Slim, you can open it,” he prompted him. 

Carefully, Slim unwrapped the brown paper and found four books. His face lit up. “Thanks, Grandma!” he said again, surprising himself and her by hugging her. 

“You’re welcome, Slim,” Winona said, hugging him back. “I figured it wasn’t fair that you shouldn’t get those books you looked so interested in—and I added a fourth, something to surprise you.” 

“Which one did you add?” Jim asked suspiciously, looking at the four spines. 

_“Memoirs of a Geisha,”_ Winona and Slim said in unison. 

Slim added, “She also suggested _To the Tower Born_ in the first place. The other two I found myself.”

“Speaking of suggestions—and my grandchildren—about your daughter. You keep calling her Addie—is that short for something?” Winona turned to Slim. “When I spoke to your father last—through more relays and encryptions than you can shake a stick at—all he told me was that I had a granddaughter, but not what her name was.” 

“It’s Athena,” Leo answered, a hint of pride in his voice. “Athena Dawn Kirk-McCoy.” 

Winona looked at Jim, her face pale. “Athena?” she repeated. “You named her Athena?” 

“She’s beautiful, Mom,” Jim said quietly. 

“Where is she?”

Leo sighed, his smile vanishing. “My office, _hopefully_ thinking about what is and isn’t acceptable behavior, but more than likely quietly getting into mischief. Hold on.” He headed for his office. 

“She was asking where you were,” Jim explained to Slim, “and she wanted to go after you. I told her she had to wait. She tried to argue, I tried to negotiate, and she got frustrated and bit my hand.” 

“She’s you, all right,” Winona commented. “You bit that therapist they tried to make you go see after—” 

“Sam died,” Jim completed, very quickly. “I remember. The difference is that I was ten, and should in theory have known better. Also that I didn’t bite hard enough to break the skin.”

Before Slim or Winona could say anything, Spock’s voice came over the shipwide system. “Attention, _Enterprise._ Commander Spock speaking on behalf of Captain Kirk. Our schedule has altered. We will be leaving Space Station J-Twelve in precisely five point eight five hours. Total leave time on the station has been altered to four hours. All personnel _must_ be back aboard the ship by 0100 hours. There are to be no exceptions. Spock out.” 

“Will the people on the station get the message?” Slim wondered. 

“Anyone already on the station has to be back by 0100 hours anyway,” Jim pointed out. “If Spock can’t get a message to them, I won’t necessarily hold them to the four-hour limit.” 

Leo came back then, holding Addie in his arms. “Did you have something to say to Daddy?” he prompted her gently. 

Addie certainly _looked_ penitent. “I sowwy,” she mumbled. “No bite.” 

“I forgive you, Addie.” Jim leaned over and kissed her nose. 

Emboldened, Addie planted one of her open-mouth smacks on his cheek. “Love ‘ou, Daddy.” 

“I love you, too.” Jim took Addie from Leo and turned towards Winona. “Addie, this is your grandma.” 

Addie’s eyes widened. She looked at Winona, then at Jim. “Gott-yib?” 

Jim chuckled. “Yes, she’s the one who gave you Gottlieb. Can you say hi?” 

Addie waved. “’I, Gamma,” she said. 

“Well, hello, Addie.” Winona’s face lit up. She glanced at Slim. “You were right—she _is_ the prettiest little girl in the galaxy.” 

Slim grinned proudly. Jim kissed the top of Addie’s head. “Of course she is—she’s the spit and image of her papa.”

Leo rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. Winona laughed, then paused. “Wait, I just…who’s Gottlieb?” 

“Oh. The stuffed tribble you sent us for Addie.” 

“I won’t ask.” 

“Good, because I don’t know the answer,” Jim admitted. 

Slim and Leo both laughed. Addie laughed, too, like she usually did when the people around her started laughing. Winona just shook her head. “Oh, Addie, I have a present for you.” 

“P’esent?” Addie repeated. 

Winona reached into her bag and pulled out another wrapped package. Jim set Addie down on the table and let her tear the paper off. Her mouth formed a round O, and then she pointed and beamed up at Slim. “Book, ‘Lim!” she crowed. 

“What do you say, Addie?” Slim prompted his sister, grinning. Winona had taken his advice and bought Addie three Graeme Base books— _The Eleventh Hour, The Sign of the Seahorse,_ and _My Grandma Lived in Gooligulch._ Slim had never read any of them, but he figured he’d be reading at least one that night. 

Addie turned her beam to Winona. “T’ank ‘ou, Gamma!” 

“You’re welcome, Addie.” Winona bent over and kissed her forehead.

Jim smiled. “Mom, would you like a tour of the _Enterprise?”_

“Maybe some other time,” Winona said, a little regretfully. “I’d love to see her, of course—I haven’t seen her since she was being constructed—but we’ve only got a little bit of time. I’d rather spend that time catching up with you, and getting to know my grandchildren. I hope you realize how fortunate you are, Jim.” 

“I do,” Jim said, running a hand over Addie’s dark curls and smiling at Slim. “Want to go back to our quarters, then? Or we could go to the rec room, but it’s getting close to someone’s B-E-D-T-I-M-E.” 

“That sounds excellent to me,” Winona agreed. 

Jim turned to Leo. “Bones, you coming?” 

“Soon as Beta shift gets back here—or someone who can handle minor emergencies, anyway. I’ll meet you there.” Leo kissed Jim lightly. “Be good, Addie. Papa will see you later.” 

“’Kay,” Addie said.

Slim carried her books as well as his own. He was itching to start reading one immediately, but he also wanted to get to know his grandmother—and anyway, he was still not quite done with _The Titan’s Curse_. Addie insisted on walking, holding Jim’s hand on one side and Winona’s on the other. The expression on the older woman’s face was almost euphoric as they walked. 

“Been a while since you’ve walked with a toddler?” Slim asked. Mentally, he kicked himself. Of _course_ it had been a while—his dad was thirty-nine, and he was “her baby,” she’d said. 

“More than forty years,” Winona said quietly. “I—wasn’t around much when your dad was little. He learned to walk while I was away.” 

“An’ he was talkin’ ‘fore you knew it?” Slim said automatically. 

Jim chuckled. “I never said I wanted to be like her, though.” 

Slim couldn’t help himself. _“The cat’s in the cradle an’ the silver spoon…”_ he began. 

Jim joined in, and they harmonized more or less without thinking about it as they headed down the corridor. 

“You two sound good together,” Winona said as they finished. “I guess you got the musical genes, Slim.” 

“He plays harmonica, too,” Jim put in. “You ought to hear him sometime.” To Slim, he added, “Mom plays the piano—I think I told you that once.” 

Slim nodded. Winona chuckled. “Not like poor Sam—boy had a tin ear. He took after your father. I loved George dearly, but he couldn’t carry a tune in a ten-gallon bucket with a lid.” 

“Moosic,” Addie put in. 

“Maybe later, baby.” Jim smiled down at her and keyed in the code to their quarters.

Slim thoroughly enjoyed the next hour. He and Jim took turns telling Winona everything that had happened from the day Slim found out CPS had found his dad. Leo joined them around the time Slim was praising him for having found the cure to the “grup virus” on Miri’s homeworld and tried to downplay his own contributions. Winona laughed uproariously at the fact that the High Chief of the Capellans was named Leonard James Akaar, and she listened tensely to the descriptions of the missions. Jim was able to give her a much more detailed explanation of Matt Decker’s fate than Slim had. 

Jim was just starting to describe, with a hitch in his voice, their encounter with Excalbia when Addie yawned. Slim immediately stood, scooping her up. “C’mon, Addie,” he said, cuddling her to his chest. “Let’s go put your pajamas on, an’ then I’ll read you one of your new books, okay?” 

“’Kay,” Addie agreed readily. 

Slim carried Addie into the little room, changed her diaper, and put her in the pale yellow nightgown with blue rosebuds that she adored. “Okay, baby,” he said, spreading out the three books in front of her. “Which one?” 

Addie studied them, then pointed to the one in the middle. “Dat?” 

_“The Sign of the Seahorse,”_ Slim read. He started to set Addie in her cot, but she shook her head, clinging to him. 

“Bed?” she begged him. “Lap?” 

Slim smiled. “Okay,” he agreed. “We’ll go sit on my bed.” He shifted Addie to his hip and headed out into the living room. 

“Slim?” Jim said, confused. “I thought you were putting Addie to bed.” 

“I am. She likes sittin’ on my lap while I read,” Slim explained, “an’ that’s easier to do when we’re on my bed. So I’m gonna take her into my room an’ read to her, then put her to bed. If that’s okay,” he added quickly. 

“That’s fine, Slim. Go ahead.” 

Slim headed into the bedroom, toed out of his shoes, and stretched out on his bed, propping his back against the headboard. Addie snuggled onto his lap, leaning back against his chest, as he cracked open the book. It was immediately evident that it was going to be much longer than he’d expected…but at the same time, maybe that was all to the good, it would mean he could split the book into two readings. After all, it did claim to be “in two acts.” 

Clearing his throat, he began to read the verse printed on the title page in a soft, gentle voice. “‘Beyond the ken of mortal men, beneath the winds and waves…’” 

The entire book was in verse, the words per page almost as dense as his _Stories,_ but Addie didn’t seem to mind. Although her thumb crept into his mouth, she stayed awake, listening to the story of Mr. Trout, his daughter Pearl and son Finny, the heroic soldiercrab Bert, and the felonious Gropmund Groper. Slim had to admit that it was a good story, and the pictures were just as gorgeous as he remembered from _Animalia._

“‘…Beneath a pile of filthy plates, at last he understood / That Greed Brought only Ruin, and the Tide had Turned for Good,’” Slim read at last. He turned the page to find a picture of Gropmund Groper up to his elbows in dishes and suds, looking miserable. “The End.” He smiled down at his sister. “Did you like that?” 

“Uh-huh.” Addie yawned and curled against him. “Ni-ni, ‘Lim.” 

“Night, baby.” Slim kissed the top of her head, closing the book carefully. He wasn’t sure if she heard him or not, though. Her steady, even breathing told him that she had fallen asleep.

As he carefully got to his feet, cradling her against his shoulder, he glanced in the doorway and saw Jim, Leo, and Winona watching with smiles on their faces. Winona actually had tears in her eyes. “You read wonderfully, Slim,” she said softly. 

“Thank you,” Slim said, blushing slightly. “I get lots of practice.” 

“Addie adores Slim,” Leo told his mother-in-law. “ _Slim_ was actually her first word.” 

“I believe it.” Winona stood back to allow Slim to leave the room. 

He took Addie into her room, lay her gently in the cot, and tucked her in. She sighed in her sleep and turned over, the hand not in her mouth closing around her tribble’s fur. Quietly, he ordered the lights down, then headed back into the living room. The adults hadn’t sat back down yet. 

Slim glanced at the chronometer and realized that it was almost 2100. “Sorry, Dad, I didn’t realize it was so late.” 

Jim looked at the chronometer and did a double-take. “Neither did I.” 

“I should…probably get to bed,” Slim admitted. It was his usual bedtime anyway, and he was feeling slightly drowsy. “Do you—I mean, we can wait ‘til tomorrow to start a new book.” 

“What do you mean?” Winona asked. 

Jim smiled slightly. “When Slim had that cold, he was trying to read _Little Women_ but having trouble concentrating, so I offered to start reading it to him, since I’d never read it before either. Since then it’s just been a…thing. Unless there’s something really serious going on—like the night after Excalbia—we read a couple chapters together every night. Last night we finished _Watership Down,_ so we were going to figure out something to start reading tonight, but…” 

“Oh, don’t let me stop you,” Winona said quickly. 

“Really, Grandma, it’s okay,” Slim insisted. “You an’ Dad ain’t seen each other in a while, an’ I reckon there’s stuff Dad wants to talk about that I ain’t s’pposed to hear. It was real nice meetin’ you. I hope we’ll get to come by Starbase Six sometime.” 

“I hope so, too.” Winona hugged Slim. “Goodnight, Slim.” 

“G’night, Grandma.” Slim hugged her back, then hugged Leo and Jim, retrieved the PADD with the Percy Jackson books on it, and went back into his room. 

Before Percy and Annabeth had finished their dance, he was sound asleep.


	49. The Fifth House On the Left

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Massive amounts of feels and mentions of Tarsus IV. This chapter sort of ties into my story "Once in a Lullaby", so if you want to know exactly what happened on Tarsus--in my universe, anyway, since we got so little detail about it in TOS and even less in AOS and everybody seems to have their own interpretations--I suggest reading that first.
> 
> But yeah, I'm not pulling many punches with this chapter.

“There are some things,” Jim said, staggering into his bedroom and collapsing on the bed next to Bones, “that do _not_ make good father-son bedtime reading.” 

Bones raised an eyebrow, looking at Jim. “I’m fascinated to hear what those might be,” he said dryly. “You’ve read about people being torn apart by dinosaurs. You’ve read about bidding wars for the virginity of a twelve-year-old girl in the early twentieth century. You’ve read about the Tiananmen Massacre from the point of view of a boy not much older ‘n Slim. What could you _possibly_ think didn’t make ‘good father-son bedtime reading’?” 

Jim blushed. It had been a little more than a month since they’d been to Space Station J-Twelve, and he and Slim had been reading the books Winona had bought for him. He’d never heard of any of them, so they were as new an experience for him as they were for Slim. A few days before, they had finished _Memoirs of a Geisha,_ which, as Bones had pointed out, did contain some rather…adult scenes. Slim had been cool about them, though. He’d asked a couple of questions that Jim had done his best to answer, but after all, he _was_ fifteen. 

The book they’d started five nights ago, however… 

It was a little shorter than most of the books they’d read, but they were enjoying it, so they’d decided to confine themselves to one chapter a night rather than their usual two or three. They traded off every so often. Jim had been in the middle of reading when he’d turned a page and come across a scene that he…hadn’t been expecting, to put it mildly. He’d almost swallowed his teeth.

“Well. Um.” He looked up at Bones. “Have you…ever heard of _Cut & Run?”_

Bones shrugged. “Sure. It’s the first book about a couple of FBI agents. Aunt Norma Jean used to read the whole series through at least once a year. Remember that first Christmas you came to Georgia with me? That was her present to Suzanna, was the complete set. It can’t be any more violent than what you two usually read, can it?” 

“Oh, God,” Jim groaned. Suzanna had been about Slim’s age when he’d first met her, so maybe it wasn’t _such_ a big deal to imagine Slim reading the books—especially since he’d only turned a little pink rather than the flaming red Jim had—but Jim certainly couldn’t imagine Suzanna reading it _aloud_ with her _mother_. “They…um…the two main characters…they kind of like each other. A lot.” 

“They’re partners,” Bones said. “I didn’t figure they hated each other.” 

“Well, they do, but they also _like_ each other.” Jim’s blush deepened. “Oh, God, Bones…do you get what I’m saying?” 

“Not sure I do, Jim. What are you saying?” 

Jim buried his face in the pillow and yelled into it. “They had _sex._ And I had to read it _aloud_ to my _son.”_

The bed began shaking. Jim looked up suspiciously to see Bones with a hand pressed over his mouth and his eyes closed, his shoulders shaking in time with the bed. At first, Jim thought Bones was trying not to be sick, and the _Enterprise_ had hit a patch of turbulence or something…but then the truth hit him all at once. 

Bones was _laughing._

“You knew!” he cried, sitting upright and pointing accusingly at Bones. “You knew _exactly_ what I was talking about—” 

Bones uncovered his mouth and exploded into helpless laughter. Jim just stared at him speechlessly. Bones had figured out what Jim was saying and had _still_ made him say it… 

“I hate you,” he grumbled, flopping back against the pillows. 

Still laughing, Bones leaned over and kissed his forehead. “Sorry, Jim. I was wondering how long it would take you to get to that point in the book—forgot how many chapters in it was.” 

Jim stared up at Bones in astonishment. “You’ve _read_ them?” 

“Sure have. Suzanna didn’t much like ‘em. I tried to tell her she just didn’t get far enough—think she stopped after the third one—but she said she thought I’d like ‘em better, and gave me the PADD to keep. I’ve got it around here somewhere.” Bones grinned at Jim. “So if you want to read the rest of the series when you two have finished the first one, I’ll pull it out. Matter of fact, mind if I join you tomorrow? I don’t think I’ve read them in a while.” 

“Not at all,” Jim said numbly. “Bones, why the hell didn’t you _warn_ me?” 

“More fun this way.” Bones grinned. 

“Dammit, what if Slim—” 

“I _did_ warn him. Told him Ty and Zane have—um—active sex lives and that he might want to read it on his own. He thought about it, then asked if you’d read them before. When I said I didn’t think so, he…well, let’s just say he’s _definitely_ your son, Jim, ‘cause he got that grin on his face and just said, ‘Oh, this is gonna be fun.’” 

“I hate you both,” Jim muttered.

Bones wrapped an arm around Jim, pulling him close. “I’m sorry, Jim. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.” 

Jim curled against Bones’ chest. “Can you just…hold me tonight, Bones?” he murmured. “I don’t know why, but…I need to be held tonight.” 

“Of course, darlin’.” 

Bones held Jim the way he liked it, safe and warm in his embrace. Jim rested his head on Bones’ shoulder and listened to the steady thump of his heartbeat. “Lights, four percent.” 

The lights dimmed obediently. The darkness, the warmth of Bones’ embrace, the comforting rhythm beneath his cheek…ordinarily these would have lulled him to sleep, but tonight he couldn’t seem to get tired. Or maybe he was just afraid to close his eyes. For the life of him, though, he couldn’t figure out why. 

He thought Bones was asleep, but all at once, he heard his husband’s quiet voice. “Thirteen years.” 

“What?” Jim looked up. He could just make out Bones’ profile in the dark. 

“It’s been thirteen years,” Bones repeated. 

“Since what?” 

“Since…” Bones swallowed. “Since you forgave me for not bein’ there.”

Jim froze. When he’d woken up from— _well, let’s not dance around it,_ he thought bitterly. When he had woken up from a two-week coma following his resurrection, he’d been irrationally angry with Bones. He’d tumbled to the bottom of the warp core and known he was dying, and all he’d wanted was Bones. He’d begged Scotty to call his lover, even though he’d known it would hurt them both for Jim to take his last breath with the glass separating them, knowing they wouldn’t be able to touch at the last, but he’d wanted Bones there, he always felt safer when Bones had died. Instead, Spock had come, Uhura right behind him, Chekov running around the corner. Sulu had stayed at the helm, he’d had to, but the rest of his family was there—everyone but the one person he’d really wanted. Everyone but Bones. 

So he’d been furious. He’d treated Bones badly, he acknowledged that, thanking Spock for saving his life even though he knew it had been Bones who’d done the hard work, and that Uhura had had something to do with it (he hadn’t known _what_ at that point, only that she’d had _something_ to do with it). And he had thought he’d upset Bones, because after that he hadn’t seen Bones at _all_ for nearly two weeks. 

It wasn’t until he’d woken up screaming from a horrific nightmare to find Bones practically lying on top of him, arms wrapped around him and murmuring soothingly (if brokenly) that he’d started to thaw a little. Boyce had practically ordered Bones to stay where he was, and Jim had confessed why he’d been angry, why he was _still_ angry, and Bones had told him that the comm system had been broken—that he hadn’t even known Jim was dying until it was too late, until he’d unzipped the body bag in Med Bay and seen Jim’s cold, lifeless body… 

“Oh, God, Bones,” he whispered brokenly, curling his fingers into the fabric of Bones’ shirt. “I’m sorry. I’m so damned sorry.” 

“You don’t need to be sorry, Jim,” Bones whispered back. “I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner why I wasn’t there…” 

“How could you have known, Bones? How could you have known I was angry at you for—I should have told you. I shouldn’t have let it fester. I know better.” 

“You do now. Back then, neither one of us really knew.”

Jim curled tighter into his husband. “But I was so goddamned _selfish._ Even after you told me why you hadn’t been there when I died, I was still blaming you for not being there after I woke up…” 

“I didn’t want you to know,” Bones admitted softly. “I didn’t want you to blame yourself. Because I’d do it again, Jim. I would risk my commission, my medical license—I’d risk everything I have if I could save your life again.” 

“That wasn’t fair. What they did to you…” 

“It was a breach of medical ethics. No matter that I was your point of contact, no matter how close we were, I didn’t have the right to perform an experimental procedure on you.” 

“I was _dead.”_

“Even dead bodies have rights. You know that as well as I do—‘s why you can’t force someone to be an organ donor. You never granted permission for something like that.” 

“I wouldn’t have objected,” Jim pointed out. “You knew that.” 

“But I didn’t have it in writing,” Bones reminded him. “I was lucky to get away with what I did, and I wouldn’t have if Hackett hadn’t gone to bat for me. You know he put that hearing off as long as he could, hoping you would wake up? He knew the board would be more likely to let me off with a more lenient sentence if we had proof it had worked. Starfleet sure as hell wasn’t gonna take away my commission, since I saved the hero of Earth. But seriously, Jim, they could have told me I could never practice medicine again and that I could never be a Starfleet officer of any kind and I wouldn’t have cared, because you were alive. Nothing in the universe matters compared to that.” 

“Yes, it does,” Jim whispered. He caught Bones’ chin and kissed him. “It doesn’t matter if I’m alive, if you’re not with me, Bones.” 

“Jim,” Bones murmured into Jim’s mouth. He pulled back and said gently, “Jim, I never would have left you. _Never._ I’d have enlisted as a damned janitor if that was what it took to stay by your side. And I _will_ never leave you, you know that.” 

“I know,” Jim replied. And he _did_ know. Bones had proved that, again and again and again. In fourteen years of being lovers, in nearly eighteen years of friendship, there had only been three times in his life when Jim had thought he was losing Bones. There had been their fight after their experience with the Guardian of Forever, there had been Bones’ brush with xenopolycythemia and the Fabrini descendants… 

And there had been a moment in a shuttle bay, thirty-six days after they had finally stopped being colossal idiots. 

_Look, Jim, I gotta go._

_Yeah…yeah. Be safe._

The hardest thing Jim had ever done in his life had been letting Bones walk away, had been not grabbing him and holding him back. It wasn’t so much that he’d wanted to be taken along, although that was a part of it. It was that he hadn’t wanted to let Bones go alone. He’d been terrified of letting Bones out of his sight, letting him get into a dangerous situation where Jim wasn’t there to protect him. It was ridiculous—he knew Bones could take care of himself—but at the same time, there was that niggling little fear. 

Of course, it _had_ proved justified—they would all have died if it hadn’t been for Bones smuggling him onto the _Enterprise,_ that was something that everyone had agreed to almost instantly. But having been proved right didn’t make Jim feel any better. If anything, it made things worse. It had made him incredibly clingy in those first days and weeks after the encounter with the _Narada._ Bones, at least, hadn’t minded; he’d been just as shaken by their close brush with death as Jim had been, and he’d held on just as tightly. That, more than anything, had comforted Jim—the knowledge that he wouldn’t have been the only one who would have suffered if their separation had been forever. 

“Do you ever wonder what would have happened if Spock Prime hadn’t been on Delta Vega?” Bones asked suddenly. 

Jim looked up again. “What?” he said, a little stupidly. 

“It’s just…hell, I don’t know, it’s just something I guess I’ve been thinking about for the last fourteen goddamned years. When Spock marooned you on Delta Vega…what if Spock Prime hadn’t been there? It’s a hell of a big galaxy, Jim. When he came through, he could have come through at any point. He could’ve landed on Vulcan or Earth or Romulan…hell, he could’ve ended up in another damned quadrant. What if you’d landed and never found Spock Prime?” 

Jim was silent for a moment. It had honestly never occurred to him before. “Spock— _our_ Spock, I mean—wouldn’t have gone after Nero, that’s for sure. He’d have taken the _Enterprise_ back to Earth like he planned. I…I can’t begin to imagine what would have happened after that.” 

“Can’t, or don’t want to?” Bones asked gently. “There’s a big difference, you know.” 

“Don’t want to,” Jim admitted. “Because I _know_ , Bones. Spock Prime was pretty clear. Nero would have destroyed Earth. Then he would have destroyed the _Enterprise._ We all know there wouldn’t have been any survivors. Starfleet is one of the keystones of the Federation; without central leadership, the whole organization would have fallen apart. With both Earth and Vulcan gone, the Federation wouldn’t have lasted much longer. Nero would have taken over. He would have _won_ , Bones. The Romulan Empire would have taken the entire Alpha quadrant, maybe the whole galaxy.” He clung to Bones more tightly. “And I would have lost you.”

Bones rubbed Jim’s back in soft circles, the soothing gesture he usually did after one of Jim’s nightmares. “I hated Spock,” he admitted in a low voice. “I think I hated him more ‘n you did. You forgave him, you were even able to think of him as your friend durin’ that whole thing with Khan…but I couldn’t. I still hated him. I hated him for what he’d done to you…for what he almost did to all of us.” 

“He was young,” Jim said softly, resting his head on Bones’ chest again. “We all were. And he was hurting, and he was trying to prove himself.” 

“I know that now. But I didn’t really start forgiving him until he told me about your last minutes—until I realized that he did care about you, almost as much as I do if not in the same way. He was hurting over your sacrifice as badly as I was. He’d have climbed that warp core if you’d asked him to.” 

Jim didn’t want to say it, but the words forced themselves past his lips. “He did.” 

Bones stilled beneath Jim. “What?” 

“He did climb the warp core,” Jim repeated, not looking up. “In the…Spock Prime did, I mean. I saw it when he—when he melded with me, showed me the friendship they had in their universe. It wasn’t…anything concrete. I mean, we’re talking split-second flashes here. But when Scotty said the warp core was out of alignment, I remembered that moment in my head—Spock Prime lying on the floor of the chamber, that other Jim Kirk with his hand pressed against the door and just looking so damn _broken_ —and I knew. I knew that that Spock gave his life up for his crew…they brought him back, too, I never had the chance to ask how they did it, but somehow they did. And I—I couldn’t ask anyone else to do that, Bones. I don’t think Spock Prime gave _his_ Kirk a choice, but the other thing is…they were older. Spock Prime had wrinkles and that Jim had threads of grey in his hair and…they’d been friends longer. So maybe it came naturally to him to sacrifice himself for the crew, but…” 

“I—I remember that Spock Prime told our Spock that they had defeated Khan Noonien Singh ‘at great cost,’” Bones said slowly. “But I never really thought about what that cost _was…”_

“I didn’t ever want to tell you,” Jim confessed. “I don’t—like I said, they were just brief flashes. And I wasn’t prepared, and he didn’t really take the time to be gentle, so it…was somewhat painful. I try not to think about what he showed me too much. But there are certain things…a few things I know.”

“Like what?” Bones was trying to be casual, but Jim could also hear the apprehension in his tone. 

Jim looked up. “Bones…keep in mind, this was _his_ timeline. It’s not like that anymore. We’re different. We might have done a lot of the same things, but…you know we met ten years earlier than the crew did in that universe? And like Spock Prime said, Slim didn’t even exist…” 

“Jim.” 

Jim swallowed. “I know they lost the _Enterprise,”_ he said at last. “Later. When they were old and so was she. I know that I—that that Jim Kirk—he died alone, Bones. He always knew he would, and then he did, Spock Prime only heard about it later.” That had been the point, he remembered, when he’d been thrown out of the elderly Vulcan’s memory by deep, overwhelming pain—a pain Jim hadn’t understood then, but that he sure as hell understood now, and hoped he never had to feel again. 

Bones’ arms tightened around Jim. “That won’t happen,” he whispered. “I won’t _let_ it happen…how could _they_ let it happen? How could _he?_ If that Leonard McCoy loved his Jim Kirk the way I love you…” 

Jim shifted restlessly, remembering the word he’d heard over and over again in Spock Prime’s mind. Bones stilled. “What? What is it? You’re not telling me—” 

“No, they were friends, but—it wasn’t like this,” Jim said hesitantly. 

“Or Spock—their Spock—didn’t know about it. Ours didn’t know until I told him, while you were lying on that biobed…” 

“No, Bones, it wasn’t,” Jim said, knowing he had to tell him. “Do you—do you know what the word _t’hy’la_ means?” 

_“T’hy’la?”_ Bones frowned. “It’s a Vulcan word, right? Means something like…friend, brother…” 

“Or lover,” Jim said quietly. “That Jim Kirk was Spock Prime’s _t’hy’la._ They never…really had a wedding, not like we did, but they were…bonded. The three of them were incredibly close…but Kirk and Spock were closest of all.”

There was a long silence, broken only by the soft mutterings coming from the baby monitor as Addie moved in a dream. Finally, Bones spoke softly. “I can’t imagine what it’s cost Spock Prime, then. To have lost the love of his life…then to have gone back in time, to have met you and have you be so different…and then to have to watch you love someone else…” 

“He’s happy for us, Bones. And Spock—our Spock—has Uhura. It’s not like he’s alone. I talked to him privately, the first time we saw him after our wedding.” Jim shifted to bring himself closer to Bones again. “But…you’re right. It’s been hard on him. You know that pendant he always wears? It’s a message from his Jim—a birthday message. He’s kept that for decades.” He was quiet for a moment, then added, “I don’t blame him. If the universe were cruel enough to force me to survive you…I’m never taking the ring you gave me off, Bones. Ever.” 

“You’d better not,” Bones said, but it was a half-hearted threat. He stroked Jim’s hair tenderly. “Because your ring’s never leaving my finger, either.” 

Even though Jim had already known that—and he knew Bones already knew that Jim would never take off his ring—a great flood of relief came over him. Bones was his and he was Bones’, and that would hold even if one of them, God forbid, lost the other. He thought, suddenly, of his mother, who still wore the wedding ring George had given her on a fine chain around her neck, it being a hindrance in her work and a little too small for her finger at any rate. Even when she’d been married to Frank, he remembered, she’d always worn the ring around her neck. It was a big part of the reason he’d been able to forgive her after Tarsus. She’d never given up on her first husband, her first love. 

“I love you,” he murmured into Bones’ chest. 

“I love you, too, Jim,” Bones said. He kissed the top of Jim’s head. “Dammit, Jim, I love you so much it hurts sometimes. You, and that little girl at the other end of that monitor, and that fine young man in the next room. You’re my family and I will never let you go. _Ever._ Do you understand that? I will fight until my last breath to keep you all safe.” 

“And I will do everything in my power to make sure you never have to.” 

Bones rubbed his back again. “Get some sleep, darlin’.” 

“You, too, Bones.” Jim yawned and let his eyes drift closed. 

Of course, he should have known after bringing up all of that that he was going to have a nightmare.

_He’s sitting on the floor of their living room, holding his little cousin Sara in his lap, she’s very quiet and listless. They’re alone, Uncle AJ and Aunt Theenie and Lissa and Reba have gone to the meeting and Sam’s gone to get their daily ration of food, but Sara just wants to be held. Finally, Sara says quietly, “Will you save me from the monster, Jimmy?”_

_“Of course I will,” Jimmy says stoutly. “I won’t ever leave you.”_

_“Promise?”_

_“Cross my heart and hope to die.” Jimmy holds Sara tighter and rocks back and forth. He starts singing, one of her favorite songs, almost a lullaby, and she relaxes into him._

_Sam comes in, looking worried, and he only has two bags instead of five. “The guards wouldn’t give me all our rations,” he says quietly. “They said that I could only get rations for you and me, Jimmy. And they wouldn’t tell me why.”_

_Sara whimpers. Jimmy hugs her. “Give Sara my breakfast,” he says. “I don’t mind.”_

_Sam bites his lip, then holds out his hand. “Come on,” he says shortly._

_“Where are we going?” Jimmy asks, standing up, still holding Sara._

_“Tony says—well, never mind. Trust me, Jimmy. We’re going somewhere safe.” Sam smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “We’re going to the cave in the Grumbly Mountains.”_

_“Daddy said don’t leave,” Sara mumbles._

_“I know, but—trust me, Sara. I’ll take the blame. We’ve got to go. It’s not safe here anymore.”_

_Jimmy tenses. “How do you know?”_

_“Stop asking questions!” Sam snaps. “Just trust me! Come on, we’ve got to hurry. Not the front, the back.”_

_They start for the back door when suddenly the front door bursts open and armed guards charge into the house. Sara and Jimmy cling to one another and Sam tries to push them to the door, but two of the guards grab him and pull him back, and one of them growls, “Stop fighting, she’s got to go with her family.”_

_Jimmy realizes they’re trying to take Sara. “You can’t have her!” he yells. “She’s staying with us!_ We’re _her family!”_

_“Shut up, kid,” snarls a guard, grabbing Jimmy from behind, and another grabs Sara’s waist._

_They both scream, trying to hold on, but the guards are stronger, and one of them tears Sara from his arms. Jimmy screams louder, flailing desperately, trying to get away, but it’s no use, they’re taking Sara away, she’s screaming so loudly that everyone must hear it—_

“Jim, Jim, wake up!” 

Jim’s eyes snapped open. He could still hear the screaming, and it took him a moment to realize that _he_ was the one screaming. He was soaked with sweat and trembling head to toe, and Bones was holding him tightly. 

Suddenly the comforting arms felt confining. Jim pushed away from Bones. Bones let him go and he sat up, burying his face in his knees and holding them tightly, trying to calm himself down. 

He felt the lightest of touches on his back as Bones began rubbing in soft circles again. “It’s okay, darlin’. Just breathe. I’m here.” 

Jim tried his best to obey, focusing on inhaling and exhaling. But every time he thought he was starting to calm down, he saw Sara’s brilliant blue eyes imploring him from the arena, heard her screams, felt her weight in his arms, and started shaking all over again. He was no longer sure if the moisture on his face was sweat or tears or both. 

“Want to talk about it?” Bones asked at last, his voice still soft. 

Jim couldn’t look up at his husband, couldn’t meet his eyes. “I let her down,” he choked out. 

“Let who down, Jim?” Bones prompted gently. 

“Sara.” 

“Who’s Sara?” 

“My—” Jim moaned softly, curling away from Bones’ hand, he didn’t deserve to be touched, didn’t deserve this kind of love and understanding, he was a monster, a failure…“My cousin.”

Bones’ hand stilled. Jim knew, any minute, he would pull away, maybe go sleep on the couch or in Addie’s room, he would never touch Jim again. But instead, he said quietly, “Tarsus?” 

“Yeah.” Jim’s throat was raw, and he wondered dully how long he’d been screaming. “They—oh, God, Bones, they tore her out of my arms and they took her away and I couldn’t—I couldn’t stop them, I promised I’d save her from the monster and I didn’t, and then I couldn’t save her…” 

“Jim,” Bones cut in. “Jim, I’m gonna hug you, okay?” 

“Not too tight,” Jim begged. 

“Don’t worry.” 

Bones slid his hand gently across Jim’s back, down his arm, and then wrapped him in a loose hug, tugging lightly. Jim let himself be pulled out of his ball and onto Bones’ lap, and he leaned back against his husband’s chest and pressed his nose into Bones’ bicep and tried to stop crying. 

“Tell me about it,” Bones said softly. “Tell me what you remember. Tell me about the dream.” 

It usually helped Jim to talk about it. He took a deep breath, forcing his eyes to stay open. If he closed them, he would only see. “The night before the massacre, he—Nylund came to the house,” he began brokenly. “He…had a list of people Kodos had summoned to a meeting. My aunt and uncle were on it, and my cousins, but Sam and I weren’t and Nylund wouldn’t tell Uncle AJ why. He just said they had to go immediately, and then left. Sara…she didn’t like Nylund, he scared her…she didn’t want to go, so I said she could stay with us, and Uncle AJ agreed. The next day, Sam went to get our rations and…and they only gave him the rations for him and me, they wouldn’t give him the rations for the rest of the family. He—he knew what was going on already, so he tried to sneak us out the back door. But the guards came…they said Sara had to go with her family, and they tore her out of my arms—and I screamed, I fought as hard as I could to get to her, but I guess they knocked me out…” 

“Jim,” Bones whispered. His arms tightened around Jim’s chest briefly, but then he remembered his promise and loosened his grip again. “God, Jim…”

Jim kept talking. He’d been keeping this inside for years, he’d never even told his mother all the details, he certainly hadn’t told the therapist Starfleet had tried to send him to. But he wanted Bones to know. “When we were…we were in the cave, trying to organize the rebellion…Sam and Tony and I, and a couple of other kids, we went to scout out the scene, to see the best way of—of freeing everyone. They had everyone in this arena, guards all around…we thought we had more time, the ‘meeting’ wasn’t scheduled until that afternoon, but then Kodos came out. He said—” His voice broke, and he rallied himself. “He said that they had the opportunity to save their fellow colonists, that if the colony was to survive and thrive, they had to nurture the—the superior, the pure—and that everyone there was inferior and would have to be sacrificed. And then he signaled, and the guards started shooting. 

“I…I’d found my family, Bones, I was looking at them. My aunt and uncle tried to protect my cousins, but they all died…Sara tried to run, and she—oh, God, Bones,” he choked out, closing his eyes despite himself as a fresh wave of tears began. “She saw me, she was trying to cry out for help, and they shot her through the back. But she—she didn’t die right away. When the guards left, Tony—Sam’s friend—Tony and I went down to see what we could do, and she was still alive, and I held her and I was trying to promise her she would be okay, but she just…she smiled at me and said, ‘You deserve the sun,’ and then she…she died in my arms, Bones.” 

“Oh, God.” Bones’ voice was strangled. He buried his face in the top of Jim’s head. “Oh, darlin’…” 

“And then they firebombed the arena,” Jim said, knowing he had to finish the story. “They incinerated the bodies, so we never had anyone to bury…”

“Jim, my God, why didn’t you ever tell me this before?” Bones rubbed Jim’s arm as he spoke. “You shouldn’t have had to carry this by yourself…” 

“I—I _couldn’t._ You remember on Slim’s fourteenth birthday, when I told you about Sam for the first time, when I told you how guilty I felt about his death?” 

“Yeah.” 

“I tried not to even _think_ about Sara. I mean, all of my cousins…I blamed myself for all of them, for not thinking quicker, for not getting there faster, but Sara…I _promised_ her, Bones, I promised I’d keep her safe and I let her down.” 

“Jim, you were _ten,”_ Bones reminded him. “Not _even_ ten.” 

“Sara was _four,”_ Jim admitted. “She’d only just turned four. _Literally._ Her birthday was three days before she died.” 

“Was she the baby?” Bones asked. 

Jim shook his head. “She was in the middle.” 

“How many cousins did you have?” 

“Three. All girls.” 

“Kirks all, huh?” 

“No, Barretts. Uncle AJ was my mom’s brother.” 

“Older or younger?” 

“Older, but only by a couple of minutes. They were twins.” The recitation of facts, the story of his family, was actually relaxing Jim, easing his tension, at least a little.

Bones rubbed his shoulder encouragingly. “AJ. Was he a—no, he wouldn’t have been a junior, your grandfather’s name was James, right? What does AJ stand for?” 

“His initials,” Jim answered. “Alan Jackson Barrett. Twelfth of that name.” 

“What about your aunt? What was her name?” 

“Aunt Theenie.” Jim hesitated. “Her full maiden name was Athena May Freeman.” 

He wasn’t sure how Bones would take that. He’d never asked why Jim had picked the name Athena for their daughter, nor why Jim had promptly started calling her by a variant on her initials. But that was the truth. Jim had named her for the woman who had taken him into her home and her heart, without question or hesitation. 

“That’s why your mom reacted like that, huh?” Bones said. “When I told her what Addie’s full name was. She ever meet your aunt—Theenie?” 

Jim actually smiled at the way Bones said _Theenie,_ with genuine confusion. “Yeah. She was matron of honor at their wedding. Mom was, I mean.” 

Bones tucked his chin on the top of Jim’s head. “Tell me about your cousins.” 

“Lissa was the oldest—Allison Elizabeth,” Jim said. “She was the spit and image of Aunt Theenie. When I first met Uhura, it took me by surprise, because that’s exactly what Lissa would have looked like if she’d been able to grow up.” He paused. “Come to think of it, she’d be about Uhura’s age, too. God.” He swallowed. “Uh, anyway, she was kind of headstrong, kind of curious—a lot like me, I guess. We got along all right. But Sara—Sara Michele—she was my favorite. God, Bones, I loved that little girl. She looked more like Uncle AJ—blonde hair, blue eyes, cute as a bug’s ear. She tagged along after me everywhere I went if she could, and she was so sweet. Reba was the baby, Rebecca Lynn.” 

“Like the song?” 

“Yeah,” Jim said. “Except she didn’t have green eyes—they were brown. She was halfway between Uncle AJ and Aunt Theenie. Curly black hair, _café-au-lait_ complexion, dimples…fat as butter and happy as anything. She—she was born just after Sam and I got to Tarsus.” His smile faded as he remembered. “She initially survived the massacre—Tony found her—but she’d been pretty badly hurt, she died back in the caves while we were still trying to figure out how to help her.” 

“Oh, Jim,” Bones murmured.

Jim looked up at last. He could just make out his husband’s features in the darkness. “Do you understand now? Why I was so scared at the idea of us having kids? Why I dragged my feet for so long? I let one little girl who was counting on me down, Bones. I’m _terrified_ of the idea of it happening again.” 

“It won’t,” Bones said, firmly. “Listen to me, Jim. You were a _child._ You did everything you could. And Sara didn’t blame you. She loved you. And you’re not on your own now, darlin’. You’ve got me, and the entire crew. We won’t let _you_ down any more than you’d let _us_ down.” He kissed Jim’s temple. “We’ve both made mistakes, Jim. I lost Joanna. You lost Sara. But we can get through this _together,_ you hear me?” 

“I hear you,” Jim said. And for the first time in almost thirty years, he believed it. 

“Good.” Bones tightened his arms just a little, holding Jim snugly and securely. “I love you.” 

“I love you, too.” 

They sat in silence for a while, Jim leaning back against Bones and feeling safer than he had in a while. Finally, Bones said, “She was right, you know.” 

Jim looked up, startled. “Who?” 

“Sara. When she said you deserved the sun. She was right.” 

“Oh.” Jim actually laughed a little. His nerves were still raw from his nightmare and his memories, but it really had helped to talk about it. “That was…Sam had told us a story the night before. I think he made it up as he went along, but that was one of the lines in the story. The Wise Woman of the Gnarly Woods told the king that ‘the one who defeated the monster would be the one who deserved the sun.’” 

“Can you remember the story?” Bones asked. “Would you tell it to me?” 

Jim was really surprised at the request, but he nodded. “I can remember it.” It had embedded itself into his memory. He took a deep breath and began. “Once upon a time in a land far away, there lived a king and a queen who had three daughters…”

The story was somewhat rambling and nonsensical, and Jim had never really understood it. He’d figured out that the middle princess, the one who was sunshine, was Sara, and that the evil monster with yellow eyes was Nylund, but the rest of it beat him. When he at last finished, Bones sat in silence for a minute before saying, “I understand.” 

“You do?” Jim said, surprised. “Because I’m damned if I do. I never really did.” 

“You’re the squire, Jim,” Bones said quietly. “Your brother was the knight. And Sara saw that. Everything you do—you do it because you care about people. That’s why you’ve sacrificed yourself for the ship and the crew—and for me—again and again. You deserve people to love you because you love _them_. You’re a hero for all the right reasons.” He ran his fingers lightly down Jim’s chest. “And that’s what I love best about you. You’re my hero, Jim, and you always have been. And you were Sara’s hero, too.” 

Tears sprang to Jim’s eyes. All those years, he’d honestly thought, despite her smile, that Sara had died thinking he was a failure…that Sam had thought of him as a nuisance. But Bones’ analysis of the story made sense. They had both been proud of him. They’d both loved him. He really did deserve the sun. 

“Thank you,” he whispered hoarsely. “That…that means so much to me.” 

“Try and get some sleep, darlin’,” Bones said. “I’ll be right here.” 

This time, when Jim closed his eyes, he slept without dreams until the morning.


	50. I Will Let You Know

Spock sat in front of the computer, scanning the files yet again, wondering—for the hundredth time in the past six weeks—what he had missed. 

Since their departure from Space Station J-Twelve, Spock had devoted much of his spare time to researching Dorsey Cayne, the father of Ensign Audra Cayne. Surely, if the man called Fred Claiborne had had reason to threaten a young woman who seemed to be a relative, it must have been because the man was an unsavory character. He must naturally have assumed that, without her mother’s influence, Cayne had been drawn astray. 

And yet that did not seem to be the case. On the contrary, all research indicated that Dorsey Qyse Cayne was precisely what he appeared to be: a large-animal veterinarian, specializing in bovine and equine maladies, well-respected in his field and much sought-after by ranchers, especially those who raised animals for the peculiar human sport called “rodeo.” There was no breath of scandal that had ever attached itself to his name. Nothing to indicate why Claiborne had had Cayne arrested. 

Rubbing at his eyes with a very human gesture, Spock went back to the beginning of the files and began reading again.

“Cayne, Dorsey Qyse,” he said aloud, although he was completely alone in the room. “Born Stardate 2210.143—in old Earth reckoning, May twenty-third. Parents, Joshua and Anita Cayne. Born and raised in Arcadia, Oklahoma. Graduated from Arcadia High School in 2229 as valedictorian. Attended Oklahoma State University, where he played football, and graduated _magna cum laude_ in 2233.” The year Kirk was born, he noted in passing. “Attended Auburn School of Veterinary Medicine, specializing in large-animal medicine, and graduated in 2236 cum laude. Returned to Arcadia and joined a veterinary firm. Nothing particularly remarkable.” 

Spock kept scrolling. Dr. Cayne had made a name for himself when he performed a tricky operation that not only saved the life of a valuable animal, but enabled it to continue being used in rodeos. He became a “rodeo vet,” mentioned in nearly every article about a rodeo where an animal was ill or injured. _Point Guard was not expected to compete, but after diligent attention by Dr. Dorsey Cayne, 32, the horse not only entered the ring but carried his rider to victory…_

It was, perhaps, understandable that, with such a fulfilling career, Dr. Cayne did not marry quickly. However, in early 2245, his name began to be linked with that of Marjorie Lynn Claiborne, then aged nineteen, the daughter of William and Elizabeth Claiborne. The elder Claibornes, it seemed, bred “broncos” and other horses used in rodeos, while their daughter was an accomplished “trick rider.” Spock was not quite certain what that entailed and made a mental note to ask someone as soon as the opportunity presented itself. On the good doctor’s thirty-fifth birthday, an article appeared in the Oklahoma County _Seminole_ announcing the engagement of Dr. Dorsey Qyse Cayne and Marjorie Lynn Claiborne. 

A picture accompanied this announcement, and Spock studied it carefully. Dr. Cayne was a veritable giant of a man, something over two meters in height, broad-shouldered and muscular, likely from dealing with such large animals all the time. By contrast, Marjorie Claiborne as she then was stood a more average height. Spock estimated that she was roughly the same height as her daughter was now. There, however, the resemblance between Ensign Cayne and her mother ended. In all other ways she took after her father, Marjorie Claiborne possessing dark red hair and dark blue eyes, her features nearly Vulcan in their angularness.

Marriage records indicated that the couple had evidently spun out their engagement for quite some time, marrying on 2246.234, when Dr. Cayne was thirty-six and his new bride was twenty-one. Marjorie Cayne as she now was continued to be a rodeo performer until abruptly quitting two years later. Dr. Cayne’s name continued to appear in news articles with some regularity, but his wife was not mentioned until 2251.15, when another announcement appeared. 

_Dr. and Mrs. Dorsey Qyse Cayne (Marjorie Lynn) are proud to welcome their new daughter, Audra Rhiannon Cayne. Born 2251.13 (January 13, 2251), 6lbs, 9oz, 46cm long. Mother and baby are doing just fine!_

Like the other announcement, this was accompanied by a picture, although Spock saw no point. The day-old infant was virtually indistinguishable from any other human at that age, and her parents were not in evidence. However, he pushed the thought aside and continued scanning. 

There were a number of other articles about Dr. Cayne. Many of them mentioned his daughter, to whom he was apparently devoted. One article from mid-2253 had a photograph accompanying it, showing the big, burly Dr. Cayne standing on a rail with his daughter, a tiny thing with long golden hair, perched on the crook of his arm and gazing up at him with the same adoring expression Athena often gave her own parents. Another article had actually interviewed the child, although her comments were the usual illogical nonsense of a young human. 

The next-to-last article in the search gave Spock pause. A shuttle crash on 2255.224—the day Jim Kirk and Leonard McCoy had boarded a shuttle in Riverside, Iowa, to begin their Starfleet Academy careers—had claimed the lives of everyone on board, as well as two people on the ground. One of the dead was Dr. Dorsey Qyse Cayne, age 45. The final mention of him in public records was his obituary, published three days later. 

_He is survived by his beloved daughter, Audra Rhiannon Cayne, age four._

For the first time, the significance of that line hit Spock. He scrolled back up to double-check and found that he was not in error. Following the announcement of Ensign Cayne’s birth, her mother was never mentioned again. 

Was that significant? Spock had no idea. He recalled Ensign Cayne saying that she had no memory of her mother. According to Dr. Cayne, his wife had simply not been ready to be a mother, which was an illogical statement; contraceptives were readily available, and there was no indication that the Caynes or the Claibornes had any religious objections to such things. And at twenty-six years of age, she could hardly have been ignorant of the reproductive process. Had she discovered she was pregnant and not wished to give birth, she could have sought termination of the pregnancy, needing neither her husband’s permission nor his knowledge. Therefore she had become pregnant intentionally; she had willingly followed through with the delivery, had proudly announced her child’s birth, and then, for some unknown reason, had vanished utterly out of her life. 

“Illogical,” Spock said aloud. 

“What is, Uncle Spock?” 

Spock did not jump; although he was startled by the presence of another, he had learned through many years of practice not to visibly react to such things. Nor did he need to turn around in order to know who it was who had entered the room. “It is illogical, Thomas, that Marjorie Claiborne Cayne should have chosen to abandon her family with the comment that she was ‘not ready to be a mother.’” 

Thomas came to stand next to Spock. He had a PADD in one hand and had undoubtedly come to ask some question about his studies, but his eyes were on the screen. “I agree,” he said quietly. “That’s a line I’ve read in a book or two, written in the twenty-first century or earlier, but it ain’t somethin’ you hear anymore. You don’t want to be a parent, you don’t have to be.” 

“My thoughts exactly,” Spock agreed. He gestured to the screen, which still showed Dorsey Cayne’s obituary. “Ever since we left Space Station J-Twelve, I have endeavored to find out what Ensign Cayne’s father could have done that would warrant locking his daughter in prison. And each time, I have come to the same conclusion. There _is_ no reason. He led an entirely blameless life, and his death was completely above suspicion.”

Thomas’s eyes were still on the screen. His expression was difficult to interpret. Spock watched him for a moment, then said, “Perhaps you can tell me, Thomas. What is—‘trick riding?’” 

“Pretty much what it sounds like,” Thomas replied absently. “It’s a rodeo category…doin’ things like standin’ up on the horse, acrobatics, rope tricks, that kind of thing.” He shook himself and turned to look at Spock. “Why do you ask?” 

“That, evidently, is what Marjorie Claiborne did before her marriage, and for the first two years afterwards. Her name disappears from rodeo articles after that.” 

“If she was pregnant, she couldn’t trick ride,” Thomas said slowly. “Not without riskin’ the baby.” 

Spock shook his head. “Her exit from rodeo predates the birth of her daughter by nearly three years. Whatever reason she gave for withdrawing, it was not that.” 

“An’ when Aud—Ensign Cayne was born, her mother said she was a bartender.” Thomas bit his lip. “What else have you found out ‘bout Marjorie Claiborne?” 

Spock blinked. He realized, once again, that he had overlooked something painfully obvious. “I have not yet done any research into her past. Would you care to assist me?” 

Thomas took the seat next to him. “What do you want me to do?” 

“Search news archives for any reference to Marjorie Lynn Claiborne or Cayne,” Spock instructed the young man. “I will search all other available databases.” 

“Yes, sir.” Thomas’s fingers flew over the keyboard.

“I have been unforgivably lax,” Spock said, more to himself than to Thomas. 

It was Thomas, however, who answered. “Because you hadn’t looked into Ensign Cayne’s mother?” 

“Yes. And because I did not realize the significance of the absence of her name from Dr. Cayne’s obituary.” 

Thomas looked up. “Why is that unforgivable?” 

“I do not make errors,” Spock told him. “Nor do I neglect to consider information.” 

“Everybody makes mistakes.” 

“I never have.” 

Thomas raised an eyebrow in a very Kirk-like expression. “Really. You’ve _never_ made _one_ mistake in your _entire_ life. Not even when you were a child.” 

“Naturally, I made errors before I knew what the correct procedure was,” Spock said stiffly. 

Thomas shrugged and went back to what he was doing. “How often have you had to look into a crew member’s past because a vindictive barbecue salesman got her and two of her friends thrown into the brig on a space station?” 

Spock stared at Thomas. “It is hardly a common occurrence.” 

“Then how could you possibly have known what the correct procedure was, Uncle Spock?” 

“Logical,” Spock admitted. “Nevertheless, it should not have taken me this long to decide to look into Marjorie Claiborne’s past, rather than concentrating on Dorsey Cayne’s. I have seen no evidence that he was anything but what he appeared to be.” 

“It don’t—doesn’t make sense,” Thomas said absently. “That somethin’ in _her_ past would be what made Fred Claiborne call in a made-up tip to the authorities. Lookin’ at it from a logical point of view, it _should_ have been somethin’ Dr. Cayne did.” 

“And yet it was obviously not,” Spock pointed out. 

“Unless it was just that he’d married his cousin or whatever.” 

“That would be an illogical reason to hold enough of a grudge to throw his daughter into prison,” Spock said. 

Thomas stopped again and looked up, faint amusement in his expression. “Uncle Spock, you’ve been on the _Enterprise_ for thirteen years, an’ before that you taught at Starfleet Academy. You should know by now that human beings are, by definition, illogical. We’re governed by our emotions nine times out of ten.” 

“This is true,” Spock allowed. “And yet, I continue to hold out the hope that, one day, that one-tenth will become the majority.” 

Thomas grinned as he went back to his work. “Sounds pretty illogical to me.” 

Spock decided not to dignify that with a response, instead returning to his research.

Twenty minutes later, Thomas turned to Spock. “I’ve found every newspaper article I can about Marjorie Claiborne-Cayne, Uncle Spock.” 

Spock did not pause in his research; he was fully capable of multi-tasking. “Summarize them.” 

“The first is a birth announcement. ‘Mr. and Mrs. William Jefferson Claiborne (Elizabeth Ann) are pleased to announce the birth of their daughter, Marjorie Lynn, born 2225.78 at 1438 hours.’” Thomas had turned back to his screen to check his accuracy. “She started ridin’ in rodeos when she was five years old, as a sheep-rider—” 

“A _what?_ ” Spock looked up, startled. 

“Kind of the prelude to bull-riding, with little kids, they put ‘em on a bad-tempered ol’ ram.” Thomas didn’t look up. “Anyway, she only did that ‘til she was seven, then she started trick-ridin’ in the junior category. She won her first blue ribbon when she was nine and was a fairly consistent winner after that. ‘Bout 2245, the media started linkin’ her name with Dr. Cayne’s…” 

“From then on, I believe all the articles about her included mention of her husband,” Spock interrupted. 

But Thomas shook his head. “Not quite. There’s one here that deals with her decision to retire, and it don’t— _doesn’t_ even mention that she was married at the time. It starts off by announcin’ that she’s withdrawin’ from rodeo, then goes into a description of her history in rodeo.” 

“Does it say why she withdrew?” Spock asked, turning to look at Thomas. 

“Yeah.” The boy peered intently at the screen before him. “Here, I’ll read it aloud. ‘Marjorie’s decision to retire from rodeo stems from two separate stimuli. The first is the age of her horse, Devil’s Heart. Marjorie told this reporter that “Dev” was a gift for her seventh birthday, and that the horse was already ten years old and well-trained at that point. He is now twenty-seven and can no longer perform properly in the ring. “I won’t ride without Dev,” she says. “There’s no point.” Marjorie’s second, more serious reason is the death of her cousin, Tallulah Claiborne, in a hovercraft accident earlier this month. She wishes time to properly mourn her cousin, and says that perhaps the time has come to join the family business that has nothing to do with horses.’” 

“What business is that?” Spock prompted. 

“It doesn’t say. The only thing it has to say after that is ‘Marjorie will be greatly missed in the rodeo world, and we hope that she will return someday.’” Thomas looked up. “Could that business have anything to do with Fred Claiborne and why he had Audra arrested?” 

“It may,” Spock said. “Expand your search. See if there is any reference in the news archives to any of the Claibornes other than Marjorie and her parents.”

“Right.” Thomas’s fingers flew over the keys again. Spock turned back to his own work. He had made no appreciable headway before Thomas spoke again. “Apart from the requisite birth announcements, wedding announcements, and obituaries, the only article about any Claiborne other ‘n Audra’s mom and grandparents is about the hovercraft accident that killed Tallulah Claiborne. She was drunk an’ speedin’.” 

Spock considered, but could not see any potential good in assembling a Claiborne family tree. “Then they are sensible enough to keep out of the public eye.” 

“I reckon so.” 

Spock returned to his own screen. As he assembled his report, he asked, “By the way, Thomas, why did you come here in the first place?” 

“Hmm? Oh.” Thomas shrugged. “It ain’t— _isn’t_ that important.” 

“Nevertheless, I should like to hear it.” 

“I just…I started lookin’ at the process to get into Starfleet Academy, an’ I figured out I can take the test from the ship, they’ll make accommodations for me. But I was wonderin’…if I’m s’pposed to start before the _Enterprise_ is due back on Earth, how ‘m I gonna get there in time?” 

Spock stilled. He could not believe he had failed to give thought to so vital a matter. Of course, Thomas was nearing his sixteenth birthday. He would be eligible to attend Starfleet Academy before the _Enterprise_ was due to return. Indeed, he was old enough to attend that year, if he so desired. More than likely, however, he would choose to begin after his seventeenth or even his eighteenth birthday. Once he did, he would need to get to the Academy, one way or another. 

After a moment, he said evenly, “The starbases and space stations have regular transport with Earth. I presume that when the time arrives, the captain will arrange for the ship to stop at such a location long enough to arrange a shuttle for you.” 

Thomas nodded slowly. “I reckon that makes sense. I mean…like I said, it wasn’t that important. I ain’t goin’ for a couple years yet. But…I just wondered, that’s all.”

“You do not plan to try and get in at seventeen?” Spock had located a promising source of information, but he turned to look at Thomas nonetheless. 

Thomas shook his head. “Once I get there, there’s a good chance I won’t see anyone in my family again. I mean, I reckon Starfleet won’t want to assign me to my own father’s ship…” 

“I suspect you are mistaken there. There are numerous family members who serve under one another on ships and stations alike. As long as he is not your direct superior, you would be permitted to serve on the _Enterprise.”_

“Still. I’m gonna miss at least four years of Addie’s life. I’d rather put that off a while.” Thomas managed a crooked smile. “I don’t want to wait until I’m nineteen or anythin’, but I reckon I’ll wait ‘til I’d have graduated high school on Earth, just the same.” 

“That is logical,” Spock admitted. “Athena is quite fond of you, and her young years are the most impressionable. You would not wish to leave before she is old enough to understand where you are going.” 

“Exactly. I reckon by the time she’s four, she’ll be able to handle it better.” 

Spock turned back to his computer. “If I may inquire further…why did you come to me with this question? Why not your father, or Dr. McCoy?” 

Thomas was silent for a moment. Finally, he said in a soft voice, “Whenever people ask me about Starfleet Academy, Dad gets this funny look on his face. He never says anythin’, but…I reckon he ain’t quite ready for me to go, either. He don’t want to think about it more ‘n he has to. So I reckoned…well, I don’t like goin’ into situations I ain’t got all the information about. An’ I reckoned you’d give me a straight answer. I ain’t sure Dad wouldn’t’ve told me it wasn’t possible, or that we’d think ‘bout it when the time came. You know, tried to keep me from goin’ a little longer.” 

Spock opened his mouth—and closed it again. He had been about to point out that prevarication on Kirk’s part would have been illogical, which was true. However, it was also true that, illogical or not, Thomas was right. Kirk likely _would_ have tried to put off answering Thomas’s query, as if not thinking about something would make it disappear. In much the same way, he tended to avoid speculating about Athena’s future. It was another human peculiarity, he supposed; his mother had been much the same when he was growing up. A very human lump of emotion formed in his throat as he recalled his mother, and he tried to push the memory from his mind and refocus on his work.

A moment later, the computer gave a soft ping and switched from the database to a single file that contained all of the information on the Claiborne family he had been able to find, dating back to the nineteenth century. He scrolled through it quickly. “Fascinating,” he murmured. 

“What is?” Thomas slid closer to him. 

Spock angled the screen so that Thomas could see it as well. “This is the Claiborne family history, dating back to 1880. William F. Claiborne, then twenty years old, seems to have had an…understanding…with a young woman in Yazoo County, Mississippi.” He paused to shake his head at the oddness of the name. 

“It was a Native American tribe,” Thomas offered. “The Yazoo. They were pretty well destroyed in the early eighteenth century, but the name survives in the county, the city that makes up the county seat, and the river.” 

Spock inclined his head in acknowledgement of the fact. “This young woman—whose name, interestingly enough, appears to have been Sylvia—gave birth to a female child shortly before Billy Claiborne set off for Tombstone, Arizona. Following the events of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Sylvia and her one-year-old daughter set off west. They met Billy halfway there, and courthouse records show that they did, in fact, marry. Billy Claiborne died in a shootout in Tombstone, unrelated to the first, a year afterwards, shortly before Sylvia gave birth to their second child, a boy, christened William in his father’s memory. She returned to her parents’ home in Yazoo County with the children. William Claiborne grew up and chose to work on the railroad, which was near his home. However, he ran away to follow in his father’s footsteps when he was seventeen years old, following a train crash, for which he was not blamed but which he later said on his deathbed that he felt responsible for.” 

Thomas leaned forward, then started. “Vaughan, Mississippi?” 

“That appears to be the location of the crash, yes. Why do you ask?” 

“In April of 1900…that’s the crash that killed Casey Jones!” Thomas shook his head in amazement. “Sorry. Just one heck of a coincidence.” 

“Indeed.” Spock was not familiar with Casey Jones but decided to ask at a later time. “At any rate, William Claiborne eventually made it to California, where he married a local woman. They had four children, the youngest of whom, David Claiborne, is the only one that concerns us. He was born in 1914. His father was evidently a ‘rum-runner’ during Prohibition, dying in prison while David was still in school. He married in 1936, at the age of twenty-two, and managed to secure a position as a newspaper photographer. In 1942, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the United States entered World War II, he quit that job and enlisted in the Army. He was killed during the Invasion of Normandy, on his thirtieth birthday, leaving behind his wife and two children, a boy and a girl. The boy’s name was Franklin Roosevelt Claiborne, presumably in tribute to the president. He attended Oklahoma University, got a degree in Chemical Engineering, and joined a company called Conoco, which sent him to Ponca City, Oklahoma. His son, Elliot, was born in 1967. He took a degree in agriculture and hired on as a ranch hand, rose to become foreman, and eventually realized enough to buy a ranch of his own. This ranch remained in the family until 2257, when William Jefferson Claiborne died, apparently leaving no heirs.” He paused. “Fascinating.”

Thomas frowned, turning back to his screen and typing rapidly. After a moment, he shook his head, obviously puzzled. “This makes no sense.” 

“What is that?” Spock asked, turning. 

“Here’s the obituary for Elizabeth Ann Claiborne, born Jones in—well, there’s another coincidence, she’s from Vaughan, Mississippi,” Thomas mused. “Any road, she died on 2251.209. It says here, ‘Elizabeth is survived by her husband, William Jefferson Claiborne, of Oklahoma City; her daughter, Marjorie Lynn Cayne (Dorsey); and her beloved granddaughter, Audra Rhiannon Cayne.’ Her husband died on 2257.48, and it says ‘William was preceded in death by his parents; his wife of fifty years, Elizabeth Ann; and his son-in-law, Dr. Dorsey Q. Cayne.’ But it lists no survivors—an’ you said he died heirless.” 

“I fail to see what is troubling you, Thomas.” 

“It’s this.” Thomas swiveled to face Spock. “Elizabeth’s obit mentioned Audra, but William’s didn’t. However, it _did_ mention his son-in-law preceding him in death. An’ it didn’t mention his daughter at all. But, Uncle Spock, _there’s no obituary for Marjorie Claiborne._ She ain’t dead—or if she is, she didn’t die on Earth.”

Spock nodded slowly. He turned back to his own screen. “Marjorie Lynn Claiborne and Dorsey Qyse Cayne were married, according to official records, on 2246.234. Marjorie Cayne did in fact take a job as a bartender when she left rodeo in 2248…however, the job was only part-time, working two nights a week. After giving birth on 2251.13, work records show that she ceased to be employed there. On 2253.01, Dr. Dorsey Cayne filed for divorce on the grounds of…desertion and fraud.” 

“What?” Thomas leaned forward again. 

“He claimed that his wife did not tell him that she had ceased her bartending job. When she did not return home one night, he went to the bar to find out where she had been and was told she had not worked there for eighteen months at that point. Moreover, he says, he learned then that the job was only part-time; he had been told she worked every night. His wife did not return home after that, and six months later he filed for divorce. The petition was granted on 2253.180. Dr. Cayne died two years later, apparently without ever having located his ex-wife.” 

Thomas rubbed the back of his neck. “I reckon that _could_ have been it,” he said cautiously. “Fred Claiborne might’ve resented Dr. Cayne sayin’ all that in court, or not lookin’ harder for his cousin.” 

“It is possible,” Spock agreed, keeping his voice blank. 

“But not probable,” Thomas said. 

“Precisely.” Spock scrolled down further. “It is telling, for example, that Frederick John Claiborne, older brother to Tallulah Claiborne, ran a bar in Oklahoma City until mid-2252, when he abruptly closed the bar and moved off-planet. He did not surface again until seven years ago, when he purchased the space for ‘Ramblin’ Fred’s Barbecue’ on the newly-constructed Space Station J-Twelve.” 

“How’d he earn the credits for that?” Thomas asked. 

“It does not say.” Spock kept scrolling. He read the next bit of information silently to himself. Then he read it again, to make sure he understood it. Then he leapt to his feet and strode out of the room, hardly aware of Thomas hurrying in his wake.

It was the middle of Beta shift. Ordinarily, there would have been any number of places for the captain to be at this time. However, Spock knew that the captain had planned to do paperwork during this shift, and so made straight for his office. 

“They are smugglers, Captain,” he said as he entered the room without preamble. 

Kirk looked up, startled. He had a stylus in one hand and a PADD in the other. McCoy sat on the corner of his desk, Athena in his arms. She beamed and held out her arms. “Unca ‘Pock!” 

Kirk ignored her. “Who are smugglers, Mr. Spock? What are you talking about?” 

Spock pulled up in front of the desk. “I have been doing research into Ensign Cayne’s family, hoping to determine why Fred Claiborne arranged for her arrest. I believe I have found the answer to that. The Claibornes are part of an interstellar smuggling ring.” 

“You’re sure, Spock?” Kirk asked, suddenly on the alert. 

“I am positive, Captain.” 

“He’s right,” Thomas said from behind him. “I saw the datasheets, too.” 

“Why don’t you start at the beginning,” Kirk suggested, gesturing at the chairs. 

Thomas sat down, but Spock remained standing. In a precise voice, he detailed what he had learned, about Dorsey Cayne, Marjorie Claiborne, and her two cousins. 

Kirk listened intently. At one point, he held up his hand, pressed the intercom button, and spoke to Scott briefly before gesturing for Spock to continue.

As he reached the end of the explanation, the door chimed. Kirk again gestured for Spock to wait. “Enter,” he called. 

The door opened, admitting Ensign Cayne, who looked nervous. “You wanted to see me, Captain?” 

“Yes, Ensign, come have a seat.” As soon as Cayne took a seat, Kirk continued, “Mr. Spock has done some research into your family history. He believes he has discovered why Mr. Claiborne told security on Space Station J-Twelve to lock you up.” 

Cayne looked up at Spock, who nodded briefly. “As I was saying, Captain, Tallulah Claiborne’s death was initially ruled an accident; she was driving a hovercraft too fast, and alcohol was believed to have been a factor. However, investigation revealed, five years later, that she was not intoxicated. Her speed was due to her attempts to avoid detection by radar checkpoints. She was found to have traveled extensively off-world. Ordinarily her older brother, Frederick, would meet her at her landing sites, but on that evening it appears he was ill and unable to meet her; therefore, she attempted to transport her cargo herself, and made a fatal error. After her death, her cousin, Marjorie, retired from rodeo, took an extremely part-time position at a bar, and took over Frederick’s nightly runs. The authorities were beginning to close in—not on Marjorie Claiborne, but on Frederick—and in 2252, both of them left the planet, attempting to disappear.” 

“Running a barbecue restaurant on a space station is not precisely ‘disappearing,’ Spock,” Kirk said in a dry tone of voice. 

“The space station’s only been around for ‘bout seven years,” Thomas put in. 

“Who told you that?” Kirk asked. 

“Grandma.” 

“He is correct, Captain,” Spock said. “Between 2252 and 2265, there is no record of Frederick Claiborne’s location. However, in 2255, authorities began attempting to locate Marjorie Claiborne Cayne, as her only daughter had been placed in foster care following the death of Dr. Dorsey Qyse Cayne. They succeeded, finding her on the edge of the Romulan Neutral Zone in an old-fashioned two-hold cargo ship. One hold was full of artifacts stolen from worlds on both sides of the Neutral Zone.” 

“I beg your pardon?” Kirk looked startled. 

“She was crossing _into_ Romulan space?” McCoy asked sharply. 

“What was in the other hold?” Cayne asked softly. “If you don’t mind my asking, sir.” 

Spock looked at the ensign. She was pale, but her gaze was steady. Something told him that she had the strength to handle the news. Quietly, he replied, “The other hold contained approximately thirty individuals from various planets, who had been sold into slavery.”

McCoy inhaled sharply. Kirk swore. Thomas reached over and squeezed Cayne’s hand. She closed her eyes briefly, then said, “I presume, then, that m—that Marjorie Claiborne is in prison.” 

“She is not,” Spock said. “She attempted to blame her cousin Frederick for the crimes, saying she was only the pilot and did not know what was in the hold, but testimony from one of the captured individuals—a humanoid female of approximately ten years of age—indicated that she, in fact, was the one who dealt with the slaves. Her cousin seems to have dealt only with artifacts, if that, but there was no proof of his involvement. She _was_ sentenced to life in a Federation prison, but in late 2256, she attempted to escape and was killed in the attempt.” 

The small room was silent for a moment. Even Athena seemed to grasp the seriousness of the situation. At last, Cayne said, “Then that’s why Fred Claiborne had me—us—arrested. Because he blames me—and perhaps my father—for his cousin’s arrest and subsequent death.” She spoke calmly, but Spock noticed her hand tighten around Thomas’s. He also noticed that she did not refer to Marjorie Claiborne Cayne as her mother, but by her name or her relation to others. 

“That would seem to be the case. Additionally, it would appear to be through those funds that he was able to purchase his restaurant on the space station.” 

“We’ll make a report the next time we’re at a starbase,” Kirk said in a subdued tone of voice. “Which ought to be in a week’s time. We’re taking on some new crew members…Ensign Cayne, I’m sorry to tell you all this.” 

Cayne raised her head to look at the captain. “It’s all right, sir,” she said softly. “I always knew there was something off, but…” She swallowed and looked down. “You know, I’d almost rather believe she’d just left because she didn’t care about me, not because she left to tear other families apart. I’m—I’m sorry, Captain.”

“Hey.” Kirk left his chair, came around, and knelt in front of Cayne, putting his hands on her shoulders and looking intently into her eyes. “It’s not your fault, Ensign. It’s not your fault at all. You’re not responsible for what your mother did, any more than I’m responsible for what my father did, or Slim is responsible for anything I’ve done. Bringing a child into this existence is the most selfish thing you can ever do—no child ever _asks_ to be born. Blaming a child for the sins of the parent is ridiculous. I don’t blame you for your mother’s actions, and I don’t hold them against you. None of us do. I judge you _only_ on your own merits, and let me tell you, from everything Mr. Scott has said, those are some pretty impressive merits. I’m proud to have you aboard this ship.” 

There were tears in the young woman’s eyes, but she managed a smile. “Thank you, sir. I’m proud to be here.” 

Kirk smiled in reply, then stood up. “Hopefully, ‘Ramblin’ Fred’ will be in prison the next time we’re by Space Station J-Twelve, and you’ll be able to get a decent look around. For now, Ensign, is there anything else I can do for you?” 

“No, sir. Everything is ace—uh, everything is just fine.” Cayne blushed. 

“No, what were you going to say?” Kirk prompted with a grin. 

Cayne’s blush deepened. “Uh, everything is ace-high. It’s—it’s an old western expression. I reckon it’s a poker reference.” Her accent, like Thomas’s, grew thicker as she got distressed. 

“Ah. Well, then, you’re free to go.” Kirk turned to his son. “Slim, you’re good to go, too, unless there was something else you needed?” 

“Nope, everything’s good.” Thomas got to his feet quickly. “Want me to take Addie? I reckon she’s ‘bout ready for dinner.” 

“Dinner,” Athena said eagerly. Spock noted that she had been unusually patient during the discourse. 

“Sure, Slim. We’ll be along shortly.” McCoy handed Athena to Thomas. “Behave, little missy.” 

“’Kay,” Athena agreed. She blew a kiss to Spock as Thomas carried her out of the room, following Cayne. 

Kirk watched them go, then turned to Spock, his eyes serious. “Thank you, Mr. Spock. You’ve cleared up a mystery and given a young woman a bit of closure.” 

“If I have done any good, Captain,” Spock said seriously, looking from him to McCoy and back, “I am satisfied.” 

Kirk nodded. “You should be.”


	51. Car Pulls Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was supposed to be funny.
> 
> It was supposed to involve Christine Chapel coming back to the _Enterprise_ and Jim teasing her about why she'd left in the first place and mocking her for the way she phrased it when she told Carol, and the two of them and Bones teasing one another mercilessly and Chapel taking the most senior nurse's position.
> 
> And then she told Jim (and me) what his reputation was at the Academy.
> 
> And suddenly it wasn't funny anymore.
> 
> I'm so sorry.

“And you swear this report is accurate, Captain Kirk?” 

Jim kept his posture erect. “On my oath as a captain, I do.” 

“These are serious accusations,” Admiral Findley, one of three on the panel to whom he was giving his report, said in a serious tone of voice. “Mr. Claiborne is, by all accounts, an upstanding citizen. Your report seems, forgive me, to be composed of conjecture and moonshine.” 

“Frederick Claiborne is the brother of the late Tallulah Claiborne,” Jim replied. “That is a fact. He is the cousin of the late Marjorie Claiborne. That is also fact. It was on his word, and his word _alone_ , that two members of my crew—two _young_ members of my crew—and my fifteen-year-old son were imprisoned and given no indication of why they were being imprisoned in the first place. That is _also_ fact. You know Mr. Spock’s reputation. His research is impeccable, and his word and honor cannot be doubted. Marjorie and Fred Claiborne both left Earth in an awful hurry, at the same time, and the authorities were preparing to serve an arrest warrant on Fred when he disappeared. Yes, the conclusions in the report are mine, but they were reached through extrapolation of _facts_.” He emphasized the word again. 

“Captain Kirk is correct,” said Admiral Oliver, sitting on the other end of the table from Findley. “His analysis of the facts seems clear enough. At the very least, it bears further investigation.”

“I have before me a report filed by Commodore Kirk,” Hackett added. His presence on the panel had been an immense relief to Jim. “She corroborates the essential points of the report with regards to the events on Space Station J-Twelve. She also adds that Ensign Simril, Ensign Cayne, and Master Kirk were polite, respectful, and answered her questions honestly, even without knowing her identity. I also have here a medical report from Dr. Leonard McCoy, who states that he treated Ensign Simril for a split lip caused by having been struck across the face the night of the incident, and that the next morning he treated Master Kirk for bruises on the upper arm, indicative of having been grabbed roughly.” 

Jim started slightly at that. Neither Bones nor Slim had reported that to him. Fortunately, Findley didn’t seem to notice. “You believe that both these reports can be trusted?” 

“Admiral Findley,” Hackett said coldly, “I have known Commodore Kirk for nearly forty years, and in all that time, I have always known her to be the soul of honor. And while Dr. McCoy may have occasionally stretched the bounds of ethical practice, he has never lied on an official report—a distinction, might I add, that cannot be extended to his husband.” He dropped Jim a swift wink. 

“We will investigate this matter further, Captain Kirk,” Oliver said. “From your report, it seems we have a serious matter to deal with. We will let you know what the results of the investigation are.” 

“Give my love to your family,” Hackett requested. 

“I will, sir.” Jim smiled. 

The three admirals nodded, and the screen went blank.

Jim gave a sigh of relief, running a finger under his stiff uniform collar. He’d chosen to wear the gold dress uniform for this call; it gave him a slightly more professional air, but it was also stifling. Still, it seemed to have done the job. Or maybe he was a better speaker than he thought he was. Or maybe it was just that the facts really _were_ undeniable. Maybe it was a combination of all three. 

He turned and strode out of the chamber where he’d made his report. They were only at Starbase Three for a few hours, just long enough to resupply. He’d read, not long ago, that technicians and engineers were working on perfecting replicator technology to the point that it could be installed on starships, but for now, they had to make do with the food synthesizers and stocking up ship’s stores. Jim had granted an hour’s shore leave—no more—for any personnel who so desired. He happened to know that Simril, Cayne, and Slim did _not_ so desire. When he’d left to beam over to the starbase, the three of them had been in the Rec Room with Sulu and Chekov, laughing and playing that ridiculous card game Slim and the two senior officers had invented. Bones was supervising the restocking of Medical Bay; Scotty, as usual, was priming the engines; Spock was holding down the bridge. Only Uhura had chosen to utilize the time—and she’d asked to take Addie with her. Jim wasn’t sure he really wanted his daughter to discover shopping yet, but he’d given permission anyway. And really, she’d seemed so happy that he couldn’t regret that decision. 

He checked his chrono. It had taken him less than thirty minutes to make his report. He had just enough time to duck into a couple of stores and pick up some things that ship’s stores didn’t stock, then make it back in time to meet the new crew members coming aboard. Whistling under his breath, he headed for a shop discreetly tucked away in a corner. 

Twenty minutes later he was on his way back to the transporter bay, clutching three shopping bags. The smallest contained two decent-sized bottles of the brand of lube he and Bones preferred; their supply was running low, and while they’d made do with things they probably shouldn’t have in the past, it seemed a golden opportunity to stock up. The other two bags had gifts. Jim admitted to himself that he was on his way to spoiling his children, but he couldn’t help it. He’d never had anyone to spoil him as a kid, and he wasn’t going to deprive his children of anything if he could help it—even something as simple as a present for no apparent reason. 

And Jim could never resist the lure of a bookstore. He’d been lucky to get out of there as quickly as he had.

“Ready to beam back, Captain Kirk?” asked the young transporter technician as Jim walked into the room. He couldn’t have been out of the Academy long; he was still baby-faced, round and rosy and bright-eyed. He’d stumbled over his words welcoming Jim to the starbase earlier. 

“Sure am, thanks.” Jim grinned at the kid. “Tell me, Ensign—have you been here long?” 

“Well…yes, sir,” the technician admitted. Before Jim could register surprise, however, he added, “But I’ve only been _working_ here for a few weeks, since I graduated the Academy.” He blushed. “I, uh, I grew up here. My mom’s Chief of Security and my dad teaches elementary-level classes.” 

“Oh?” Jim’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s gotta be distracting, serving somewhere you grew up, where everybody knows you.” 

“I prefer it, actually.” The technician looked a little sheepish. “My older brother—he’s a nurse, sir—he didn’t want to stay here. He left for the Academy two years before I did, and he only came back here three days ago. He’s transferring onto your ship, I think.” 

Jim nodded; there were three new medical officers coming aboard, along with a handful of engineers. “But you did? Want to stay, I mean?” 

“Yes, sir. It’s…it’s hard to explain. But this is my home. I used to spend afternoons in here pestering the technicians with questions about how the transporters worked. I liked sitting in the lounges and listening to the officers serving on starships talk about their experiences, too, and someday maybe I’d like to go out on a space posting. But for now…” The technician shrugged, a little self-consciously. “The crew knows me. They know that I not only know what was taught at the Academy, but how these specific controls work. I don’t have to work to find my place, because I’ve always _had_ a place here. It’s somewhere I’m comfortable, somewhere I know I belong.” He smiled, looking a little embarrassed. “And I can have dinner with my parents most nights, unless Mom has to work late.” 

“Did you request the posting, then?” 

“Yes, sir, I did. Mendelssohn—the chief technician—he was pretty surprised to see me, but he gave me the biggest bear hug you can imagine when he saw me again.” The technician smiled. “Like I said, this starbase is my home.” 

“And they’re lucky to have you,” Jim said warmly. 

The technician blushed bright red. “Thank you, Captain Kirk.”

Jim started for the platforms, then paused. “What’s your name, Ensign?” 

“Cedeno, sir. Ensign Donovan Cedeno.” 

“It’s an honor to meet you, Ensign Cedeno.” 

“The honor is mine, Captain Kirk.” Cedeno turned even redder. 

Jim climbed onto the platform and nodded to Cedeno, who saluted before pressing the appropriate button. A moment later he was back aboard the _Enterprise,_ looking at Lieutenant Kyle. “Welcome back, Captain,” the lieutenant said with a salute. 

“Thank you, Lieutenant Kyle.” Jim stepped down. “Any word on when our new crew will be arriving?” 

“Starbase Three reports they’ll be beaming over in fifteen minutes.” 

“Hmm, that doesn’t give me much time,” Jim mused, staring at his bags. 

“I could call Yeoman Rand to run them up to your quarters if you want,” Kyle offered. 

Jim hesitated. “No, I’ll just book it. Thanks anyway, Kyle.” 

“Of course, Captain.” 

Jim strode off, as quickly as he could. It wasn’t so much that he minded people running things to his quarters, but considering the _nature_ of these things…it would just be better if he took them himself.

He made it to the family quarters in eight minutes, took two minutes to stow the bags in the back of the closet, and sprinted back to the Transporter Room. He skidded to a halt and tried, vainly, to tame his hair as he stepped through the door with as much dignity as he could manage. 

Kyle flashed him a grin as he came in. “Perfect timing, Captain. Starbase Three reports that the new crew members will be beaming over in twenty seconds—well, the first six will. One is running late.” He reached into a drawer and handed Jim a comb. 

“Kyle, you’re a lifesaver,” Jim said gratefully, running it through his hair. 

He handed the comb back just as the beams lit up. A moment later, six figures appeared in swirls of gold light—two in blue, four in red. All of them came to attention when they saw the captain. 

The first redshirt stepped down, a middle-aged balding man, who saluted. “Lieutenant Ryan Mochrie, Engineering, reporting from the _Redoubtable_ , sir.” 

“Welcome aboard, Lieutenant Mochrie.” Jim shook the man’s hand. “We’re glad to have you aboard.” 

“Thank you, sir, it’s good to be here.” 

The next redshirt was a tall man of much the same age. “Lieutenant Colin Stiles, Engineering, also reporting from the _Redoubtable.”_

Jim noted the ring on the man’s finger. “Married, Lieutenant Stiles?” 

“Yes, Captain,” Stiles said with a nod and a proud smile as he glanced at Mochrie. “Ry and I just celebrated our first anniversary last week.” 

“Congratulations,” Jim said with a grin and a nod to both of them. “I hope you’ll both enjoy your tour with us.”

The next crew member to step down was a member of a purple-skinned species called the Zathros. They were completely hairless, more or less identical as far as facial structure went, and they were born one of three different genders, none of which were easy for other races to distinguish, especially beneath the uniform; while some of the ones who were of the gender that translated, tenuously, into Standard as “female” wore the mini-dress and thigh-high boots, most of them wore the shirt-and-pants combination regardless of what division they were in. Not that there were many of them in Starfleet to begin with—fewer than a hundred altogether. Jim had only ever met one, who had sat next to him in three of his tactical classes at the Academy and gone out drinking with him and Bones a time or two. Ten’tol had been one of the few people who could keep up with Jim, in the classroom or in the gym, and fortunately had been a year behind him at the Academy. 

The Zathros saluted and said in the raspy voice that characterized the race, “Ensign Nic’tlarn, Engineering, reporting from Starfleet Academy.” 

Jim shook the Zathros’ hand. “Welcome aboard, Ensign. What pronouns do you prefer I use?” 

Nic’tlarn looked surprised. Jim had to admit that most captains wouldn’t have asked. They tended to notice the uniform rather than the body in it, so that all shirt-and-pants wearers were “he” and all mini-dress wearers were “she.” Jim rejected that idea offhand. With humans or humanoids, he tended to notice the presentation beyond the uniform and address them by the pronouns he guessed to be right; however, he always made sure that everyone in the crew knew that they were perfectly within their rights to correct his use of pronouns if he used the wrong one. With races like the Zathros, however, it was better to ask outright. 

“I am _h’ftenga_ , sir,” Nic’tlarn said, a little nervously. 

Jim hastily racked his brain for the memory of the crash course Ten’tol had given him in Zathran gender identity. “Which translates to Standard as ‘caregiver,’ correct?” 

“Correct, Captain.” Nic’tlarn looked even more surprised at that. “But if it is easier for you to say ‘he’ and ‘him’ than to remember—” 

Jim shook his head. “No, Ensign. I’ll remember. And I’ll make a note in your file. If anyone on this ship misgenders you, feel free to correct them.” 

Nic’tlarn looked like xe was about to faint, and Jim didn’t miss the look xe gave over xyr shoulder at the remaining redshirt. All xe said, however, was, “Thank you, Captain.”

Jim smiled and nodded before turning to the remaining redshirt, who saluted. “Ensign Kelly O’Flaherty, Engineering, reporting from Starfleet Academy, sir.” 

“Welcome aboard, Ensign. I trust you and Ensign Nic’tlarn are acquainted, then?” 

“Yes, sir, we were roommates.” O’Flaherty looked a little nervous, but swallowed and added, “All four years. Since we both present unusual genders, sir.” 

Jim tilted his head slightly, studying the ensign. “Androgyne?” 

“Fluid, sir.” 

“Well then,” Jim said with a warm smile, “same goes for you as for Ensign Nic’tlarn. Please feel free to correct anyone on the ship who misgenders you—including me. I’ll do my best to remember to ask every day, but if I forget, please correct me. I want you to be comfortable. What are you today?” 

“Male, sir.” O’Flaherty blushed. “Thank you, sir.” 

“You’re welcome, Ensign.” Jim shook the young officer’s hand, then turned to the first medical officer. 

The muscular young man saluted. “Lyle Solomon, Orderly, reporting from the medical ship _Recovery,_ sir.” 

Jim shook the orderly’s hand. “Welcome aboard, Mr. Solomon. How long have you been in space?” 

“Four years, Captain, and hoping for a starship posting that whole time, but one’s never lined up before.” Solomon beamed. “It’s good to be here.” 

“It’s good to have you. I hope you’ll enjoy working with our other orderlies—they’ll be glad for the new face.” 

“I’m sure I will, sir.”

Solomon stepped aside, and Jim turned to the other medical officer, thin and dark-haired with a long neck and unusually full lips. He saluted. “Darius Cedeno, Nurse, reporting from the _Lexington.”_

“Welcome aboard, Nurse Cedeno.” Jim shook the young man’s hand, trying to mask his surprise. “Was that your brother working the transporter controls on the station?” 

Cedeno scowled slightly. “Yes, sir.” 

“He told me you’d be joining us, and from what he said, I’m sure we’ll be glad to have you aboard.” It was a slight bending of the truth, since Donovan Cedeno hadn’t actually said anything at all, but Jim didn’t see any harm in it. 

Cedeno’s face shifted from annoyance to mild surprise, but all he said was, “Thank you, sir.” 

Jim turned to the intercom and pressed it. “Yeoman Rand, report to the Transporter Room, please.” He turned to Kyle. “Any word on our seventh new crew member, Lieutenant?” 

“No, sir, not yet.” 

Rand arrived five minutes later. “You called me, Captain?” 

Jim indicated the six crew members. “Please escort our new crew members to quarters. Couples quarters for Lieutenant Stiles and Lieutenant Mochrie, and do your best to find Ensign Nic’tlarn and Ensign O’Flaherty bunks in the same place.” 

“Yes, Captain.” Rand beckoned for the crew to follow them.

Kyle watched them go. “Have I ever mentioned how unusual you are, Captain?” 

“How so, Lieutenant?” Jim asked, turning to the young man, whom he liked and respected. Kyle had joined them shortly after Jim and Bones’ wedding, and he’d refused three transfers since then. His most recent one had contained the explanation that he did not at that time feel he could serve under any captain but James Kirk. 

“Most captains don’t take this much of an interest in their crew,” Kyle said, looking up at Jim. “When I was on the _Valiant_ , I was dating a yeoman who was agender and preferred ‘they’ and ‘their’ pronouns. But they preferred the mini-dress uniform, so the captain always referred to them as ‘her’ and ‘she’. It drove them to tears a few times. I tried to convince them to transfer to the _Enterprise_ with me, but they’d only just gotten used to the _Valiant_ and didn’t see that things would be any better here.” 

“Are you still in touch with them?” Jim asked. “They’d be welcome. I’m sure I could find an excuse for another yeoman.” 

Kyle shook his head. “They died, sir,” he said quietly. “They got an involuntary transfer to the _Archon.”_

Jim winced, remembering the fate of the _Archon_ and her crew. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant. Really I am.” 

“Me, too.” Kyle suddenly put a hand to his ear. “Captain, incoming transmission from Starbase Three. The final new crew member has just arrived and will be ready to beam aboard in thirty seconds.” 

“Acknowledge and energize.”

Jim stood and watched as the beams coalesced. A moment later, a very decidedly female figure stood on the platform, wearing the blue mini-dress and looking sheepish. He couldn’t help the grin that split his face. “Christine!” 

Christine Chapel stepped down, holding a pair of black shoes in one hand and her duffel in the other. “Captain Kirk,” she said with a nod. “You know, I left this ship to avoid embarrassment. I finally decided that I could face you without turning red as a brick, and what do I do? I show up ten minutes late for my transfer.” 

Jim glanced at the chrono on the console. “Fifteen.” 

“Whatever.” Christine grimaced, setting down her bag. “Suppose I ought to do this right, huh?” She saluted. “Christine Chapel, Nurse, reporting from Outpost Six-One-Two-B.” 

“Welcome back, Christine.” Jim clasped her hand in a friendly fashion. “What kept you?” 

Christine held up her shoes. “Broke the damn heel off. Damn near twisted my ankle.” 

“I don’t remember you swearing quite so much when you left us.” 

“I don’t remember you wearing a wedding ring when I left either.” 

Jim couldn’t help the laugh that erupted. “It’s good to have you back.” He turned to Kyle. “Send my compliments to Ensign Cedeno and let him know all the new members are safely aboard. And if you need relief, better call it up now, while we’ve still got half an hour before the second wave comes back and the third wave ships over.” 

“Thanks, Captain, I’ll be all right.” Kyle grinned and saluted.

u

Jim returned the salute, then turned to Christine. “Quarters or Medical?” 

“Medical. I can drop my bag off any time.” Christine fell into step with Jim as they headed out. “Leonard still CMO?” 

“You’d better believe it.” Jim smiled and held up his left hand. “You didn’t think I’d let just anybody put this on my finger, did you?” 

Christine smiled back. “Well, you know, things happen. How long has it been?” 

“We just celebrated our tenth anniversary four months ago.” 

“Congratulations, Jim. I mean that.” Christine was quiet for a moment, then added, “Who’s senior nurse?” 

Jim tried to remember which of the two nurses who usually worked Alpha shift, and whom Bones trusted to run things when he couldn’t be there, was actually the senior. “Uh, Dixie McCall.” 

“Good old Dix.” Christine sighed with relief. “Good. At least I don’t have to learn an entirely new staff.” 

“I think you’ll like the crew we’ve got. They’re a bright bunch.” 

“I’m sure I will.” Christine tilted her head at Jim. “Spock still your first officer?” 

Jim nodded. “And Uhura is still senior communications officer, Sulu’s still senior helmsman, Chekov is still senior navigator, and Scotty is still chief engineer.” 

Christine nodded, too. “Anyone else aboard you think I might know?” 

Jim stopped and turned to look at her. “Yeah, actually. Carol Marcus tells me she’s a friend of yours.”

“Carol?” Christine turned to him in surprise. “Yeah, my God, Carol and I were roommates in college before we ever joined Starfleet. She’s here?” 

“Yeah, she’s our weapons specialist and secondary science officer.” Jim crossed his arms over his chest and raised an eyebrow. “By the way, what did you tell her about why you put in for a transfer?” 

“What do you mean?” Christine asked. She was obviously trying to sound nonchalant, but she looked suddenly guilty. 

Jim raised the eyebrow a little more. “When I first met her, she told me I was ‘much smarter than my reputation suggested,’ and when I asked ‘I have a reputation?’ she replied with ‘You most certainly do, I’m friends with Christine Chapel,’ and then proceeded to tell me that you’d taken a position at an outpost and were _much_ happier there. So what, exactly, did you tell her?” 

“Um.” Christine squirmed slightly. “I…uh…I was—I talked to her before I’d had time to cool off, and I was still angry and embarrassed with myself, so I…I told her what your reputation was at the Academy. That you only cared about your own pleasure, that you were the kind of guy to leave a trail of broken hearts in your wake and not care about any of them, that you thought you were the universe’s gift to women and could have anyone you wanted and…and that you didn’t even remember them afterwards.” 

Jim stared at Christine, then turned and started walking again. Christine hurried to keep up with him. They walked in silence for a while until Jim said in a low voice, “Was that _really_ what my reputation was?” 

Christine looked up at him, her rosebud lips parting slightly in surprise. “Yeah. You—you didn’t know that?” 

“No,” Jim said quietly. “I didn’t.”

He’d known he had a reputation as a ladies’ man, but he’d honestly believed that was as far as it went. Try as he might, he couldn’t remember _ever_ having promised one of his partners more than a one-night stand, except for Gaila, and that was something he still felt guilty over. Jim Kirk might have slept around a lot, but he was always upfront about what he was looking for, made sure his partners knew the score. He would _never_ have deliberately broken anyone’s heart. And he absolutely remembered every single woman he’d slept with. There hadn’t been quite as many as his reputation suggested, either—maybe thirty at best—and most of them had approached _him_ first. He had always striven to make sure that his partners enjoyed the experience (a lot of times, more than he did), and he _always_ took care of them afterwards, unless they told him to leave. 

He swallowed hard against the lump in his throat. God, no _wonder_ Carol had looked at him like that. He’d assumed at the time that her comment about having no idea who she was talking about had to do with his expression. Christine had put in for a transfer after trying to seduce him, then nearly dying of embarrassment when he told her that he and Bones had an exclusive relationship; he’d been trying to figure out what Christine could have possibly told Carol that would paint him as less than clever. If he’d known what a poor opinion of him his classmates had… 

His collar seemed suddenly too tight, the fabric of the shirt too stifling. He almost couldn’t breathe. Jim knew himself well enough to know that he was on the thin edge of a panic attack, but he fought it back as hard as he could. He couldn’t fall apart. Not now. 

The two of them stayed silent until they reached Medical Bay. As Jim stepped through, he heard Bones saying, “I think that’s the last of it, Dix. You can go over to the starbase if you want.” 

“Thanks, Doc. I think I will.” 

Jim rounded the corner to see Bones and McCall straightening up from one of the medical cabinets. McCall turned and started slightly. “Cap—” she began, then beamed. “Christine!” 

“Dix!” Christine dropped her bag and shoes and hurried over to embrace the other woman affectionately. 

“Jim?” Bones’ voice was sharp as he ignored the nurses, taking a few steps towards Jim instead. “What’s wrong?” 

“Nothing.” Jim forced a smile. “Bones, here’s one of the new nurses you requisitioned. The other one is probably putting his stuff away in quarters, and there’s an orderly, too.”

Bones eyed Jim suspiciously, then turned to Christine, scowling. “What did you say to him?” he demanded. 

Christine winced, looking over at Jim. “I, uh—” 

“It’s nothing, Bones. Forget it.” Jim didn’t want Christine to start off on the wrong foot. “Nurse McCall, why don’t you show Nurse Chapel where her quarters are? She’ll be one of the senior nurses.” 

“Absolutely. C’mon, Chris, you’ve got to tell me what that outpost was like.” McCall threw an anxious look over her shoulder at Bones before leading Christine out of the room. 

Bones waited until the door closed behind them, then crossed over to Jim and took him into his arms. “Jim,” he said quietly. “What happened? What is it? Is it because of why she left?” 

“No…well, no, not really.” Jim leaned into Bones’ chest. “Bones…did you know what my reputation was? When we were at the Academy?” 

“Heard you were a ladies’ man. Word was you’d slept with half the female cadets in our year—or was it three-quarters?” Bones tilted Jim’s face up. “If that’s what bothering you, Jim, good God, you should know better by now. I know what you’re really like. You think it matters to me how many women you slept with before me?” 

Jim was tempted for a moment to leave it at that. But he knew he had to be honest. Softly, he said, “Christine just told me that everyone thought that I didn’t care about, or remember, anyone I ever slept with. That I deliberately broke hearts and enjoyed it. That I only cared about whether or not I enjoyed it.”

Bones went perfectly still. After a moment, his arms tightened around Jim. “Oh, God,” he muttered brokenly. “Jim…” 

“I didn’t, Bones,” Jim said, a little pathetically. “I swear it was never like that. I can still remember all their names, and—and I _did_ try. I usually cared more about whether or not they enjoyed it than whether or not I did…” 

“I know, darlin’,” Bones whispered. “Believe me, I know. And if I’d known that was what your reputation was…oh, God, Jim, I’m so sorry. I’m so damned sorry.” 

“It’s not you, Bones, it’s not your fault…” 

“No, Jim, I should’ve known. I should’ve…dammit, Jim, I should’ve been able to protect you from that.” Bones stroked Jim’s hair, still holding him close. “You’re not like that. You’re not like that at all. And if I’d known that was how people talked about you, I’d have knocked every last one of ‘em flat on their asses. I’m so sorry, darlin’.” 

Jim clung to Bones like a lifeline, feeling himself starting to shake. “Bones…” 

Bones pulled back, just a little, and looked down at Jim. “How long until we leave?” he asked. 

Jim tried to get his brain to work back in the present. “Uh…” He glanced around until he found a chronometer. “Three hours?” 

“That’s plenty of time.” 

“For what?” Jim asked, a little bewildered. 

Bones didn’t answer. Instead, he flipped out his communicator, still keeping hold of Jim with one arm. “McCoy to Spock.” 

“Spock here,” came the calm Vulcan reply. 

“Spock, I’m taking the captain back to our quarters until the ship is ready to pull out. Something’s come up and he needs the rest. I’ll explain later.” 

There was a brief pause before Spock replied, “Acknowledged, Doctor. Spock out.” 

Bones closed his communicator, then led Jim swiftly out of Med Bay.

Jim scarcely noticed anything about the walk. A few short minutes later, Bones keyed his way into their quarters, then led Jim into their bedroom. Quickly and deftly, Bones undid the tight collar, divested Jim of his shirt and dress pants. Jim stood, shivering slightly, in his boxer-briefs and undershirt. Then Bones pulled Jim into his arms and onto the bed, curling around him protectively. 

“All right, darlin’,” he murmured in Jim’s ear. “It’s just you and me now.” 

Jim buried his face in Bones’ chest and, finally, let himself fall apart. He let himself cry, let himself feel the hurt and agony of knowing that three-quarters of his classmates had gone to their deaths believing Jim Kirk was the worst kind of human being, a type of person he’d never dreamed of being. He clung to Bones and sobbed quietly, fingers wrapped in his shirt, his whole body shaking and hurting. 

And Bones held him. He rubbed his back and kissed his forehead softly and whispered, over and over again, “I’m here, darlin’. I’m here.” 

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Jim felt the sobs subsiding. He collapsed against Bones, feeling utterly spent. Bones fell silent for a moment, simply rubbing his back soothingly. At last, he said quietly, “Feel better?” 

“A little,” Jim admitted. He didn’t feel one hundred percent, but at least he wasn’t a complete mess.

“I’m here, Jim,” Bones reassured him. “I’m right here, and darlin’, I will never leave you. _Ever_. I know your heart, I know your soul. I know you’re _nothing_ like your reputation was at the Academy—if that was even your reputation, if Chris wasn’t just making it up as she went.” 

“I don’t think she was. I think people really did think that poorly of me.” 

“You want me to tell you who you are, Jim?” Bones traced a finger over Jim’s back. “You’re a loyal friend and a passionate lover. You’re a great captain and a wonderful father. You’re the man I chose to spend the rest of my life with, the man who loved me enough to spend the rest of his life with me, the man who trusts me with his children and his fragile heart. You’re a good man, Jim. You are. Don’t let anyone tell you differently.” 

Jim felt tears spring to his eyes again. “I love you so much, Bones,” he whispered. 

“I love you, too, darlin’.” Bones kissed him. 

They lay like that for a while, both of them silent, Jim resting his head against Bones’ heart and Bones caressing him lightly, stroking and soothing and removing the hurt without words, only tender touches. Finally, the intercom over their bed whistled, making them both jump. “Bridge to Captain Kirk.” 

Jim pulled away from Bones just enough to touch the button. “Kirk here.” 

“Captain, Supply reports that we are fully stocked,” Spock’s voice replied. “And Transporter Room reports that the last crew member has just returned from shore leave.” 

“Thanks, Spock. I’ll be on the bridge in ten minutes. Kirk out.” Jim closed the line and turned to Bones. “You coming?” 

Bones pulled Jim to his feet and kissed him, deeply and tenderly. “Wild horses couldn’t keep me away.” 

Jim kissed him back, then broke it with a smile that was almost like his usual one. “I’d better get dressed, unless you want the whole crew to see me in my underwear.” 

“Not a chance,” Bones growled, squeezing Jim’s ass, making him gasp and jump slightly. “This is one side of you I’m not sharin’ with anyone.”


	52. You Always Said

When the ship shuddered, Slim almost stabbed himself through the nose with his fork. He set it down quickly, feeling the sudden throb of pain as a distress cry sounded silently in his brain. Something had gone wrong with the ship. 

Jim, too, put down his fork. “What the hell?” he muttered, mostly to himself. 

“That didn’t feel good,” Leo said, looking worried. 

Slim’s fingers twitched. It was two hours into Beta shift. Alpha had gone smoothly; he’d shadowed Scotty through the department, but there hadn’t been any problems. This, however, felt big. He longed to be down in Engineering helping out, but he was determined not to ask. He and Jim had a silent understanding that, as long as Slim didn’t say anything, he could continue to help even when Scotty hadn’t specifically requested him. Usually when he did, it was for some minor issue. 

“I’m sure it’s easily fixable,” Jim said, not looking at all like he believed it. Leo obviously didn’t believe it, either, but he went back to his dinner. Addie hadn’t stopped eating for a minute. 

Slim was just picking up his fork again when Jim’s communicator chirped. He flipped it out quickly. “Kirk here.” 

“Captain, we have a wee problem.” Scotty’s accent was thicker than usual, which worried Slim a little. “Is Slim there? I’d like him tae come down here if ye don’t mind.” 

“He’s on his way, Scotty. Kirk out.” Jim flipped the communicator closed and stood. Slim was already out of his chair. “Bones, I’ll be back…Addie, be good for Papa, okay? Daddy will be right back.” 

“’Kay,” Addie said absently, stabbing at her macaroni and cheese.

Slim kept pace with Jim the whole way to the lifts. As they were entering, however, he heard a voice. “Hold it, please!” 

Slim looked up in surprise as Porter came pounding up, Audra half a step behind him. Both of them skidded into the lift as the doors closed. Porter was breathing a little heavily, but nodded to Jim. “Thank you, Captain.” 

“Heading down to Engineering?” Jim asked, taking hold of the handle and ordering the lift downward. 

Audra nodded. “Mr. Scott commed us both, sir.” 

“Must be serious, if he wants all three of you,” Jim muttered. 

Slim blushed slightly. He still marveled at the fact that Scotty actually _asked_ him to do work on the engines. About his only virtue was that he fit in smaller spaces, although he was getting to where he didn’t anymore. He’d had to move up to the second-biggest shirt Chekov had made him for his last birthday, and he was the same height as Audra and only a couple of inches shorter than Porter. Then again, the three of them _had_ discovered that they worked pretty well together. Slim hadn’t yet told Porter about his gift—and Audra had agreed to stay silent about it—but still, each of them had assets and talents they brought to the table. Between the three of them, they made one hell of an engineer. 

There were a lot of engineers running around frantically and a great deal of smoke coming from various parts of the room. Porter gave a low whistle. “Something big must’ve blown.” 

“Scotty!” Jim yelled. 

Scotty emerged from the smoke a minute later, yelling orders. “Get it sealed off! I don’t care where it comes from—stop it!” He laid eyes on the two ensigns and Slim first. “Good, there you three are. We’ve got a serious issue here.” 

“I can see that,” Jim interrupted. “Scotty, what’s happened?” 

“RFMs blew,” Scotty snapped. “Primary _and_ auxiliary. Simril, Cayne, Slim, I need the three of ye on the aux.” He whirled around. “O’Flaherty, Nic’tlarn!” 

“Sir?” A worried-looking ensign emerged from the smoke. Slim couldn’t satisfy himself if the person was male or female and wondered how tacky it would be to ask. Behind him—or her—was a purple-skinned alien Slim had never seen before. 

“Help these three with the aux,” Scotty ordered. “Cayne’s got seniority. Get goin’!” 

“Scotty, wait, what the hell are the RFMs?” Jim demanded.

Slim didn’t wait to hear the explanation, instead following Audra and Porter over to the port side of the engine room. The smoke in the room was strange colors. Most of it was a sickly green color, but some of it was pearlescent orange, and it was towards the source of the latter that they headed. 

The auxiliary radiation field modulator, or RFM, was a bulky structure that sat in the corner of the room, ignored unless needed. It was cylindrical, four meters high and two and a half meters in diameter, with a series of notches on one side to serve as a ladder. There was a noticeable crack in the casing on one side, from which the smoke billowed and curled. 

“Why is the smoke that color?” the purple-skinned ensign asked, looking worried. 

“It’s got to do with the chemicals in the RFM,” Audra answered, pulling up short and examining the structure rapidly. “Okay, that crack looks bad, we’re gonna need to fix it. Port—” 

“On it.” Porter turned instantly and ran for the supply cabinet. 

“We can’t fix the casing until we fix what’s inside, or at least open it up,” Slim pointed out. “All that smoke—something’s probably on fire in there.” 

“Won’t sealing it up smother it?” asked the human ensign. 

Audra shook her head. “First of all, there’s oxygen in there, a lot of it, so even if it’s sealed up it’ll still burn, at least until the oxygen is all used up. Second, we can’t use the sealer without running the risk of it catching fire, and third, even if we do get it sealed properly it’ll just explode, either cracking somewhere else or—worst-case scenario—blowing up completely, taking us and half the engine room with us.” 

The ensign gulped. Porter came running back with the tools to seal the crack. “Save time later,” he said breathlessly. 

“Thanks, Port.” Audra studied the structure again, a pucker of worry creasing her forehead. “You—what’s your name?” 

The purple-skinned ensign jumped, but stammered out, “Nic’tlarn.” 

“Nic’tlarn, go find out what the time estimate is on fixing the primary, would you? As quickly as possible.” As Nic’tlarn ran off, Audra turned to Slim and added, “You realize we have only two diagnostic options. And depending on how long it’ll take to fix the primary…” 

Slim knew exactly what she meant. “Probably better to use the second option anyway. You know…even if they can fix the primary quick, we ain’t got a lot of time before the air in here gets hard to breathe.” 

Audra hesitated. “I just don’t want to rely on it if there’s a chance we don’t have to.”

The other ensign—presumably O’Flaherty—looked puzzled, but before he could open his mouth, Nic’tlarn was back. “Lieutenant Harmon says it will take six hours to repair the primary.” 

Audra cursed under her breath. “We don’t _have_ six hours. Slim…” 

“On it.” Slim flexed his fingers and moved over to the RFM. He couldn’t feel the heat coming off of it—it was very well-insulated—so he felt safe in laying his palms against it. “Talk to me, girl,” he murmured, closing his eyes and concentrating. He felt the vibrations, heard what he’d come to think of as the voice of the _Enterprise,_ and tried to think quickly. After a moment, he called over his shoulder, “Purple extinguishers—better grab two—and somebody get a wire-bristled brush and the industrial solvent.” 

“You two, grab the extinguishers,” Audra snapped. “Port—” 

“Got it.” Porter shook himself and ran off in one direction. The two ensigns ran off in the other. 

Audra joined Slim. “How bad is it?” 

“Bad,” Slim said shortly. “Not as bad as it could be, though. The fire’s pretty contained—it’s all under one panel, anyway—but that’s where most of the important circuitry is. Once we get in there, we’ll be able to see what needs to be done easily enough.” 

“All five of us won’t fit down there.” 

“No, but two of us will—three in a pinch. The others can repair that crack. Once the fire’s out, no problem.” 

“Two to repair the crack, two to work in the unit, and one to run for supplies,” Audra decided. 

Slim nodded and quickly began scaling the ladder. He found the correct panel and plucked a tool from his belt, then began unscrewing it.

Nic’tlarn and O’Flaherty returned with the bright purple extinguishers. Engineering stocked several varieties of extinguishers, for several different types of fires. Ordinarily, one couldn’t tell what was needed without opening the panels, which usually meant risking setting everything else on fire, too. 

“I grabbed these,” O’Flaherty said breathlessly, holding up two facemasks. “Thought it might help whoever was putting out the fire…” 

“Quick thinking,” Audra said approvingly. “Get up here.” 

The two other ensigns scrambled up, with difficulty. Audra grabbed one of the masks from O’Flaherty and the extinguisher from Nic’tlarn. “You put on the other one,” she instructed O’Flaherty. “Slim, get that panel off!” 

Slim pried up the panel. Nearly invisible flames shot upwards for a moment. Audra and O’Flaherty, both shielded, quickly aimed the extinguisher nozzles into the tunnel and fired. Slim pressed his hands to the top of the RFM, listening to the _Enterprise_ as she began to relax, at least part of her pain dying away. By the time Porter returned with the cleaning supplies, retrieved the patch kit he’d dropped, and climbed up to join them on the platform that seemed increasingly smaller, the smoke had died to a trickle. A moment later, the filters drew away the last of it. 

Audra dropped the extinguisher and tossed the mask aside. “Okay, you two—either one of you ever worked with a patch kit before?” 

“We’re fresh out of the Academy,” O’Flaherty began. 

“I have,” Nic’tlarn said softly. “When I served my term as a midshipman.” 

“Good. Then you help Porter patch the crack in the casing. Slim, you’re with me, we’re going down. O’Flaherty—it _is_ O’Flaherty, right?” 

“Yes, ma’am,” O’Flaherty said quickly. 

“Don’t ma’am me, I’m probably younger’n you are and I’m only an ensign,” Audra said. “You’re gonna be the gopher. You know where everything is?” 

“Yes, m—yes,” O’Flaherty answered. 

“All right. Let’s get going.” Audra handed Slim one of the brushes. “Down the hatch.”

There was a ladder inside, which was fortunate, since the tunnel was no more than three feet wide. Slim scrambled down until he reached the bottom, then called up, “Come on down, Auds.” 

He was already scrubbing away at the charred circuits around him when Audra scrambled down. “Hold still and cover your mouth,” she instructed. 

Slim obeyed, pulling the collar of his shirt up over his mouth. He heard the hiss as she sprayed the solvent around. Both of them waited a few moments to give the solvent time to work into the boards before they started scrubbing again. For a while, they worked in silence. 

“This is a mess,” Audra said after a while, her voice echoing slightly. “This goes a lot deeper’n one fire.” 

“Nobody’s ever come in to clean it out,” Slim told her. “It’s just accumulated dirt.” 

“Think we oughta clean out the other tunnels, too?” 

“Maybe, once we’ve got everything repaired in here. This ain’t just dirt here.” 

“How do you know that?” O’Flaherty asked, sounding genuinely curious. 

Slim hesitated. “Long story.” 

From overhead came a _zzzap_ and a loud curse. Audra paused. “Port, you all right?” she called up. 

“Fine,” Porter growled. “Burnt my damn finger.” 

“I’m sorry,” Nic’tlarn said, sounding contrite. 

“You didn’t do it. I did it.” 

“Slow an’ steady. We’ve got a little bit of leeway here.” Audra resumed scrubbing. “It didn’t take as long to get the fire out as it could’ve.” 

There was a pause. “Yeah, you’re gonna have to explain how you did that when this is over, Valdez.” 

Slim grinned to himself. “Sure thing, Zhang.”

He and Audra were just scrubbing off the last of the corrosion when Porter called down, “All patched up.” 

“Right. Nic’tlarn, go grab another couple brushes and another bottle of solvent,” Audra called back. “Porter, get off another one of those access panels. I’m bettin’ all of ‘em need cleaning.” 

“You got it.” 

Slim looked around him, probing at some of the bits and pieces. “Three circuit boards completely destroyed. Two more intact, but the wiring is shot. At least down here on my end.” 

Looking up, he saw Audra nod slowly. “I’ve got two destroyed circuit boards and a blown reservoir. Looks like the coolant, damn it all.” She hesitated. “O’Flaherty?” 

“Yes?” O’Flaherty sounded pathetically eager. 

“I need five circuit boards, a six-centimeter square of trans-alum, a laser welder, a roll of electrical wire, and some snips.” 

“What grade of wire, how much, and what colors?” 

“P-nine for the wire,” Slim called up. “I need ‘bout a meter of blue an’—” he hesitated, looking at the shot wiring—“a meter an’ a half of yellow.” 

“I’ll be right back.” 

Audra looked down in concern. “I know you’re good with the mechanics, Slim, but are you any good at electrical?” 

“I can connect the circuit boards, at least.” Slim wasn’t sure he could do the wiring, but he knew he could do the rest. 

“Hang on.” Audra began climbing the ladder. As soon as she was out, she called down, “We’re switchin’.” 

Slim climbed out and scooted over, setting aside his brush. Audra barely waited for him to clear the hole before she was back down, dropping to the bottom. He watched her go, then followed her back down just as Nic’tlarn returned with the additional brushes and solvent.

A minute later, O’Flaherty’s face appeared over the hole. “What do you want first?” 

“The wire an’ the snips,” Slim said without hesitation. “Then pass down the trans-alum an’ the welder. Hold the circuit boards. That all right with you, Audra?” he added. 

“You’re readin’ my mind.” Audra flashed him a grin. 

O’Flaherty nodded, then passed down two rolls of wire and the snips. Slim passed them on to Audra before accepting the welder and trans-alum. 

It was just big enough to fit over the hole. Slim steadied it as best he could, then thumbed the trigger on the welder. The patch job wasn’t as flawless as the one on the cooling tower had been, the day he met Audra for the first time, but it covered the hole completely and was completely sealed off, so there was that. 

“O’Flaherty,” he called, holding up the welder. 

O’Flaherty took the welder out of his hand, then, without being told, handed down the first of the circuit boards. Slim studied the connections on the charred one he was trying to replace, then carefully pulled each wire. He tucked the useless circuit board into a pouch on his tool belt before connecting the new one. 

Something tapped his ankle as he finished. He reached down, took the snips from Audra, and held them up. 

“You’re done with the wires?” O’Flaherty sounded startled. 

“You bet,” Audra called back. “How ‘bout that circuit board?” 

O’Flaherty handed down two more. Slim passed one to Audra before performing the same reconnect operation as before. 

“Pass me another,” Audra called. 

Slim took one from O’Flaherty and handed it to Audra. “Want me to start cleaning out another tunnel?” 

“Yeah, thanks. I’ll join you in a minute.” 

Slim scrambled out of the tunnel—O’Flaherty shifted quickly to give him room—and began unscrewing one of the two unattended panels, the one O’Flaherty wasn’t sitting on. Just as Audra called for the last circuit board, he grabbed his brush and the solvent can and scrambled down.

The dirt and general gunk wasn’t anywhere _near_ as bad—which was to be expected, since there hadn’t been a fire in this access tunnel. Slim sprayed the solvent around, gave it a moment to sink in, and then started scrubbing. He’d probably cleaned about one-third of it when he heard footsteps overhead and Audra came down. “How’s it goin’?” 

“’Bout a third of the way done,” Slim told her. 

“Damn. Didn’t think I took that long, but I had to screw the other panel back in, otherwise there wouldn’t have been room for Port an’ Nic’tlarn when they come out.” Audra began scrubbing. “Which should be any—” 

“Hey, Auds,” Porter called from above them. “Want us to clean out this last tunnel?” 

Slim and Audra both burst into giggles. “Yeah, thanks,” Audra called back, still laughing. “You close up the other panel?” 

“I can do that, if you want.” O’Flaherty’s voice had a hopeful note. 

Audra thought for a moment. “Go ahead. Once you’ve done that, run and get a coolant jug, one of the green ones.” 

“Yes, ma—you got it.” 

Audra blew a strand of hair off her face. “I _swear_ if he calls me ‘ma’am’ one more time, I’m gonna shove a spanner up his ass,” she muttered. 

Slim stifled his laughter. “He might like that.” 

Audra stopped and looked down at him. “You ain’t as innocent as you look.” 

“Nope,” Slim replied cheerfully.

They finished cleaning out the tunnel within fifteen minutes, then climbed out. As Slim got out, Audra said, “Slim, get that panel back on, would you? I’m gonna refill the reservoir.” 

Slim saluted and slotted the access panel back into place. O’Flaherty took the brush and the empty solvent can, along with Audra’s brush, and scuttled off to put them away. 

Once Slim had the panel screwed back in, he sat back to wait for the others. O’Flaherty stayed down, perhaps sensing that it was about to get a little crowded up there. 

“Done!” Porter’s voice issued triumphantly from the depths of the well. 

“Get out of there, then,” Audra called down, pouring steadily into the reservoir. 

Nic’tlarn climbed out almost effortlessly. Porter emerged a moment later and snapped the panel back into its position. Both of them were streaked with grime. Porter caught Slim’s look and gestured to his shirt. “Dirty hands, clean equipment,” he quoted. 

Slim glanced down at himself. His shirt and hands were both even grimier than Porter’s—understandable, since he’d been down the burnt tunnel. “How’s your finger?” 

“Fine.” Porter held it out to show him. The burn hadn’t been too severe. 

Audra set aside the empty coolant jug and screwed the cap back on the reservoir. “Right, let’s get off this contraption and fire this puppy up.” 

“After you.” Slim indicated that Nic’tlarn, who was closest to the ladder, should go down first. 

The purple-skinned humanoid scuttled down swiftly. Slim followed, resisting the urge to jump—he’d probably get hurt. He and Porter stood aside as Audra came down. Porter bowed to her. “Your command, Ensign Cayne. You get to push the button.” 

Audra bowed back, then moved over to the control panel. Slim noticed Nic’tlarn and O’Flaherty surreptitiously grasp each other’s hands, but chose not to call attention to it. Instead, he returned his gaze to Audra as she flicked a couple of switches, then hit a button. The RFM rumbled, coughed, roared, and then settled into a steady thrum. 

Porter bounced on his toes slightly. “Did we do it?” 

Audra glanced at Slim. He crossed over, wiped his hands on his pants, and laid them on the RFM, concentrating. After a moment, he turned back to his friends with a huge smile on his face. “We did it.”

Porter held up both hands. Audra gave him a high-five on one side, Slim on the other. He then turned and held up his hands to the two new ensigns, who looked nervous and a little confused but returned the high-five. 

Looking around, Slim could see that the green smoke was noticeably lessened. Redshirts were swarming all over the primary RFM, but repairs seemed to be definitely underway. He wondered if they would be asked to help with that or what. 

“What the devil is that noise?” Scotty suddenly appeared, looking worried and upset. 

Audra gestured to the auxiliary RFM. “Aux is up and running, sir.” 

Scotty’s expression morphed into one of surprise. “Ye—ye fixed it? _Already?”_

“Aye, sir. Fire’s out, circuits repaired, coolant reservoir repaired and refilled, and we cleaned out all four repair tunnels for good measure,” Audra recited. “There were five of us working on it, so I reckon we got done a bit quicker’n usual.” 

“Well done, lassie.” Scotty clapped Audra on the back. “She’ll keep us safe for the next three hours while they get the prime up an’ running. Ye’ve all earned yer pay this night.” He winked at Slim. “Even ye, laddie.” 

Slim was a little surprised. “We’ve been working for three hours?” It seemed a lot shorter to him. 

“Aye, that or thereabouts.” Scotty looked at the five of them. “Ye’ve all done well. Nic’tlarn, O’Flaherty, I know ye’re technically on shift right now, but there’ll be no more for you to do tonight. There’s naught but three hours left in Beta anyway. I don’t need you on the prime, and ye’ll just be in the way else. Ye can clock out. And you three, get out of here.” He pointed towards the door. “I suggest ye all get something to eat, and then a shower and some sleep.” 

“Aye, sir.” Audra saluted and led the other four towards the door.

It wasn’t until they were in the lift that Porter turned towards the two new ensigns. “By the way—I don’t think we introduced ourselves, did we? Ensign Porter Simril. This is my first tour of duty. I’ve been aboard a year now.” 

“Ensign Audra Cayne,” Audra offered. “Also my first tour, but I’ve been aboard since the start of the mission.” 

“Thomas Kirk,” Slim put in. “But my friends call me Slim.” 

Nic’tlarn looked startled. “You are the captain’s child?” 

“His son, yeah. An’ no, I ain’t a crew member—yet. But Unc—Mr. Scott lets me help out from time to time.” Slim gestured to Porter and Audra. “We work well together.” 

“Oh,” Nic’tlarn and O’Flaherty said in unison. 

Porter grinned. “And you are?” he prompted. 

O’Flaherty blushed. “Ensign Kelly O’Flaherty. This is my first tour, too.” 

“It is mine as well,” Nic’tlarn added. “I am Ensign Nic’tlarn. Kelly and I were friends at the Academy.” 

“And roommates,” O’Flaherty said. “Because we’re both not…you know, we’re outside the ‘traditional’ gender binary. Nic’tlarn is _h’ftenga_ —there’s not a word in Standard for that, exactly—and I’m genderfluid.” 

Slim wasn’t sure what that meant. He glanced at Audra, who obviously didn’t understand it, either. Porter, however, nodded. “Is it a daily thing or…?” 

“No, not really. Just…sometimes I feel male, sometimes I feel female.” O’Flaherty shrugged awkwardly. “Been male most of the time since I got here. Not sure why.” 

“Oh, okay.” Slim felt a little foolish for not having understood before. “Sorry, I ain’t never heard that term before. Wasn’t sure what it meant.” 

“No worries. It’s not exactly common.” O’Flaherty smiled. “And it’s not like you use pronouns when you’re talking _to_ me, usually, or at least not gender-specific ones. But you can always ask. With Nic’tlarn, though…the Standard pronouns are ‘xe’ and ‘xyr’, if you were wondering.” 

“I’ll try to remember that,” Slim said honestly. 

Nic’tlarn smiled, a little shyly. “I appreciate that.”

“You guys wanna grab dinner?” Audra suggested. “I was gettin’ ready to eat when Mr. Scott called.” 

“I left most of my meal behind,” Slim said ruefully. 

“I can always eat,” O’Flaherty agreed. 

Porter nudged Slim. “We need to talk, anyway.” 

Slim had hoped Porter had forgotten about that. “I reckon so.” 

“May I ask a question?” Nic’tlarn said. “Your name is Kirk, and _your_ name is Simril. Yet you called each other ‘Valdez’ and ‘Zhang.’” 

“Oh.” Slim blushed. “Characters from a book series we’ve both read—the Percy Jackson books. Well, the Heroes of Olympus.” 

Nic’tlarn’s face lit up. “Ah. Leo Valdez and Frank Zhang.” 

“You’ve read them?” Slim asked, delighted. 

“I love those books. I tried to get Kelly to read them, to no avail.” Nic’tlarn nudged O’Flaherty companionably. 

O’Flaherty rolled his eyes, but he was smiling nonetheless.

They ducked into one of the washrooms long enough to clean off their hands and faces before heading to the mess hall. Slim could feel himself starting to crash—it was later than he usually stayed up—so he just grabbed a sandwich and cup of cider. The five of them sat around a table, and for a while, the only sound was the sound of chewing. 

Finally, Porter pushed aside his own sandwich and fixed Slim with a look. “So…how did you know what type of extinguisher we needed? For that matter, how’d you know the extent of the damage—without looking? You just, like, touched it.” 

Slim hesitated, glancing around the table. “I, uh…” 

“It doesn’t leave this table,” O’Flaherty said immediately. “Right, Nico?” 

“Right,” Nic’tlarn agreed. 

“Well…” Slim took a deep breath. “I…I have this—this gift. If I…y’know, put my hands on a machine or somethin’ an’…an’ ask it what’s wrong, it’ll tell me.” 

“You can speak to machines,” Nic’tlarn said. 

“Yeah,” Slim admitted. 

“How long have you been able to do that?” Porter asked. 

“Long as I can remember. I first found out ‘bout it when I was four years old.” Slim swallowed. “Look, I—I try not to rely on it too much. It ain’t…it’s a crutch. A startin’ point. It can’t replace all the experience an’ trainin’ y’all have. But it’s…it’s somethin’. I mostly use it when there ain’t time for traditional diagnosis.” 

“Like today,” Audra put in. “If we hadn’t got at least one of the RFMs up an’ runnin’ in four hours, the whole ship was gonna blow.” 

O’Flaherty started. “Really?” 

“Yeah, you didn’t know that? The RFMs keep the radiation from twistin’ the ship out of all recognition.” Audra spread out her hands, palms up. “That’s the point. It would’ve taken us ten extra minutes if we’d pried off the panel ‘fore gettin’ the extinguisher. Plus we’d’ve wasted time tryin’ to pull off stuff that wasn’t too badly damaged, ‘stead of cleanin’ it first.”

“It ain’t somethin’ I use all the time,” Slim said again. “An’ apart from you four, the only other person on the ship who knows is Sulu. But…yeah, that’s how I knew.” 

Nic’tlarn smiled. “It seems serendipitous that he called you ‘Valdez,’ then. He also had a gift.” 

“He did?” Audra frowned slightly. 

“Fire,” Porter said succinctly. He clapped Slim on the shoulder. “Like we said, Slim, that doesn’t leave this table. But…I’d say it’s distinctly useful to have on our team.” 

“Indeed,” Nic’tlarn agreed. 

Slim blushed. “Honestly, I reckon the five of us work pretty well together. Gifts or no gifts.” 

Porter held up his cup. “To the team,” he declared. 

Audra raised her own cup. “To the _Enterprise.”_

Slim smiled as he joined the toast. “To hard work an’ new friends.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like these two. I think I'll keep them. So you'll be seeing more of Kelly O'Flaherty and Nic'tlarn in the future!


	53. Whispered

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this is late, guys. I was helping a friend empty out her house yesterday...I left my house at 9am and didn't get home until 10:45pm, and I was absolutely bushwhacked. I hope this chapter was worth the delay...

Leo felt like crap. 

He’d been fighting it for a few days now, popping pills for his headaches when Jim couldn’t see him, stabbing himself with hypos of decongestants, brushing off the slight fatigue, and generally acting like everything was fine. For the most part, it was working. Nobody seemed to have noticed. 

Part of that, he had to admit, was that Med Bay was undergoing mild upheaval. _Technically_ , Chapel had more experience than Williams and the exact same experience as McCall. However, Chapel hadn’t served on an active starship…well, ever, she’d transferred off the _Enterprise_ pretty much right after they’d graduated from the Academy. Leo had worked with Chapel plenty during their Academy days—she’d been one of the two nurses who helped him save Jim’s life after the survival class—but it had been almost thirteen years since then. He, McCall, and Williams worked well together; often he didn’t need to speak for them to know what he needed. He trusted both of them implicitly. If a doctor wasn’t required, McCall was the _only_ nurse he trusted to take care of his family. Period. 

Chapel had been on an outpost. Nine years out of ten, there _wasn’t_ a doctor around, and for the last five years, she’d been virtually running the clinic. Service on a starship was a step up from that, but the trouble was that Chapel wasn’t sure where she belonged on the pecking order. She deferred to McCall like she always had, but with the others there was a bit of jockeying for position going on. It didn’t help that the nurses and orderlies, most of whom had never met her before, uniformly disliked her. Word had gotten around about why she’d left the _Enterprise,_ before most of the medical staff had come aboard, and what might have been good-natured chuckling at the embarrassment of attempting to seduce someone in a deeply committed relationship was overshadowed by shock and horror at the accusations leveled against Jim. A lot of the cadets who had come aboard the _Enterprise_ on her first run had moved on, taken promotions and transfers, moving up the ladder of rank; those who remained had done so out of loyalty to Jim, and to one another. The younger ones, the ones who hadn’t been at the Academy at the same time as the senior command, had heard Jim Kirk spoken of as a “ladies’ man” at the Academy but never dreamed that he’d had such a poor reputation as Christine Chapel reported. They all knew their captain and were both loyal and fiercely protective, and none of them could understand how _anyone_ could have believed such nonsense about him.

So there had been issues. A lot of them. Williams was one of the most easygoing people Leo had ever met, never raised his voice, never lost his temper, but Chapel had snapped at him a time or two when he quietly corrected her over a matter of protocol. Stanley had gotten into an argument with her, however; he was stubborn at times and so was she. And Gage and DeSoto had both threatened to quit rather than spend another shift working with “that woman.” 

Leo had finally switched her to Beta shift, reasoning that M’Benga could deal with it, but it was reason enough for him to excuse his headaches. 

Today, however, there was no denying that he felt like hell. He had dragged himself out of bed that morning and managed to brush off Jim’s concerns, but now, sitting behind his desk in Med Bay, he honestly wondered if anyone would mind if he just put his head down for a minute or two and took a nap. He _really_ needed one. 

Actually, what he probably needed was a damn week of sleep. 

“Bridge to Medical.” 

Leo shook himself back to reality and poked the intercom button. Even the simple movement hurt. “McCoy here.” 

“Bones, I’m sending Chekov down.” Jim’s voice sounded worried. “He’s dizzy and seeing double.” 

“And you’re sending him down alone?” Leo snapped irritably. 

“No, of course not,” Jim answered, surprised. “Rand’s walking him down. C’mon, you know I wouldn’t do something like that.” 

Leo took a deep breath. “I know, Jim. Sorry. Well, it’s probably not anything too serious, but I’ll take a look at him.” 

“Thanks, Bones. Kirk out.”

Leo gave himself a second to gather his strength, then pushed himself to his feet. He had to fight off a wave of dizziness and stood gripping the desk until it had passed. A sudden thought made him curse under his breath. He’d probably given Chekov whatever this was—a cold, most likely, but still. If the kid developed complications from that, it would be his fault and his alone. 

Taking another deep breath, Leo headed out into Med Bay. McCall was leaning on one side of a counter, talking with Gage and DeSoto. The three looked up when Leo came in. McCall’s eyes widened. 

“Gee, Doc, you look like shit,” Gage blurted. 

“Thanks, Johnny,” Leo said dryly. He leaned against the nearest counter for a moment. “Captain just called. Mr. Chekov is on his way down, complaining of dizziness and double vision.” 

“Mmm-hmm. And are you experiencing either of those symptoms, Dr. McCoy?” McCall asked, raising her eyebrows. 

“I’m not seeing double,” Leo defended himself, then added, “Yet.” 

“Small mercies. When were you going to tell us you were feeling sick?” 

Leo couldn’t help the wry grin that twisted his face. “When I passed out face-first on the floor.” 

“But sir, you’ve got a little kid,” DeSoto protested. “Why’d you let it linger so long? Addie’s immune system isn’t up to scratch yet.” 

Leo felt a momentary surge of panic—he hadn’t thought about his daughter. “You’re right. That was really dumb on my part.”

Further recriminations were cut off by the door sliding open and Rand half-supporting, half-dragging Chekov into the room. It was immediately obvious that there was more going on here than just double vision and dizziness. Chekov had a blind look in his eyes—not the film he’d had when he’d _actually_ lost his vision, but a look that said he was in so much pain he couldn’t see straight—he was as pale as death, and there was a fine sweat beading on his forehead. 

“Christ, kid,” Leo exclaimed. He pointed to an exam table. Rand deposited him on it. 

“I’d better get back to the bridge, sir,” she said to Leo. 

Leo nodded, a momentary surge of strength enabling him to grab a tricorder and start examining Chekov. “Tell the captain that Lieutenant Chekov won’t be back on duty this shift.” 

“Aye, sir.” Rand left. 

It took Leo less than five minutes to reach a diagnosis. “Lucky you, Mr. Chekov. It’s just a cold.” 

“Zis is lucky?” Chekov asked weakly. 

Leo smiled wanly. “I know what you mean. But at least it’s not, you know, Rigellian-Kassaba fever.” 

“Zere is zat,” Chekov agreed. 

Leo laid a hand on Chekov’s forehead. There was a slight elevation in temperature, but it was probably due to the strain of trying to work with aches and pains. “How long have you been feeling off?” 

Chekov winced. “Maybe four or five days?” 

Leo sighed. He couldn’t really scold Chekov for that when he himself had done the same thing. “And Sulu didn’t notice?” 

“I’m good at hiding it.” 

“I’ll bet you are.” 

McCall picked up the tricorder and aimed it pointedly at Leo. He rolled his eyes, but stayed still as she ran it over him. “You’ve got a cold, too, Dr. McCoy,” she told him. “You _both_ need—” 

“Rest and fluids,” Leo completed. “I know.” He turned back to Chekov. “C’mon, kid, let me help you get back to your quarters.” 

“Thank you, Doctor,” Chekov said. 

Leo helped him to his feet. Both of them staggered against one another, but they managed to get out the door without too much fuss. He got Chekov safely back to his quarters, helped him to lie down in bed, and got him a glass of water before heading back to his own.

By the time he got there, he was shivering. He managed to get a glass of water and set it by his bed, then shucked his uniform, not even caring that it just puddled on the floor, before pulling on a sweatshirt and sweatpants. He crawled into bed and wrapped himself in the covers, still shivering. 

He only meant to close his eyes for a minute. The next thing he knew, however, a cool hand was pressed against his forehead. “Hmm…” he mumbled, turning his head. 

“Bones?” It was Jim’s voice, gentle but unable to disguise the worry. “How are you feeling?” 

Leo blinked his eyes open blearily. Everything was fuzzy, and it took him a moment to get his head to cooperate enough to look up at Jim. “Hurts,” he said thickly. 

The bed shifted slightly as Jim sat on the edge of it, stroking Leo’s hair back with a tender hand. “Dammit, Bones, you yell at me when I don’t tell you I’m sick.” 

“’M fine,” Leo mumbled. 

“Like hell you are. McCall told me you looked like death warmed over when you came out of your office.” 

Leo at last managed to focus on his husband. “Shouldn’t you be on the bridge?” he mumbled. 

Jim’s blue eyes were full of worry. “Bones, it’s halfway into Beta shift.” 

“Slept that long?” Leo blinked. “Only closed my eyes for a minute…” 

“You need sleep to fight…whatever this is.” 

“’S jus’ a cold, Jim. ‘M fine.” 

“Yeah, still not buying it.” Jim brought a glass to Leo’s lips. “Drink.” 

Leo obeyed. He was mildly surprised to find that the contents were not water, but orange juice. “Had water b’fore,” he mumbled. 

“You’ve still got water,” Jim reassured him. “I brought orange juice down, too. You’ve told me often enough that vitamin C is good for colds.” 

“Hmm.”

Jim rested his hand on Leo’s forehead again. “Comfy?” 

Leo thought about that for a minute. “No,” he said at last. “Cold.” 

Jim looked at him in concern, then stood up. “Hold on.” 

Leo wanted to sit up and see what Jim was doing, but he honestly hurt too much. And he had started to shiver again. The shivering increased when Jim lifted the covers and let the cold air in, but a moment later he’d lowered them, and a moment after that his arms were around Leo, pulling him close. 

Leo hummed. Jim was a human furnace under most circumstances, one of the warmest human beings he’d ever met, and right now he was delightfully warm. His limbs fitted alongside Leo’s, his body curved against his back, his chin nestled snugly on his shoulder, and Leo felt himself start to warm up. 

“Better?” Jim asked softly in his ear. 

“Mmm-hmm.” Leo rubbed his cheek against Jim’s, all the movement he felt he could manage. “Kids?” 

“They’re fine. Slim put Addie to bed for me a couple hours ago. We read the next part of our book and then he went to bed himself.” Jim nuzzled Leo lightly. “Neither one is sick. It’s okay.” 

Leo sighed. “’S good,” he breathed. “I was worried. Thought I got ‘em sick.” 

“From what Dix told me, it’s just you and Chekov this time around. And Sulu’s looking after him, so don’t worry.” Jim kissed Leo’s cheek. “Get some sleep, Bones. I’ll be here to keep you warm.” 

Jim really was nice and warm. Leo closed his aching eyes and let himself drift off.

Leo usually slept dreamlessly. If he did dream, it was usually something cloudy and indistinct, a lot of shifting colors and amorphous shapes and vaguely related emotions. Maybe that was why he had trouble recognizing, at first, that he _was_ actually dreaming.

_He’s sprawled under a tree, lying on his back, his eyes closed as a hand plays over his hair. He knows without being told that he’s in Georgia, that he’s got his head in his husband’s lap, that the childish laughter he can hear is their little girl chasing butterflies through the grass. A cool breeze blows, bringing the scent of peach blossoms._

_It’s heaven._

_“See what you’ve been missing?” His husband’s voice is warm, teasing. “All those years in space?”_

_“Don’t regret it,” he says, without opening his eyes. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. We’re here now.”_

_“And here we’ll stay,” his husband agrees. “You belong with us. Forever.”_

_“I promised, didn’t I?”_

_“You did.” Plush, full lips press lightly on his forehead. “And I’ll hold you to that.”_

_“Bones?”_

_His eyes snap open, confused. That voice is new, is coming from somewhere else…but that’s not right, he’s lying with his husband now…_

_“Bones? Bones!”_

_He sits up, or tries to, but the caressing hand in his hair tightens. He looks up to see a face over him, a familiar one, curly brown hair and mischievous amber eyes and a pointed nose, smiling warmly, but gripping his scalp tightly, keeping him._

_“I told you, Leo,” the face whispers. “You belong with us. You promised.”_

_“Yes,” a new voice says. A little girl appears over him, but not the right one. This one has the same round face and snub nose, but her hair is red and shaggy, her eyes a lustrous green…and her skin is faintly tinged with blue. “You promised, Daddy.”_

_“Jim,” he gasps, trying again to sit up. “Jim!”_

_“Bones, come on!” Jim sounds frantic. “Don’t do this to me—please—!”_

_“He can’t have you,” says the man holding him. He’s still smiling, but there’s fire dancing in his eyes. “You belong to us.”_

_The man drags him upright, drags him over towards a pond. It’s deep, deep and black and cold, and he struggles, but the girl claps her hand over his mouth and nose, suffocating him, and the man shifts his grip to be around his neck…he claws feebly at the hands, but he can’t break them…_

_“You’re just like us,” the man says. “You belong with us.”_

_Everything is fuzzy, spots are dancing in front of his eyes, it’s getting dark and he can’t breathe, can’t see properly, and in the distance he hears Jim’s anguished voice: “BONES!”_

“Bones! Bones, wake up, please! _Bones!”_

Leo came awake with a huge, shuddering gasp, clawing at the arms restraining him. They fell away as he forced himself upright. Everything hurt, especially his throat and his chest. He felt at his neck, half-expecting to feel the imprint of fingers, and felt only swollen lymph nodes. 

“Bones?” Jim’s voice sounded frightened—terrified. “Bones, sweetheart, look at me.” 

Jim didn’t often call Leo _sweetheart_ —just when there was a serious issue. It made Leo focus. He turned, still breathing heavily, to see Jim sitting up next to him, his hair tousled, his blue eyes full of worry. 

“Jim,” he gasped out. He reached for his husband, burying his face in Jim’s shoulder. 

Jim held him tightly. Leo could feel him trembling. “Bones…oh, God. Are you okay?” 

“Nightmare,” Leo managed, trying to get himself under control. “Just a nightmare. I’m fine.” 

“Want to talk about it?” 

There was something in Jim’s voice that Leo couldn’t identify—some suppressed emotion—but he couldn’t give too much thought to it. Instead, he curled into Jim’s side, desperate for the comfort. “I was—on a farm, in Georgia,” he said. It hurt to talk, but he forced the words out. “I was…I thought I was lying in your lap…you were playing with my hair…and I could hear Addie playing in the background. I was…relaxed, I was…happy. I had you. Our family. It was heaven.” 

“Yeah?” Jim stroked Leo’s back gently, soothingly. He had to know there was more. 

Leo swallowed, and that hurt, too—God, his throat was _really_ swollen. “And then…I heard your voice. Calling my name. And I was confused, because that wasn’t who I’d been talking to. But when I tried to get up…the person whose lap I was lying in grabbed my hair and held me still. And I opened my eyes, and…it was Julian. He kept saying that I had promised, that I belonged with ‘them’…that I’d promised. And then the girl showed up…and it wasn’t Addie, Jim, it was Joanna, but she was five or six.” Tears welled up in his eyes, and he was helpless to stop them from spilling over. “Her face was blue…” 

“Oh, God, Bones,” Jim murmured. 

“You were still callin’ me, sayin’…I couldn’t do this to you. I guess you couldn’t find me.” Leo kept talking, just wanting it to be over. Jim’s arms tightened around him as he continued, “Jules said…you couldn’t have me, that I belonged to them, that I was just like them…and he started draggin’ me towards a pond or somethin’. I knew it was deep…I struggled, and Joanna came up and put her hands around my throat, she was chokin’ me…and Jules was tryin’ to smother me…” He broke off with a low sob.

“Bones,” Jim whispered. Leo could hear that he, too, was in tears. He held Leo close, rocking him back and forth. “It’s okay. It’s okay, Bones. You’re safe now.” 

“What do you mean, ‘now’?” Leo tried to laugh but couldn’t. “It was just a dream.” 

Jim was silent for a moment. Leo pulled back, worried, and was about to ask what was the matter when Jim said, so softly he almost couldn’t hear him, “Bones, you weren’t breathing.” 

“What?” Leo gasped. 

“You stopped breathing,” Jim repeated. His blue eyes were full of tears as he cupped the back of Leo’s head, resting their foreheads together. “I woke up…you were making these awful rasping sounds…I started calling your name to wake you up, and then you started thrashing around…and then you stopped breathing. I got scared and I know I was shouting at you, but…” 

“Oh, God,” Leo choked out. He clutched Jim tightly. “My—my throat’s swollen, Jim. I must’ve…” He broke off, shaking his head. “I’m okay, darlin’,” he whispered. “I’m okay. I promise. I’m sorry for scarin’ you like that.” 

Jim closed his eyes briefly. “Is there…anything I can get you? For the swollen throat? Or anything else?” 

Leo shook his head. “It’s just gotta run its course, Jim.” 

“Then you’re gonna be really mad at me.” 

“Jim,” Leo croaked, “you can’t stay awake forever.” 

Jim’s lips pressed into a thin line. “Watch me.” 

“Jim…” 

“I’m serious, Bones. I can’t—” Jim broke off for a moment. “I can’t lose you. I can’t risk anything happening to you, and if there’s even the slightest risk of that happening again…” 

“I’ll be fine, darlin’. I promise.” Leo couldn’t promise that and he knew it, but it didn’t stop him from trying. 

Jim, however, wasn’t buying it. “Get some sleep, Bones. I’ll watch over you.”

Leo sighed, leaning against Jim. “Truth is, I don’t think I can,” he confessed. “I don’t have nightmares often, you know that. But when I do, I don’t sleep well afterwards. And now that I know I almost stopped breathing…” 

“Not _almost_ , Bones. _Did.”_ Jim stroked his hair for a moment. “You need rest to fight this, though. You’ve told me that often enough.” 

Leo couldn’t help but chuckle. “And you don’t listen.” 

Jim laughed softly. “And you hypo me and _make_ me sleep.” 

“But you’ve never stopped breathing,” Leo said. 

“And you know this because you don’t sleep when I’m sick,” Jim retorted. 

Leo sighed. “I’m not winning this one, am I?” He frowned. “Don’t I usually win our arguments?” 

“Yeah, but you’re sick.” Jim kissed the top of his head lightly. “I won’t count it against you. Your record is still unblemished.” 

“Yay me,” Leo mumbled. 

They lay in silence for a few minutes. Leo could feel Jim’s heart beating steadily under his ear, but he was still groggy and sore and a little confused from his dream, so he asked, “Jim?” 

“Yeah, Bones?” 

“’M not dead, am I?” 

Jim’s arms tightened around him briefly. “No, Bones,” he said quietly. “You’re right here with me.” 

“And you’re not dead, either, are you?” 

“No, Bones. I’m right here.” 

Leo tried to think. _“Were_ you dead?” 

“Yeah, I was.” Jim kissed him again. “A long time ago. You brought me back. You saved me.” 

“’F I died…” 

“Don’t say that,” Jim said swiftly. 

Leo looked up at Jim. “But if I did…you’d bring me back, right?” 

There were tears in Jim’s eyes, or maybe it was just that Leo’s vision was fuzzy and making those pretty blue eyes look blurry. “Damn straight, Bones.”

“You wouldn’t…” Leo tried to think. “You wouldn’t marry someone else?” 

Jim tried to laugh. It didn’t sound right. “Who the hell else would put up with my sorry ass?” 

“But if someone asked,” Leo pressed. 

“No, Bones. I wouldn’t marry anyone else.” 

“Even ‘f I was dead?” 

Jim held Leo close, burying his face in his hair. He was nice and warm and soft, and it made Leo drowsy even while he was fighting sleep. It was vitally important that he not sleep, even though his brain had gone furry all of a sudden and he couldn’t remember why. He blinked hard to keep himself awake. 

“‘Death cannot stop true love,’” Jim said in his ear. His voice was soft and tender and it had a British accent to it. “‘All it can do is delay it for a little while.’” 

Leo was vaguely aware that there was an appropriate answer to this. He thought for a moment, then remembered. “‘I will never doubt again.’” 

Jim kissed him. “‘There will never be a need.’” 

Leo chuckled vaguely. “Must’ve jus’ rolled down a hill,” he mumbled. “Room’s spinnin’ like that.” 

“Okay, Bones, hang on.” Jim reached over Leo and grabbed the glass off the nightstand, then held it to his lips. “Sip it slowly.” 

“Dammit, Jim, ‘m a doctor, not an idiot,” Leo grumbled, but he obeyed the directive. The acidic juice burned a little, but it was cool against his swollen throat. He resisted the urge to gulp it greedily.

Finally, Jim set the glass back on the nightstand and cuddled Leo to him again. “Want me to read to you?” he asked lightly. 

Leo thought about it for a minute. “Yeah, okay,” he said at last. “Don’t have a sick book.” 

“I do. Hold on.” Jim gently eased Leo against the pillows. 

Leo sat propped against the headboard, feeling achy and floaty and generally miserable. Jim got out of bed and rummaged around in the nightstand for a minute, then returned with a PADD and climbed back in beside Leo. He maneuvered both of them until Leo was practically in Jim’s lap, his whole body curled against Jim’s chest. Jim held the PADD in front of them and turned it on. 

_“The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,”_ he began in a quiet voice. “By L. Frank Baum. Chapter One: The Cyclone.” 

Leo knew the story, sort of. He’d seen the movie, anyway, and he’d seen a couple of the movies that were peripherally related to it, and he’d even played the Wizard in a high school production of _Wicked_ , which was something he would never admit even under severest torture. But it turned out that the book was a lot different than the grainy old film that every Terran kid saw at one time or another. Leo was pretty sure he remembered the Dorothy in the movie having brown hair, and the shoes being ruby slippers. But in the book, she had blonde hair and silver shoes, so maybe that was just Leo’s addled brain. 

Jim’s voice was nice to listen to. It was soft and soothing and it rumbled through his chest and filled their bedroom. Leo could have fallen asleep, but he was afraid to, because he wasn’t sure he would wake up if he did, so he made himself stay awake for the entire book. 

“’S a good story,” he mumbled when Jim came to a halt. “Too bad there’s not more.” 

Jim stroked Leo’s hair back from his forehead. “There is. He wrote more books about Oz.” 

Leo looked up at Jim. “Keep readin’?” he requested. 

“Sure, Bones.” Jim kissed Leo’s forehead, then swiped down on the PADD. _“The Marvelous Land of Oz,_ by L. Frank Baum. Chapter One: Tip Manufactures a Pumpkinhead…”

Leo enjoyed the second story, in a vague way, as much as he’d enjoyed the first. Dorothy wasn’t in it, but the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodsman were, and Tip and Jack Pumpkinhead were delightful creatures. Leo couldn’t help smiling at the end, when the little boy turned out to have been a little _girl_ all along, the lost princess Ozma. 

“That was a good one, too,” he said agreeably. He yawned. 

“Tired?” Jim asked gently. 

“Yeah,” Leo answered, surprised. He reached up a hand and felt his throat. “Think the swelling’s going down, too.” 

“That’s good.” Jim kissed his forehead. “Because I have to go now.” 

Leo started. “Wha—?” 

“Bones, it’s 0700,” Jim told him. “I—I have to get something to eat, and then I’ve got to get on the bridge. I can’t…” He swallowed. “I can’t stay with you, much as I wish I could.” 

Leo was quiet for a minute. It was true that he was tired, and thought he could sleep…but at the same time, he didn’t want to sleep alone. The thought of stopping breathing terrified him. And he knew he couldn’t make it up to Med Bay on his own. If he asked Jim to carry him, Jim would have to either skip breakfast or be late for his shift. 

Jim seemed to understand his thoughts. He kissed Leo’s forehead. “Can you stay awake for—say—another half an hour?” 

“Think so,” Leo said warily. 

“Try, okay? I’ll send Slim down to sit with you after he’s had breakfast, and then you can sleep. You’ll be safe.” Jim got out of bed and touched Leo’s face tenderly. “I won’t let anything happen to you, Bones. You know that.” 

“I know,” Leo whispered. 

He watched as Jim changed into his uniform, then ducked down for one more kiss before heading to the door. “See you after shift, Bones.” 

“Okay,” Leo said quietly. “Be careful, darlin’.” 

Jim paused in the doorway and looked back, his eyes full of worry. “I will.” With that, he was gone.

Leo let his head fall back against the headboard. Between his illness, his nightmare, and having been awake all night, he felt drained and sore. He didn’t dare fall asleep, though, not while there was a risk of anything happening to him alone, so he tried to make himself think about something that would keep him awake. 

The nightmare was a good place to start. Rationally, it had probably been his brain trying to make sense of the fact that his throat was swelling closed, but that didn’t mean that there wasn’t some deeper meaning behind it. 

_You belong with us,_ Julian had said. The question was, had he meant that in the sense of _you should have chosen me, you should have saved your daughter,_ or had he meant it in the sense of _you should be dead?_

It frightened Leo a little, but he was starting to believe it was the latter. How many close calls had he had, how many brushes with death? How many times had Jim cheated the Reaper, snatching him from the jaws of oblivion at the last moment? He could have been killed by the Tholians. He could have died as a result of the weird contaminant in the water from La Pig. He could have been destroyed by that doomsday device. He could have died on the Kalandran outpost. He could have been speared on Capella IV. He could have succumbed to the “grup virus”. He could have been gunned down at the replica of the O.K. Corral. He could have blown up with the Gemini shuttle or killed by the creatures on Taurus II. And that was just on this mission. Going back even further, he could have— _should_ have—died in New York in the 1930’s, either of the drug overdose or from exposure before Edith Keeler found him or from being run over by the delivery van that had killed her instead. The psychotic supercomputer that had killed the crew of the _Archon_ , the xenopolycythemia, the out-of-control _Enterprise_ , the whole incident with the _Narada_ …if Leo was honest, Jim had been saving his life time and time again since the day they’d met on the shuttle to the Academy.

They were both living on borrowed time. It was something they both knew and tried not to ever mention. If they’d ever talked about it, Leo was pretty sure that both of them would have admitted that they didn’t expect to live to ripe old ages together. One of them would be spending the rest of his life with the other…but then the other would have to carry on alone. Leo knew that Jim always assumed he would die young, that Leo had only stolen him a little longer…but a few times, especially lately, Leo found himself wondering if _he_ wasn’t the one who would die young.

He closed his eyes, trying to fight back the tears. For the longest time, his biggest fear had been losing Jim, either to death or (God forbid) to divorce. And God knew he’d come close to it more than once on this mission. Never in his life would he forget those agonizing minutes, hours, when he’d believed Jim was lost to him forever, ripped away by the _Defiant_ and the unstable interphase (well, never when he wasn’t completely scrambled by illness; he had to admit he’d had a hell of a time remembering anything at all the night before). But as terrifying as that prospect was, he was beginning to fear something worse: that _he_ would be the first to die, and that Jim would be left alone. He knew Jim well. Jim couldn’t handle life on his own. Spock would be there for him, of course, he was their best friend and would never leave Jim, but…Jim needed Leo.

“Pa?” 

Leo started. “Slim?” 

Sure enough, his stepson came in, looking worried. He had a PADD in one hand, and he was dressed comfortably, in a t-shirt and jeans. The t-shirt was loose on him, emerald green with a gold stylized dragon printed on it. It wasn’t one Leo had seen before. “You okay?” 

“Yeah,” Leo lied automatically. “Where’d you get that?” 

Slim looked down at his shirt. “Dad bought it for me last month. Are you sure you’re okay? You looked like you were in pain when I came in.” 

Leo debated the merits of lying. Or avoiding the whole conversation by going to sleep. But he could see that Slim was genuinely worried, so he said quietly, “I was just…I was thinking. I do that when I get sick. Either my head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton wool and I have trouble remembering my own damn name, let alone what century it is, or I start thinking about every mistake I’ve ever made and everything that could go wrong.” 

Slim sighed, sitting down. “Like your brain either shuts down conscious thought to devote all resources to healing or starts helpfully reminding you of all the reasons you don’t deserve to get better?” 

“Yeah.” Leo stared at Slim. “You, too?” 

“Yeah.” Slim rubbed the back of his neck. “It ain’t true, Pa. You’re a good man. Whatever it is you think you’ve done…” 

“It’s not so much that,” Leo said, although he closed his eyes briefly at the thought of Julian and Joanna. He should have been able to save them both, dammit. “It’s just…Jim’s a supernova, Slim. He’s energy and stardust and light and just this powerful force that draws everything around him close. And I just know…either I’m gonna burn up, or he is. And one of us is gonna be left alone.” 

Slim was silent for a moment. Finally, he smoothed the blankets over Leo and said quietly, “That ain’t ever gonna happen. You brought Dad back from the dead once already, an’ I know you’d do it again in a heartbeat. You’ve stood up to admirals, to foreign officials, even to Uncle Spock tryin’ to get Dad safely back aboard the ship. You never give up on him. An’ he never gives up on you. He’ll do anythin’ in his power to keep you safe. The idea of losin’ you scares him ‘most as bad as the idea of losin’ him scares you. He ain’t gonna let you die. Not without him. I ain’t psychic, Pa, but I know this much—he ain’t gonna give up on you. You’ll go together, or not at all.” 

“I wish I could believe that,” Leo mumbled. 

Slim sighed. “Get some rest, Pa. I ain’t goin’ nowhere.” 

Leo’s eyes really did hurt. Maybe if he closed them for a few minutes, it wouldn’t hurt. He leaned back against the pillow and closed his eyes, trying not to think about Jim, about how much it would hurt if either of them had to leave the other one behind, about the emptiness of a universe without him.

He swore he only closed them for a few minutes, but suddenly he became aware of a cool hand pressing against his forehead, then a soft kiss. He hummed contentedly and opened his eyes to see Jim bending over him. “Hey,” he said softly. 

“Hey.” Jim smiled, looking much less worried than he had the last time Leo had seen him. “How are you feeling, Bones?” 

Leo took a quick inventory. “Better,” he replied. “A lot better. Still not ready to get up an’ get back to work, but maybe tomorrow.” 

“Light duty,” Jim warned him. “I don’t want you overtaxing yourself.” 

“I think I can safely assess my own ability, thanks,” Leo huffed, but without any real malice. 

“Yeah, bullshit.” Jim sat down next to Leo and set something on his lap. To his surprise, it was a tray. 

“What’s that?” 

“A koala, what’s it look like?” 

Leo punched Jim lightly in the arm. “You brought me breakfast in bed?” 

Jim grinned. “Well, dinner, but yeah. And it’s not just for you. We’re sharing. Slim’s got fencing practice and then he and his friends are going to eat together, and it’s Uhura and Spock’s night to keep Addie, so it’s just us for a little while.” 

Leo was surprised to find that he was hungry. Jim had brought him chicken noodle soup, dry wheat toast, and another glass of orange juice, and he ate like he hadn’t eaten in a couple of days—which, he realized, he hadn’t. And Jim had a salad, an apple, and a glass of milk, which surprised Leo further. 

“Are you… _voluntarily_ eating healthy?” he said in disbelief. 

“Figured it would make you happy.” Jim stopped and kissed Leo’s cheek. “Which might make you heal faster. I emphasize that this is only because you’re sick. Once you’re better, it’s back to chicken sandwiches and coffee.” 

“Infant,” Leo snorted, but he smiled and leaned his head on Jim’s shoulder. “Thanks, Jim.” 

“Of course, Bones.” Jim put an arm around him. “I love you.” 

“I love you, too.” 

Jim kissed him again. “I will never leave you,” he said quietly. “No matter what happens, I will always come back to you. And you’re not getting away from me that easily, either. I’ll walk to the jaws of hell and back if I have to, but you’re mine and I’m yours. Death itself can’t separate us.” 

Leo realized in a flash that Slim must have told his father what Leo had been worrying about. He curled a little bit into his husband’s side. “That goes both ways, Jim,” he said, just as quietly. “I lost you once. I won’t lose you again, not without a fight.” 

Jim’s arm tightened around Leo briefly. The remains of their meal forgotten, they simply held each other until they fell asleep. 

This time, safe in his husband’s embrace, Leo slept without dreams.


	54. He Looks Like You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a lot of feels. It also has sex. I like writing h/c, apparently. So...yeah.

“Red line! Red line!” Slim’s face turned white. 

Jim instantly let go of his son and took a step back, hands up. “You all right, son?” 

“Yeah, just…give me a second.” Slim rubbed his upper arms. “Sorry, Dad, it’s just…that one scared me a little.” 

“I’m sorry.” Jim wanted to hug Slim, but he stayed where he was, watching Slim settle down. 

It was something he’d started doing back at the Academy, when he’d secured a TA position as a hand-to-hand combat instructor. There had been a cadet in his first class who had passed out cold when his partner trapped him in one of the holds; when he’d come around, he’d been shaky and jumpy and wouldn’t let anyone touch him. Jim hadn’t pressed him, had just given him the space to calm down, and when they had their next class session he’d had all of his students sit down in a circle and discuss boundaries and how to tell when someone was just saying “stop” because they were a little uncomfortable and when there was a serious problem. He’d ended up having each student choose a “safe word,” something they could say if they were in real distress that would mean their partner needed to not just let go, but step away. In the end, he’d done the same with every class he taught at the Academy. 

Slim closed his eyes, breathing deeply. He was trembling a little, still hugging himself. Finally, he opened his eyes. “Dad, I’m sorry, I…I ain’t sure I c’n do any more tonight.” 

“That’s all right. Come on. Let’s grab a soda and go up to the Observation Deck.” 

“Okay,” Slim practically whispered.

Jim said nothing as they headed up the decks, first to the canteen, where Jim retrieved a bottle of the apple fizz Slim liked and a dark cola he drank on occasion, then to the Observation Deck. They were in a stretch of space with very few planets, just stars and comets. It was dazzling. 

Jim and Slim sat on the floor in the corner and sipped their sodas. Jim watched his son out of the corner of his eye. Slim kept his eyes fixed on the stars, his expression was perfectly normal, but he was still pale, and his hands trembled faintly. From the way he hunched his shoulders slightly, it didn’t take a genius to guess what he was remembering. Jim wanted to apologize, to do something to fix it, but he knew—better than anybody else on the ship—that he could do nothing but wait it out. 

The _Enterprise_ changed position, the stars swirling around them, and in the distance, Jim caught a glimpse of ribbons of pale purples and greens—the light of the new nebula, the one they had observed up close almost year ago. “Look,” he said simply, pointing to the colors. 

Slim smiled a little at the sight. “It’s still beautiful, even from here.” 

“I heard from the Federation not that long ago. They’ve officially adopted the name I suggested.” 

Slim turned his head slightly. “It ain’t the Shiani Nebula?” 

Jim shook his head. “The official name is the Allyn Nebula.” 

Shocked, Slim turned fully to face Jim. “The Allyn Nebula?” he repeated blankly. “As in—” 

“As in Allyn Simril, yes.” Jim smiled. “There was a long debate in the naming commission, apparently…before they got my report, they were considering either keeping it the Shiani Nebula or calling it the Enterprise Nebula, after the ship. But I gave them the explanation of why I’d suggested that name—what happened to her, and how it was the first thing that made her brother smile again after she died—and I guess in the end, they decided it was a fitting tribute.” 

“To an engineering ensign from Canada, with no other ties to Starfleet or the Federation—no political ambitions, no famous relatives, no notorious ancestors, not even a record of having made big donations to someone’s campaign.” 

“I guess so. But she still meant something, Slim. Everyone means something. I guess that’s what they were thinking about.” 

“I don’t.” Slim’s voice was so quiet it was almost inaudible as he turned back to the window.

“Whoa, hey,” Jim said, startled, turning fully to his son. Slim had drawn his knees up under his chin and wrapped his arms around them. He looked smaller than he had in months, young and fragile and more like his father than ever. For the first time, Jim realized what Bones must have seen, in those first days of their friendship, when Jim smiled bright and talked big to cover up the fact that he thought he was basically useless. 

Slim curled a little deeper into himself and said nothing. Jim scooted closer, his arm on the bench behind Slim but not touching. “Slim, you _do_ mean something. What the hell makes you think you don’t mean something?” 

“Because I don’t,” Slim mumbled. “I’m just…I’m not worth anything. I’m a failure. I’m just some worthless kid from Oklahoma whose own family didn’t want him. I was never smart enough or strong enough or quick enough to defend myself.” He rested his forehead on his knees. “I can’t even get through a simple sparring practice without freaking out.” 

“Hey.” Jim’s voice was as gentle as he could make it, even though his heart was breaking. “Hey, c’mere, kid. Look at me.” 

With obvious reluctance, Slim looked up at his father. Blue eyes met blue, and Jim saw himself again. It hurt. It hurt like hell. He wrapped his arm around Slim and practically pulled him onto his lap. Slim rested his head on Jim’s shoulder, curling against his chest, as though he was willing to accept Jim’s comfort after all. 

“Do you want to know what I see when I look at you?” Jim asked softly, stroking Slim’s hair. It was finer than Jim’s, like threads of spun silk, and a slightly darker shade, almost brown. “I see a boy rapidly growing into a young man, maybe a little too soon, but doing it with grace and dignity. I see a brilliant mind and a steady heart. I see a wonderful big brother, a great friend, and the best son I could ever hope to have. I love you, Slim. I’ve loved you since I found out about you, and I will love you until the day I die, and probably even beyond that. If your mother had told me about you sixteen years ago, I’d have done everything in my power to be there for you.” 

“I was never too sure ‘bout that,” Slim admitted. “Aunt Nyota said—an’ Pa sorta agreed with ‘er—that you weren’t really quite ready to be a dad back when I was born.” 

Jim swallowed hard. “I probably wasn’t. But I’d have tried.”

“Why? If you weren’t ready?” 

“Because, Slim, I grew up without a father. I would never wish that on another child— _any_ child, especially not one of mine. And I grew up thinking I wasn’t wanted, too. It wasn’t until I was ten years old that I found out, _really_ found out, that my mother loved me. I never wanted that for you. I swear I would have been there had I known it. I’d have done everything I could—” 

“Would you have married Mom?” 

The question was soft and low, asked quickly, and Slim hadn’t looked up as he asked it, as though he wasn’t sure he really wanted to know the answer. Jim stilled his hand on his son’s hair, thinking. For the first time in years he pictured Alice Johnson—a small, delicate, pretty little thing with chestnut hair and sparkling blue eyes. The night they had spent together, she had not been looking for a long-term relationship; she’d been hurting and upset and angry, she had wanted to fuck and be fucked. She’d used those exact words the morning after when he’d woken up in her bed and tried to apologize. He was nothing, a one-night stand—which maybe had added a little to his general feelings of worthlessness—and she’d never spoken to him again, never so much as looked in his direction, done so well at not being in his presence that he’d even assumed she had left the Academy for good and gone home. 

But if he’d known about the baby… 

Jim took a deep breath. “Yes. If I’d known Alice was pregnant with my child, I’d have—well, I’d have asked her to marry me, anyway. I can’t guarantee that she would have said yes. But I’d have asked.” 

Slim didn’t speak for a long moment. Finally, he asked, “What about Pa?”

Jim closed his eyes. _Bones._ He’d been in love with Bones even then, even though he hadn’t realized it yet, but it had been deep and it had been real. He would have been devastated to leave him, but he’d have done it for the sake of his child. He knew that wasn’t what Slim was asking, though. 

“I don’t know, Slim,” he admitted. “A lot of things would have been different.” 

Slim said nothing further. The two of them stayed where they were for a long time, watching the stars. Jim’s legs were cramped and painful, but he didn’t move. He was determined to be there for his son as long as necessary. Despite the discomfort, he found himself dozing slightly. 

The sound of the door opening startled both him and Slim into wakefulness. Jim bit his lips to keep from crying out at the pain in his legs as he turned to see Bones striding towards them. “Thought I might find you two up here. Uhura and Carol have Addie, and now they’ve got Dix and Rand in on the act and they’re teaching Addie about French braids and nail polish. God help us.” 

Jim snorted and Slim smiled. Bones groaned as he sank to the ground next to them, which made Jim look at him in concern. “You okay?” 

“Yeah. Just tired. Been on my feet all day, and it’s a long way to the floor. I’m not as young as I used to be.” 

Jim couldn’t help but laugh affectionately. “You never were.” 

Bones smiled and wrapped an arm around Jim’s shoulders. They passed on to other subjects, and Slim seemed almost himself for the rest of the evening. Jim noted the exact moment when the terror that had been brought up by the hold in the sparring match faded—over dinner, when Jim gave a childish whine about Bones forcing him to eat salad and Bones bopped him with a breadstick. Slim laughed, and the last of his fear vanished.

When they had read the latest chapter of their book and Slim was tucked up and sleeping, Jim went back into his room. Bones was sitting up in their bed, shirtless and wearing sweatpants, reading a technical journal on his PADD. Jim crawled under the covers and under Bones’ arm, snuggling against his husband. “I’m sorry.” 

“Why, what grievous sin have you committed lately?” Bones asked lightly, looking down at Jim with a soft smile. 

Jim looked up at Bones seriously. “Slim had a panic attack today, while we were sparring. One of the moves…I guess it reminded him of being abused at one of his foster homes, and he just couldn’t continue.” 

“Jim, it isn’t—” 

“No, no, that’s not what I’m apologizing for,” Jim said. “It’s just…while we were up on the observation deck…he called himself worthless. Said he didn’t mean anything and started talking like he deserved the abuse he got in those damned foster homes. And I—I saw myself, Bones, back when we first met. It was like looking in a mirror.” 

Bones’ smile had completely disappeared. “Jim…” 

“He was so—so _young._ So fragile. Like if I so much as touched him he’d shatter into a thousand pieces. It broke my heart, Bones. And for the first time, I—I realized what you must have gone through with me, those first couple of years. I know you didn’t love me then, but…” 

“I think I did.” Bones’ voice was husky and raw with emotion. “I think—no, I _know_ —I’ve loved you a lot longer than I was willing to admit, even to myself.” He set the PADD aside and gathered Jim to himself, burying his face in Jim’s hair. “Watching you like that almost destroyed me, because I couldn’t fix it, I couldn’t do a damned thing to help you. I didn’t even really know what was wrong. I didn’t know about Tarsus, I didn’t know about Frank, I didn’t know any more than you were willing to tell me at the time, and that wasn’t a whole hell of a lot. It was hard to watch you hurting on those days when you’d curl up in a ball and try to shut out the world…but it was even harder watching you acting like nothing was wrong, painting a big old smile on your face to hide your broken heart.”

“And you never said anything.” Jim ran his fingers lightly over Bones’ naked chest. “I never thought about how much it might hurt you when I was acting like that, blaming myself for everything that happened to me, pretending I didn’t care one minute, letting it overwhelm me the next. That’s what I’m sorry for.” 

“You don’t ever need to apologize for that, darlin’,” Bones whispered, covering Jim’s hand with his own. “You don’t need to apologize for what you went through or what it did to you. None of that was your fault.” 

“I hurt you.” 

“But you didn’t do it on purpose.” 

“But I still hurt you.” 

Bones caught Jim’s chin with two fingers, tilted his head up, and kissed him deeply. “I forgive you.” 

Jim closed his eyes, letting himself sink into the kiss. After a moment, comfort heated to desire and Bones was laying him back against the pillows without breaking the kiss. Jim slid his hands over his husband’s shoulders and murmured against his lips, _“Bones…”_

“Shh,” Bones soothed, breaking the kiss and running his hand lightly over Jim’s hair. “Gonna take good care of you, darlin’. Just trust me.” 

Jim looked up at Bones and smiled. “I always do, Bones.”

Bones started with his shirt, easing it slowly over Jim’s torso, placing soft kisses on the skin. Normally he could be a little rough, sucking bruises into Jim’s ribs or nipping at the exposed flesh, but tonight he was gentle and tender, his lips feather-light. When the shirt was up around Jim’s collarbone, Bones paused, looking down at Jim with love in his eyes. “You wanna do this part?” 

Jim hesitated. He’d never gone into details with Bones about his past sexual escapades, but there were certain lines they didn’t cross, certain things they couldn’t do, that Jim couldn’t handle, and one of them was for Jim to have his face covered while Bones was doing anything— _anything,_ even just undressing or prepping himself. Jim couldn’t take it. Usually he took his shirt off himself, because the paranoia took over if he tried to let Bones do it. But Bones had done it quickly and easily the night he’d surprised Jim with his little outfit, and he _had_ just said he trusted Bones… 

“No,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper but his eyes locked on Bones’. “I want you to do it.” 

Bones bent down and kissed Jim again, tenderly. Then, just like he’d done before, he slipped his hands through the neck of the shirt and kept one touching Jim’s face as he removed the shirt quickly and easily. The touch kept Jim grounded, kept him from panicking, even in that brief period of time that someone else was pushing fabric over his face. It reminded him that he was loved and cared for and _wanted_. Still, he couldn’t help the gasp of relief that escaped his throat when he was free of the shirt. 

“It’s okay, Jim,” Bones said gently, sliding his arm behind Jim’s shoulders and lifting him up to cradle him close, raining kisses on his neck and shoulders, his tongue mapping the constellations of his freckles. Jim had always hated his freckles before Bones began paying attention to them. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back, exposing his throat to Bones’ ministrations.

After a few moments, Bones lay Jim back down, trailing his hands along Jim’s chest until he reached the waistband of his pants. With gentle, unhurried movements, he undid the fly and slid the fabric along Jim’s legs before dropping them, almost casually, over the edge of the bed. Jim’s underwear followed shortly after, and Jim lay on the bed, naked and expectant, as Bones began tugging off his own sweatpants. 

“Want me to help with that?” he murmured. 

Bones stopped, his pants around his knees, and leaned over to press a light kiss to Jim’s abdomen, just above his navel. “Nope,” he said into Jim’s belly. “You just lie there, darlin’. Let me do the work tonight, okay?” 

“Okay.” Jim couldn’t resist running his hand through Bones’ dark hair. Bones smiled and removed his sweatpants, then his underwear. 

Normally this was where things got steamy. Bones had a streak of possessiveness and could be a little rough sometimes, and Jim loved that, he really did. He loved the sight of the marks from Bones’ fingers on his hips the morning after, loved running his fingers over the bites and bruises along his collarbone—he even loved sitting awkwardly in the captain’s chair, Uhura rolling her eyes and Sulu exchanging a knowing grin with him and Chekov blushing a furious red. Tonight, he had to admit, he was a little apprehensive about the idea, but he was willing to go along with it. 

To his mild surprise, however, Bones stretched out alongside of Jim, caressing him tenderly. His strong, sensitive fingertips explored every inch of skin with the lightest of touches, like the brush of an angel’s wing. 

“So beautiful,” he murmured. “God, Jim, you’re so beautiful.”

Jim shivered as a thrill of desire ran through him. Bones kept petting him, punctuating his strokes every so often with a soft, gentle kiss. He tried to reciprocate, but he couldn’t seem to make his hands work properly. All he could do was hum in contentment. His hips twitched upward when Bones trailed his fingers over them, and Bones gave a soft chuckle. 

“You ready, darlin’?” 

“Yeah,” Jim said in a hoarse half-whisper. “Yeah, I’m ready.” 

“All right then.” Bones kissed Jim on the lips, deep but gentle, before reaching for the bottle of lube. 

He slid a pillow under Jim’s hips, then went through the usual ritual of warming up the lube before coating his fingers with it. With his free hand, he continued stroking Jim’s body in light, gentle caresses as he eased the first finger into the tight ring of muscle. 

He took his time, stretching and probing for almost a full minute before sliding in a second finger. Jim whimpered, closing his eyes, and Bones cradled his face in his hand. “Easy, Jim. I gotcha,” he whispered. “I won’t hurt you. I promise. It’s okay.” 

Bones kept working at Jim’s hole, stretching him, but it was slower and gentler than Jim had ever experienced in his life. Even when Bones added a third finger, and then a fourth, it was done in such a way that Jim almost didn’t feel anything. 

“You’re doin’ so good, Jim,” Bones murmured. “Almost ready. Just a little longer, okay?” 

Jim nodded, opening his eyes and looking up at Bones. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t seem to make a sound, but he kept his eyes fixed on his husband. Bones carefully withdrew his fingers, making sure to go slowly, then applied the lube to his cock. Jim watched as best he could as Bones lined himself up, then leaned down to kiss him again. 

“Are you ready?” 

Jim nodded again. Bones stroked Jim’s cheek lightly before pushing himself inside of Jim.

It was the gentlest Bones had ever been with him. Even their first night together, when Bones had been afraid to go too fast at first, he’d eventually picked up the pace and gotten hot and heavy. But he never varied his timing, never sped up the rhythm, just kept moving inside Jim, slowly and achingly tender. Jim had never felt so adored and cherished in his life. 

_“Bones,”_ he sobbed out, closing his eyes and tightening his arms around his husband. 

“Easy, darlin’. It’s okay. I’ve got you. I’ve got you.” Bones kissed him as he made another thrust, although _thrust_ was almost too harsh a word for what Bones was doing. 

“Bones, God…” Jim clung to Bones like a drowning man to a log. 

Bones brought his hand around to touch Jim’s cock, moving in the same light, gentle rhythm he’d been stroking Jim’s body with earlier, and Jim closed his eyes, feeling the tears well up in them. It was all too much, it was more than he deserved, he wasn’t going to make it… 

“Come on, Jim,” Bones said in his ear. “Come for me, that’s my boy…” 

Jim came with a wordless cry, his head tilted back as far as it could go. A moment later Bones stiffened as he, too, reached orgasm. They rode it out together, and then Bones slid himself, as slowly as he had done everything else that evening, out of Jim. 

He gathered Jim into his arms and pulled him close to his chest, stroking his cheek and back, ignoring the sticky mess between them. “That’s my good boy, Jim, you did so good,” he whispered.

Jim buried his face in Bones’ shoulder. He was still too overwhelmed to speak, and he could feel the tears spill over and down his cheeks. Bones’ hand stilled. “Jim? Jim, are you okay? I didn’t—oh, God, Jim, you should’ve told me to stop—” 

“No,” Jim whispered, swallowing hard and closing his eyes briefly before looking up at Bones. “No, it’s—I’m fine.” 

Bones resumed rubbing his back, but he still looked worried. “You don’t look fine. Are you sure I didn’t hurt you?” 

“No!” Jim was amazed that Bones could even _think_ that. “No, God, Bones, I’ve never—God, nobody’s _ever_ been that gentle with me. _Ever._ I was—I didn’t deserve that. I don’t deserve…” 

“Stop it,” Bones said, quietly but firmly. “Stop thinking you don’t deserve love. Stop thinking you don’t deserve to be taken care of sometimes.” 

“I don’t—” 

“You do. You want to know what you _don’t_ deserve, Jim? I’ll tell you. You _don’t_ deserve to be abandoned or abused. You _don’t_ deserve to be left. You _don’t_ deserve to be treated like dirt. You _don’t_ deserve the hand life dealt you for the first twenty years of your life, but you know what, Jim?” Bones kissed his forehead. “You deserve anything it is within my power to give you. And I will dedicate the rest of our lives to giving it to you.” 

Jim started crying again. He couldn’t help it. He was just so overwhelmed with emotion that the tears overflowed without his will. 

“I love you,” he sobbed, clinging to his husband as tightly as he could. “God, Bones, I love you so much…” 

“I love you, too, darlin’,” Bones whispered. He tilted Jim’s face to his and kissed him tenderly. “I love you to the ends of the universe.” 

Jim remembered Sam’s favorite bedtime story, the one he wouldn’t admit he read to his four-year-old brother just so he’d have a legitimate excuse to be reading it at ten. He tucked his head underneath Bones’ chin, closed his eyes, and whispered, “I love you to the ends of the universe…and back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, that is a reference to _Guess How Much I Love You._ And yes, Bones' line about "painting a big old smile on your face to hide your broken heart" is from Billy Ray Cyrus's "Ready, Set, Don't Go." (I didn't do that on purpose, I swear.)


	55. Mirror, Mirror

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is based on the episode of the same name. I know it's one of the most popular episodes in TOS, and I know that people have been eagerly anticipating it. I hope I did it justice. (I was a little nervous about posting it when I started to post it, but considering Chrome crashed TWICE while I was trying to paste it in, I've gone past nervous and into the realm of "this damned well better be worth it.")

Slim stood next to the transporter controls, holding Addie’s hand firmly and watching for the return of the landing party. They were about due. 

The Halkans were a peaceful people. Slim had prepared a report for his father about them to supplement the briefing they’d been given. Even more than the Gideons, who had claimed to love life, the Halkans were absolutely peaceful. The concern at the moment was that they had a large store of dilithium crystals, one of the essential parts of a warp drive. The Federation had asked the _Enterprise_ to negotiate for the rights to those crystals, which were a precious commodity. 

Personally, Slim didn’t think it was likely, and was just thankful that Nylund hadn’t been the one to give them the mission. From the research he’d done, he had determined that the Halkans were more than just peaceful—they were very strongly anti-violence. And because starships carried weapons, and the crystals could also be used for weapons manufacture, the Halkans probably wouldn’t give Starfleet the rights to them. 

He’d kept his doubts to himself, however, merely preparing the report and presenting it to his father. Jim had chosen his landing party with care. He had taken Leo, on the grounds that you didn’t get much more peaceful than a doctor; Uhura, on the grounds that she could communicate in the Halkans’ native language as well as in Standard; and Scotty, on the grounds that he could explain exactly what the crystals would be used for. Slim had stayed on the bridge with Spock, Sulu, Chekov, and Addie. Now that the landing party was preparing to be beamed up, however, Slim had asked and received permission to bring Addie down to the Transporter Room. She was getting antsy and obviously missing her parents. 

What was worrying Slim was the ion storm outside. That was why the party was returning, despite the mission not yet being complete; the storm was interfering with the signals, and if they waited much longer, they wouldn’t be able to beam them up until it passed, if at all. But there was a faint voice in Slim’s head murmuring indistinctly, yet with a tone of concern—a voice he had come to know well over the last year. 

The voice of the _Enterprise._

But he didn’t know what was wrong—and neither did she—and he couldn’t very well ask her, or tell Spock to hold off on the beaming up without explanations that Spock might not think were very logical. So he held his tongue, keeping a tight grip on Addie and watching for his father’s return.

The lights shimmered and four figures materialized on the platform—or began to. They had no more than half-materialized when the technician started spouting off some very colorful language, reaching for his controls. 

"Is something the matter, Lieutenant?" Spock asked, raising an eyebrow. 

"Phase reversal, Mr. Spock," Lieutenant Kyle replied. "It must be that ion storm—I tried to compensate, but—" 

"Is the landing party harmed?" 

"Shouldn't be. They've just been beamed back down to the planet and—" Kyle fiddled with his sensors. "Yes, they're in the same place they started in, sir. I can pick them up easily. It'll just take a minute." 

"Then do so." Spock gave Slim and Addie a brief smile, then turned back to Kyle. "I see no reason to blame you for a mechanical error." 

Kyle looked relieved. Slim, glancing over his shoulder, could see that there was nothing wrong with the sensors; everything would be all right. A second attempt should get the landing party up safely. 

Addie looked up at Slim. "Where Daddy?" 

"He's coming, Addie," Slim assured her, resting a hand on her dark curls. 

Kyle at last pushed the appropriate buttons, and a moment later, the landing party rematerialized on the platform. Spock stepped forward. "Captain!" 

Jim stepped down with a heavy tread, scowling at Spock and Kyle. "They think they can resist, do they?" he growled.

Slim took an uncertain half-step back at the brutal anger in his father's voice. Spock, too, seemed surprised. "I take it, then, that the Halkans are not open to the idea of—" he began. 

He got no further. Jim turned on him the most savage look Slim had ever seen. "Spock, tell Sulu to arm the phaser banks! Carry out our orders—the Halkans will learn that the price of their defiance is no empty threat!" 

Spock looked undeniably surprised by this. "The—Captain, are you all right?" 

"Of course I'm all right," Jim snapped, ignoring the rest of the landing party as they stepped off the platform behind him. Uhura did so with a movement that startled Slim—a long, sensuous stride that caused her skirt to hitch up on her hip. He wasn't sure if she was aware of it or not, but it was a distinctly provocative gesture and one Slim had never seen his godmother use before. 

Addie looked up at Slim, her eyes wide, and whimpered slightly. Not knowing why, Slim put a hand over her mouth and pushed her to one side so that she was half-hidden by the transporter console. Alerted by the sound, however, Leo looked in Slim's direction. His eyes widened. "What the hell—?" 

Jim turned as well. His eyes widened, too, when he saw Slim, but then they narrowed. In two steps he had crossed the room and stood directly in front of Slim. "What the hell do you think you're playing at?" he said in a quiet, dangerous voice. 

Slim took a step back. "I—" he began. 

"If you think," Jim interrupted, his voice rising steadily on each word, "that I believe in ghosts, you are mistaken. And if you think for _one minute_ that I can be intimidated by this kind of cheap mummery, you are wrong. And if you think this is going to go unpunished—!" 

With that, he shot out a hand and caught Slim around the throat. Slim instinctively grabbed at Jim's wrist, but the man was taller and stronger than him and easily drove him back against the wall. Now he had both hands fastened around Slim's neck, squeezing, throttling him, choking him. Slim gurgled for breath, trying desperately to free himself, and there were spots of light dancing in front of his vision. His ears began buzzing and he heard Addie scream, and then he heard a sound he'd never heard before, something halfway between a bellow of pain and a roar of defiance, the most inhuman noise he'd ever heard in his life—and then he blacked out.

A sharp jab to his neck and a sudden rush of oxygen brought him abruptly back to consciousness. He gasped, his eyes flying open to see Sulu bending over him, pale and worried-looking. "What…?" he tried to say, but his voice was nothing more than a hoarse croak. 

Sulu exhaled, closing his eyes briefly. "Oh, thank God. For a minute there I thought…" He shook his head, then opened his eyes. "How are you feeling?" 

Slim gingerly felt his neck. He'd almost be prepared to swear it was narrower than it had been. Certainly he could feel the imprint of the fingers still. "My throat hurts." 

"I'd wager it does." Sulu tried to smile, but obviously found the attempt too difficult. 

Slim looked around, his vision clearing at last. Obviously there had been a struggle—among other things, the operating console was smoking slightly. Chekov was on his knees, his arms around Addie, who was making the little hiccupping noises she made when she was trying to stop crying. The room was otherwise empty. 

"What happened?" he asked weakly. 

Sulu glanced over his shoulder at Chekov. "We heard the call for Security to the Transporter Room and…I know we shouldn’t have, but the ship’s in a holding pattern, we weren’t technically needed on the bridge, so we came running. When we got here…" He swallowed hard. "I've never seen anything like that in my life." 

"I never want to see anything like zat again," Chekov said fervently. 

Addie whimpered pitifully into his shoulder. Slim tried to sit upright, but wouldn't have made it if Sulu hadn't given him a hand. "Addie?" 

Addie looked up, her blue eyes round and wet. "'Lim?" she whispered. 

Slim held out his arms. Addie let go of Chekov, ran to his side, and threw herself at him. She buried her face in his chest and promptly burst into tears again. Slim held her close, stroking her hair. "Addie, Addie, it's okay," he said softly. 

"Not Daddy," she wailed. "Not Papa." 

"I know, baby, I know." Slim's heart wrenched. He glanced up at Sulu, eyes asking the question he couldn't bring himself to verbalize. 

Sulu sat back on his heels, pain on his face, and spoke slowly, as though every word was being dragged from him. "When we came in, Mr. Spock was making the most horrific noise I have ever heard in my life, kneeling on top of—" His voice broke. "The—other three were trying to fight him, yelling. The—doctor—saw me and yelled for me to give him—something, I—" 

Chekov spoke softly. "Something called a 'disruptor.'" He crawled forward on his hands and knees, getting close to the other two. "Zere was so much noise I could not at first understand what was going on. Zen I realized one of ze noises was Addie screaming. We knew she was with you…and zen Sulu saw you lying on ze floor. He dragged you out of ze way while I ran for Addie." 

"Security got there a couple minutes after we did," Sulu continued. "They pried him off of—" Again his voice cracked. 

"Not Daddy," Addie insisted, her voice hitching. 

Slim cuddled her more tightly. Softly, he said, "Where are they now?" 

Both Sulu and Chekov shook their heads. "We don't know. Probably in the brig, to be honest, but nobody's told us for sure." 

"We were going to bring you to Med Bay," Chekov added. "But one of ze guards gave Sulu a hypo of tri-ox compound to bring you around, so we thought we would try zat first. Especially because Addie was so scared—we didn’t want to move you without calming her down." 

Slim nodded, and he was surprised at how much the simple movement hurt. "I—I think I'm all right," he said. It was partly for Addie's benefit, since he could feel her trembling, and partly for his two older friends', since they were both staring at him anxiously. And it wasn't true, of course. His throat still hurt, and he realized he'd come very close to having his windpipe crushed. The realization more than anything else was what made him feel shaky. Whoever the man may have been, he had _looked_ —and _sounded_ —exactly like Slim's father, a man he'd come to love and respect over the last two years. Jim had taken it upon himself to personally instruct his son in hand-to-hand combat, and Slim knew precisely how strong and capable he was. 

"He could have killed me," he mumbled, hardly aware that he had spoken aloud. 

Sulu exchanged a look with Chekov. "He _would_ have killed you, if Spock hadn't intervened." He dropped his voice even further, so it was scarcely above a whisper. "He went _berserk_ , Slim. I've never seen anything like it. I thought we were going to have to subdue him, too." 

"Glad you didn't." 

"Me, too."

Before Slim could respond, he heard the hiss of the door opening and looked up to see Spock coming in, his usually emotionless face pale and worried. His eyes fell on Slim, and he visibly relaxed. "Thomas," he murmured. "How are you feeling?" 

"I'll live, I think." Slim tried to insert a little lightness into his tone. 

That it had fallen flat was immediately obvious. Spock tensed again. “You’re not certain?” 

“No—no, I’ll be fine. I was just joking,” Slim reassured him. “Honest. I’m all right.” 

“Your voice—” Spock knelt and studied Slim’s neck. “These bruises are severe. Perhaps you should have Dr. M’Benga look at them.” 

"I'm all right, Uncle Spock," Slim insisted. "Really." 

Spock turned his attention to Addie. “Athena? Are you all right?” 

“Not Daddy,” Addie mumbled. “Not Papa.” 

“No, Athena,” Spock said quietly. “I believe we can safely say that the men we beamed aboard are not your parents. No more are the other two Mr. Scott or Lieutenant Uhura.” 

“But zey look just like zem, sir,” Chekov said. “And zey seemed to know us.” 

Spock hesitated. “I have every intention of interrogating them, to ascertain their true identities. It may be a clever trick by the Halkans. It may be a trick of the Klingons, or the Romulans. It may even be the Tholians, although that hardly seems likely.” 

“I’d like to be there,” Slim said, surprising everyone, including himself. “When you interrogate them. D—the one who looked like Dad seemed to know who I was, and it seemed to surprise him. I’d like to know why.” 

A sudden white-hot pain lanced through his temples, and he clutched them involuntarily. Sulu steadied him on one side, Spock on the other. “Slim! What is it? What’s wrong?” asked the helmsman anxiously. 

“Headache,” Slim managed. “Just a headache. I’m fine.” 

“You are not yet recovered from your injuries,” Spock said. “You must rest. Perhaps you should go to Medical.” 

Suddenly the communicator on the wall whistled. “Security to Spock.” 

Spock rose quickly and pressed the appropriate button. “Spock here.” 

“Mr. Spock, we’re having difficulty with the—prisoners.” Dickenson’s voice sounded hesitant. 

“I am on my way. Spock out.” Spock killed the connection and turned to look at Slim. 

Before Slim could say anything, however, Sulu spoke up. “I think he’ll be all right in a minute, sir. With your permission, I’ll stay here with him until he’s ready, and then we’ll meet you up at the brig?” 

Spock hesitated, then nodded. “That will be acceptable. However, I do not believe Athena needs to be present.” 

Sulu turned to Chekov, who seemed to understand instantly. “Addie, come on,” he said coaxingly. “Let’s go get Gottlieb, okay?” 

Addie looked up at Slim, who let go of her. “Go on, baby. I’ll come get you. I promise I’m okay. Go find Gottlieb.” 

“’Kay,” Addie mumbled. She let go of Slim with reluctance and toddled over to Chekov, who scooped her up. Spock headed out of the room; Chekov gave Slim and Sulu one anxious glance, then followed.

The moment they were alone, Sulu turned to Slim. “Was it the _Enterprise?”_

Slim felt a rush of gratitude towards Sulu. He could have easily spilled the beans, but had chosen not to. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “It ain’t—she wasn’t cryin’ in distress, though, not really. It was…kind of a combination of fear an’ anger.” 

“Anger? At what?” 

Slim hesitated. “I ain’t too sure. Hang on.” 

He started to get up, then faltered. Sulu assisted him to his feet, steadied him until he was sure he could support his own weight. Slim crossed over to the door, then laid his hands on the panel just below the interface. 

“Okay, girl,” he whispered. “What happened?” 

The metal glowed beneath his palms. Slim closed his eyes. He’d never tried asking the ship for anything other than mechanical issues and wasn’t sure this would work, but to his surprise, the _Enterprise_ spoke to him as though she were a patient in Leo’s sickbay. 

After a moment, the glow faded. Slim lifted his hands and turned to Sulu, who was staring at him in astonishment. “Mr. Scott—the man who looks like him, anyway—they’re in a cell in the brig. He tried to…do somethin’. Access a backdoor that ain’t there. That wouldn’t have upset her—the _Enterprise,_ I mean—‘cept she says he…he _felt_ wrong.” 

_“Felt_ wrong,” Sulu repeated, sounding a little numb. “What does—she—mean by that?” 

“He…he’s _almost_ Mr. Scott,” Slim said slowly, trying to make sense of what the ship had told him. “She could’ve been fooled. ‘Cept he don’t…” He swallowed hard. “She says _her_ Scotty—that’s what she called ‘im, _her_ Scotty—when he touches her, she c’n feel how much he loves her. This one…it ain’t love, it’s lust. Know what I mean?” 

“I do,” Sulu replied. “Except I’ve never heard of a _ship_ that knew the difference.” He shook his head. “You know, when you told me about your gift…I didn’t quite understand it. Now I do. That’s…that’s pretty impressive, Slim.” 

“It ain’t somethin’ I can claim credit for,” Slim said with an awkward shrug. “It just…happens. Anyway, there ain’t anythin’ wrong that wasn’t wrong before.” 

Sulu nodded slowly. “Let’s get up to the brig then.”

Slim was still a little unsteady on his feet; Sulu supported him as they headed down the corridors. By the time they reached Security, he was, thankfully, able to walk unaided—which was good when he saw what awaited them. 

Spock stood impassively before a glass-walled cell. Inside it, the man who appeared to be Jim was pressed as close to the door as he could get, an angry scowl on his face. The other three stood behind him, all with sharp edges to their faces and malicious gleams in their eyes. 

“What do you want, Spock?” Jim hissed. “Power? Money? It’s yours—release me and it’s yours!” 

Spock raised an eyebrow. “Fascinating.” 

Uhura caught sight of the other two and tapped Jim’s shoulder. He—and Leo, Slim noted with interest—turned on her with furious expressions, but she didn’t seem intimidated. “Captain. Look,” she said, pointing. 

Jim turned—and his scowl deepened. Slim was preparing to be challenged when Jim barked out, “Sulu! Why the hell are you in gold?” 

Sulu started, his eyes widening and his face paling. Slim looked over at his friend in concern, but Sulu swallowed and said in an _almost_ normal tone of voice, “What else would I be wearing?” 

“What did—are _you_ behind this?” Jim snarled. “I’ll have you boothed for this, Sulu, I swear it!” 

“Whatever that means, I hope _his_ Sulu deserves it,” Slim said under his breath. 

Nobody else—not even Spock, with his sharp ears—seemed to have caught the gist of Slim’s words, but Jim’s attention was drawn to him nonetheless. “And who the hell are _you?_ What the hell do you think you’re doing?” 

Slim glanced at Spock, who hesitated, then nodded slightly. Slim squared his shoulders and took a step closer to the cell, doing his best to ignore the bruises on his throat. “My name is Thomas James Kirk,” he said in as steady a voice as he could manage. “And I’m trying to figure out what’s going on here.”

“Impossible,” Jim sneered. 

“I assure you that it is quite possible,” Spock said in a level tone of voice. “One need only consider the available data—” 

“Shut up, you half-breed fool,” Jim snapped. Spock stopped, both his eyebrows lifting in surprise. “You know damned well I mean that it’s impossible for _that—”_ he practically spat out the word—“to be Thomas James Kirk.” 

“I fail to see how that can be,” Spock said. 

“Stop being an idiot, Spock,” Jim said. “You watched me kill that brat myself.” 

Slim felt his blood run cold. Although he had suspected as much—although the man had talked about ghost tricks and cheap mummery—it was terrifying to hear it come out of the mouth of someone who looked like the father he loved. _You watched me kill that brat myself._ Slim rallied himself and said, in as steady a voice as he could manage, “You are not my father. I am not your son.” 

“That’s not what you tried to say when you turned up on my ship,” Jim snapped. 

“Since this ain’t your ship, I can’t say what I, or the kid who looked like me, did or didn’t say to you,” Slim said. His accent was beginning to thicken, as it often did under stress. “There’s been a mistake somewhere.” 

“You’re damned right there has been,” Jim growled. “If this isn’t my ship, I _demand_ you get me off of it and back onto my ship, at _once.”_

“Believe me,” Spock said, “we shall endeavor to do so immediately.” 

“You had better,” Jim said. “The Emperor will be hearing about this, _and_ the way you run this ship.” 

“The Emperor?” Sulu asked, sounding confused.

Slim was confused, too—and nervous. Were these people actually disguised Klingons…or Romulans? He knew the Tholians had a confederacy, not an empire, but it was possible _they_ had an emperor, too… 

“Yes, of course,” Jim said testily. “You didn’t think you would get away without me reporting this, did you? An Imperial Star Ship run by a crew so incompetent that they manage to beam up the wrong landing party?” His eyes suddenly darkened. “Come to think of it—” Whirling around to Uhura, he snapped, “Why didn’t you tell me there was another imperial vessel in the vicinity?” 

“Because there wasn’t, sir,” Uhura replied. “Not when we beamed down. I will certainly punish Ibbotson for not informing us, sir, once we return to the _Enterprise.”_ She looked almost gleeful at the prospect. 

“Oh, hell,” Slim breathed, feeling his stomach twist. He remembered the story Spock had told him before their visit to New Vulcan, about the other Spock coming from an alternate universe, or an alternate timeline or whatever. So it was possible to transcend universes… 

_“This_ is the—” Spock began, frowning. 

“Mr. Spock,” Sulu blurted out, stepping up so that he was next to Slim. “Maybe we should go figure out how to get these four back to their own u—ship.” 

“You take orders from your inferiors, too?” Jim sneered. “Some imperial vessel.”

Scotty, who all this time had been silent, touched Leo on the shoulder and whispered in his ear. Leo’s eyes widened, and he stepped up to Jim’s side. “Except this _isn’t_ an imperial vessel, is it? We’ve wound up in some—parallel universe.” 

“Oh, hell,” Slim said again. He’d been hoping the others wouldn’t figure it out, and from the look Sulu shot him, he’d been hoping it, too. 

Spock’s eyebrows lifted. “Logical,” he allowed. “If improbable. We will investigate further.” 

“Don’t bother,” Jim said. A feral grin was beginning to tug at his mouth. “A universe where the Empire doesn’t exist? Did it never occur to you, Mr. Spock, that _you_ could be the one to set it up? Think of it! Emperor Spock!” 

“I have never desired to rise above my present station,” Spock said stiffly. 

“Help _me_ become Emperor, then, and I promise you’ll never want for anything the rest of your life,” Jim said, his tone at its most persuasive. Slim felt sick. “Of course, we’d have to remove any…challengers to the throne.” His eye ran disdainfully over Slim. 

Sulu shifted slightly, as if he could come between Slim and the monster who wore his father’s face. Spock’s eyes flashed. “I am a representative of the Federation,” he said, his voice like steel, “and moreover, my captain has trusted me with his ship, his crew, and his family. I would not betray that for anything you could hope to offer.” 

Jim looked at Spock, then at Sulu. Seeing that he would get no help from those quarters, he suddenly slammed himself against the transparent wall, making Sulu flinch. Slim called on everything he’d taught himself in his foster families and remained still in the face of the man’s leer. “Do you know what I did to him?” he said, in a harsh voice hardly above a whisper. “How I got rid of the little upstart shit who appeared on _my_ ship, telling me that he was the son of an indiscretion I wasn’t quick enough to stamp out from the beginning, insisting that he have a place, wheedling and threatening?” He pressed closer, as though he could actually pop through and whisper in Slim’s ear. “I pretended to welcome him. I invited him to join us for dinner, a private meal in my quarters. I gave him a tour of the ship with my arm around his shoulder, smiling and introducing him like he was actually my son and heir. And then when Spock was distracting him by telling him about the ship, I got him. I wrapped my fingers around his throat and I _squeezed…”_

Slim knew he was pale as a sheet, he could feel himself trembling, but he held himself still, he kept his expression as neutral as he could, trying to stare down the man. It wasn’t going to work, this was a man who had grown up in a bloodthirsty empire, a man who was used to getting his way, a man who was no stranger to intimidation, to terror, to murder… 

“He knew it was me,” Jim continued, still grinning that feral, predatory grin. “I made him look me in the eye, and then when he was half-dead, I stopped, and I humiliated him by—” 

Spock abruptly pressed a button on the wall panel just beyond the cell door. The clear substance suddenly crackled with a bright purple light, and Jim cried out, flung backwards into the other three. They caught him. Leo wrapped an arm around Jim and glared murderously at Spock, at Slim, as Jim struggled to catch his breath. Spock turned to Sulu and Slim and said in a quiet but firm voice, “Come.” 

Slim didn’t argue. He turned instantly and followed Spock out the door, not looking back, even when he heard Jim’s voice bellow. “Spock! Get back here, damn you! _Spock!”_

The door slid shut behind them, cutting off the sound. Slim leaned against the wall and closed his eyes, struggling not to fall apart. 

“Slim? Are you okay?” Sulu’s voice was gentle, concerned. 

“I—I think so,” Slim lied. “Just…give me a minute.” 

“I am sorry, Thomas,” Spock said, sounding contrite. “I should have stopped him sooner than I did, but his description was…” He trailed off. 

Slim opened his eyes and managed a shaky smile. “Fascinating, wasn’t it?” 

“Disturbing is more like it,” Sulu said. He glanced over his shoulder at the door and shuddered. “My God, how can anyone be so…” 

“So what?” 

Slim turned to see Chekov coming towards them. Addie was in his arms, clutching Gottlieb and still looking perfectly miserable. Spock’s eyebrows drew together in a frown. “Mr. Chekov, you should not have brought Athena to this area,” he reproved him. “She does not need to see…” He paused again. 

Two unfinished sentences in as many minutes, Slim thought. A red-letter day for Spock. Chekov lowered his gaze. “I’m sorry, Mr. Spock, but—” 

Spock shook his head. “No harm was done.” He turned to Slim, his Vulcan mask returning to its place. “Had you guessed that they were from an alternate universe?” 

“What?” Chekov’s face went white. 

“Not until—the woman who looks like Aunt Nyota said they would be ‘returning to the _Enterprise,’_ ” Slim said. “Up ‘til then, I reckoned they were Romulan or Klingon, somehow. But _Enterprise_ ain’t a name either one would have for a ship. That’s what made me think of it.” 

“If zey are from an alternate uniwerse…will we be able to get zem back?” Chekov asked, his eyes wide. 

“There is only one way to find out. Come with me.” Spock led them down the hall.

They headed to the briefing room, which Slim had never actually been in. It consisted of a long table, a viewscreen set into it that could be used to communicate or view the exterior of the ship, and a computer bank, its lights flashing. Spock stopped before the computer, then turned to the others. Addie was walking now, holding onto Chekov's hand tightly, her blue eyes wide with confusion and fear, but Spock spoke over her head. "The ersatz landing crew may be subdued, for the moment, but we have no guarantee that they will remain there. If they do, they may attempt to access the computers." 

Slim bit his lip. "And since, to all intents and purposes, they _are_ the landing party, their voiceprints will match." 

"Precisely. Therefore, I am going to code this recording to be only accessible to specific voiceprints." Spock turned to the library computer. "Computer, this is First Officer Spock. Record a Security Research, to be accessed under my voiceprint and those of Mr. Sulu, Mr. Chekov, and Thomas Kirk." 

"Recorded," the computer said in a pleasant female voice. Slim started slightly, surprised that Spock had included him in the access list and wondering if the computer knew his voiceprint. 

"Produce all data relevant to the recent magnetic storm, and correlate following hypothesis. Could a storm of that magnitude produce a power surge in transporter circuits, resulting in momentary interdimensional contact with a parallel universe?" 

There was a brief pause while the computer complied with this request, no more than five seconds. "Affirmative." 

"In such a moment, could individuals in each universe, in the act of beaming, become transposed with their counterparts in the other universe?" 

"Affirmative." 

Spock turned to the others. "There you have it, gentlemen. We _have_ somehow beamed aboard the landing party from another, much more…savage universe." 

Chekov looked dismayed. "But what can we _do_ , sir?" 

Slim frowned, thinking. The ion storm had passed by, and there was no way the ship could catch it. Suddenly, he leaned forward. "Computer, could conditions necessary to such an event be artificially produced?" 

This time the pause was longer, and Slim guessed the computer was trying to match his voiceprint with whatever it may have had on file, since he'd never spoken to it directly before. Spock was about to say something when the computer replied, "Affirmative." 

Spock gave Slim a quick, approving nod before turning to the computer. "Record procedure and switch off."

"It's that easy?" Sulu asked incredulously as a slot opened on the computer, dispensing a microtape. 

Spock plucked the tape from the computer. "No. I imagine this will take a great deal of power. Moreover, the console, and therefore the controls for the transporter, were damaged in the…struggle. They will need to be repaired before anyone can be beamed." 

"So what do we do, sir?" Chekov asked again. 

Spock thought for a moment. "Mr. Sulu, you will need to take the conn while I take control of this situation. Mr. Chekov, go with him to the bridge. Keep the _Enterprise_ in a holding pattern. If anyone from Halkan or Starfleet contacts the ship, let them know that Captain Kirk is momentarily unavailable but do _not,_ under _any_ circumstances, divulge the reason for that." 

"Yes, sir." Sulu swallowed hard, then nudged Chekov. The two of them disappeared down the corridor. 

Spock looked at Slim. "We need to conduct repairs on the transporters immediately, and I do not believe we can spare anyone from Engineering. Report to the Transporter Room immediately. I will join you shortly." 

Slim nodded, then looked down at his sister. "Addie, why don't you stay with Aunt Carol and—" 

"No!" Addie cried, grabbing Slim's leg and holding on for dear life. She looked up at him with such an expression of fear in her big blue eyes, the twins to Slim's own, that he melted. 

Stooping, he gathered her into his arms, then looked appealingly at Spock. "I'll have to bring her along," he said softly. Looking at his sister, he said, "Okay, Addie, you can come, but you have to be good and you have to be quiet. Can you do that for me?" 

Addie nodded. "Where going?" 

Slim met Spock's eyes, lifting his chin in determination. "We're going to get Daddy and the others back." 

"Papa an' Aunt 'Yota an' Unca 'Cotty?" Addie pressed. 

"You bet. And we'll make the bad ones go away." Slim wasn't one hundred percent sure this was going to be possible, but dammit, he would do the best he could. He'd lost his mother when he was Addie's age. He wouldn't put her through that hell. Not if there was anything he could do to prevent it. 

Spock nodded, obvious approval in his eyes. He handed Slim the microtape he had just pulled from the computer. "Go," he said quietly. "Start with what you can. I will—" He hesitated, then changed tack. "You have the comm codes for Engineering?" 

"Yes, sir." Slim wondered where this was going. 

"Good. Things may need to be done in a specific order. I do _not_ want you to leave the Transporter Room. But if there is anything that needs to be done from Engineering, comm down there and give them the instructions. Authorization, Charlie India one three two two six. Have you got that?" 

"Charlie India one three two two six," Slim repeated. 

"Very good. I need to speak with—" Spock hesitated again—"our guests once more, and then I will be down to join you." 

Slim nodded, pocketing the microtape. "Come on, Addie."

She was willing to walk, which was helpful as Slim had a lot to think about. First and foremost, of course, should have been the problem with the transporter, and whether or not he could fix it on his own. Scotty had taught him a lot, and of course there was his gift. But Slim was also realistic. No gift could replace the years of training and experience that literally everyone else aboard the ship had. There were two shifts of engineers not on duty—surely Spock could have called in someone from that. No, the first officer had some reason of his own for wanting Slim to do the repairs. 

But in truth, Slim's first concern was for Addie. How much had she seen? He'd pushed her out of the way as quickly as he possibly could, and he could only hope that she had remained hidden behind the console—but what if she had looked? What if she had seen Jim with his hands around Slim's throat? She seemed to know that the four who had come back hadn't been the real thing, but at the same time… 

He was also worried about his parents. If the landing party was indicative of the way people behaved in their universe, then his dad and the others were in for a rough time. They could be seriously hurt. They could even be— 

Slim terminated that line of thought. He couldn't let himself think like that. Had to stay focused, had to believe everything would be all right. 

They ducked into their quarters so that Slim could pick up his tools. Addie waited patiently, clutching her stuffed tribble, then took his hand again. At last they reached the transporter room, which was abandoned. Slim suddenly wondered what had happened to Kyle. Had he been injured in the struggle? 

_Forget that,_ he told himself firmly. _Focus._

"All right, Addie," he said. He looked around, then pointed to the step leading to the transporter platform. "Why don't you sit right over there, and you can watch me?" 

"'Kay." Addie obediently climbed onto the step and sat down. She wrapped one arm around Gottlieb and popped her thumb into her mouth, blue eyes fixed on him.

Slim pulled the microtape out of his pocket and slotted it into the appropriate place, thankful that the computer still worked. The procedure for replicating the atmospheric conditions scrolled past his eyes. He read quickly, noting that, though it was complicated, it could be done fairly easily, especially with a full engineering crew working on the problem. Two people could even do it, in a pinch. 

He was about to close the program when he saw some figures at the bottom that nearly made his heart stop. He read them again, just to make sure his eyes hadn't deceived him. Then he swore violently, something he never did. Then he grabbed for his communicator and punched in the correct code. A moment later, a voice came through. "Engineering." 

"Engineering, this is Thomas Kirk," Slim began. 

The engineer who had picked up sounded slightly annoyed. "We're busy down here." 

"I have the instructions—" 

"Slim, no time for games," the man interrupted. He sighed with frustration. "I _know_ Mr. Scott told you this was only for emergencies." 

Slim's lips thinned. In a clear, distinct voice, he said, "Lieutenant, I am giving you your instructions. Authorization code Charlie India one three two two six." 

There was a brief pause. The engineer's voice was decidedly frosty as he replied, "Emergency authorization noted. Give your instructions, Mr. Kirk." 

He was obviously offended. Well, tough. Slim dictated the necessary steps on the microtape, then added, "And _please_ hurry." 

"We'll call when we're done." 

“You have ninety minutes. Kirk out.”

Slim shut his communicator with a snap, then turned to the console. The smoke had stopped, and from the outside it looked relatively undamaged, except for a crack in the casing. But it was broken. And Slim would have to fix it. But with only ninety minutes to work with, he didn't have time to dismantle the whole thing. He would have to find out what was wrong with it, and quickly. 

He would have to rely on his gift again. 

Taking a deep breath, Slim laid the palms of his hands on the side of the console and closed his eyes. "Talk to me, girl," he whispered. "Tell me where it hurts." 

The casing glowed under his hands. Slim felt the hum travel through the bones of his arms; a portion of his mind took the sounds and vibrations and interpreted them. After a moment, his eyes snapped open. He grabbed his tools and began unscrewing one particular part of the paneling. 

He worked patiently on the wires. Most of them were just askew, or slightly twisted. One or two had been knocked completely loose from their couplings, and he had to reattach them. But just when Slim thought he was finished, he found a circuit board, lying on the ground, unattached to anything, with a couple of scorch marks on it. He cursed as he picked it up. 

"Is something the matter, Thomas?" 

Slim almost hit his head on the casing. He wiggled out carefully to see Spock standing over him. His face was unusually grey. Slim held up the circuit board. "This got knocked loose. I found it on the floor. And it's singed." 

"Is it crucial?" Spock asked. 

Slim bit his lip. Using his gift in front of Sulu was one thing, but Spock wouldn’t think it was very logical. Still, this was a critical situation. He set the circuit board on top of the console and rested his fingertips on it, then closed his eyes again. The circuit board glowed and hummed slightly, and then his eyes snapped open as he gasped with relief. "No. It's a redundant piece of equipment. Actually, it was installed incorrectly and the system's been trying to reject it ever since." He looked up at Spock, then faltered at the expression on his face. 

"How did you—" Spock began, then shook his head. "Never mind. Have you looked at the microtape yet?" 

"Yeah. I commed Engineering and got them started." Slim checked his watch and muttered a curse. "The window of opportunity is incredibly small. We've got less than an hour left before we lose our chance to put things right." 

Spock joined him. "What needs to be done here?" 

Slim rested his hands on the top of the console again and closed his eyes. Again there was the glow, the humming that his brain interpreted as naturally as it interpreted English. "The panel needs to be put back in place, and then this section of the controls needs to be fixed. Shouldn't take more than twenty minutes to do." 

Spock looked at him steadily for a moment, then picked up the panel and wordlessly held it in place so that Slim could refasten it.

Just as Slim made the final tweaks to the controls, his communicator chirped. Quickly, he pulled it out. "Slim Kirk here." 

"This is Engineering," said the same engineer as before. "We finished those instructions you gave us, _Mr._ Kirk. Anything further?" He added, with slightly mocking emphasis, _"Sir."_

Spock's eyes flashed. He took the communicator from Slim's hand and spoke crisply. "Nothing further need be done from your end, Lieutenant Harmon. Stand by and we will inform you of the success or failure of this endeavor." 

Lieutenant Harmon immediately became servile. "Standing by, Mr. Spock." 

"See that you do. Spock out." Spock snapped the communicator closed and handed it back to Slim. "Athena, come off that platform." 

Obediently, Addie got down. Spock turned back to Slim. "How long do we have?" 

Slim checked his watch. "Thirty minutes, then we lose the window." 

"I will have our—guests—brought down. I would like you to operate the controls. Athena, you _must_ stay with Thomas, do you understand?" 

Still sucking her thumb, Addie nodded solemnly. She reached out with her free hand and took hold of a fistful of Slim's trousers. Slim moved beside the console and patted his sister's head, then looked up at Spock. "Ready when you are, sir." 

Spock nodded and turned to leave the room. In the doorway, he paused, then turned back. Wordlessly, he unslung the phaser from his hip and laid it on the console in front of Slim. 

Slim picked the phaser up, checked to make sure that it was set on Stun, and then looked at Spock steadily. "You think—?" 

"Let us just say it is a precaution." With that, Spock left. 

Addie looked up at Slim and mumbled indistinctly around her thumb, "Daddy soon?" 

Slim stroked the tangle of dark curls. "Yes, baby. Daddy and Papa will be home soon," he said soothingly. 

If Engineering had done their job properly. If the transporter worked. If they timed it right. If they were still alive in the other universe. If, if, if.

There was a sudden loud commotion in the hallway. Slim tensed, keeping his hand on the phaser. Addie shrank against him. A moment later, the door open and the four members of the alternate-universe landing party were hustled in, escorted by eight security officers and Spock. 

Jim—or the man who seemed to be Jim—was shouting. "I'll have you all arrested for this! I'll have you _killed_ for this!" 

"Gentlemen, I think it best you leave now," Spock said quickly to the security guards. "Four to each door." 

The security chief nodded crisply, and the group separated, going out each door. Jim turned angrily to Spock. "This is your doing," he snarled. "I _knew_ that stuff about you not wanting to be captain was bullshit." 

"You are not my captain," Spock said steadily. "This is not your universe. We have been over this. If you desire to remain captain, I suggest you climb aboard the transporter pads, now." 

Leo turned, evidently intending to glare at Spock, but then his attention was arrested. A smile crossed his face—a dark, twisted version of the loving smile Slim was accustomed to—and then he squatted down. "There you are, princess," he said. 

Addie squeaked, clutched Gottlieb tighter, and hid behind the console, gripping Slim's leg tightly. He cursed himself for an idiot—he hadn't noticed she might be visible. Leo straightened. "Come on, princess, come to Papa," he coaxed, taking a step forward. 

Slim instantly raised the phaser, pointing it directly at the man's heart. "Keep away from my sister," he said icily. 

"Or what?" Leo sneered. "You'll shoot me? In front of her?" 

The words chilled Slim. He didn't dare look down at Addie, but he knew she would have her eyes fixed on him worriedly. She may not be able to see over the console and see the man Slim was aiming at, but she could certainly see the phaser in his hand and the fact that he was going to pull the trigger. She was frightened enough. But at the same time, despite what they looked like, these men were _not_ her parents. She knew that. And the most important thing Jim and Leo always pressed on Slim was to take care of Addie. 

"Yes," he said. "I will."

Jim's lip curled. "Now I know I was right to kill you as soon as I found out about you," he snarled. "If this is what you're like in _this_ namby-pamby universe, I'm only glad I got to you before you got to me." 

"I'd rather be dead than call a man like you my father," Slim said, and rather to his surprise he managed to say it without his voice shaking. "Get on the transporter pads." 

"Not without our princess," Leo said. He took another step forward. "You're not fit to lick her boots. Destiny. She's destined for greatness. Someday she'll be Empress, and you—" 

"Addie is _my_ sister, and she belongs _here,"_ Slim interrupted. _"Your_ 'princess' is probably waiting for you on your own ship. And if you don't get on that transporter platform _now,_ you may never see her again." Ordinarily in situations like this, his accent would be thickening, but instead his voice was crystal clear. 

"Are you threatening me, you little brat?" Leo growled. 

"No, I am stating a fact. The window of opportunity for you to get home closes in—" Slim's eyes flickered briefly towards the chronometer on the console—"ten minutes. Your little girl probably wants her parents back. I know mine does. And don't you tell me they don't know the difference. Get going." 

Leo made a sudden lunge for the side of the console. Slim instantly fired the phaser. The bolt struck Leo on the chest. He dropped to the ground, stunned. Jim roared and took a step forward, then stopped as Slim shifted the phaser so that it pointed directly between his eyes. 

_"Get on those transporter pads,"_ he said, every word snapping into the silence like the crack of a whip. _"Now."_

Jim bent down and picked Leo up, draping his arm over his shoulder, and dragged him onto the transporter platform. Slim kept the phaser trained on him the entire time. Scotty and Uhura, too, climbed aboard, both looking torn between malicious delight and nervousness. 

Spock came over and quietly took the phaser from Slim's hands. In a low voice, he said, "Is everything ready?" 

"The coordinates are set," Slim replied, his voice equally soft. He rested his hands on the controls and looked down at the chronometer, watching the seconds tick down. 

"Well?" Scotty snapped. "What're ye waitin' for? Ye said ye wanted tae send us back—do it!" 

Slim swallowed hard, but didn't answer. They had to initiate the beaming at the same time as the alternate universe—and Slim knew his father well enough to know that they would end up waiting until the absolute last second. Not necessarily to be dramatic. More because something would undoubtedly have come up. 

When he judged the moment was right, he activated the controls and began the beaming process, then looked up. The golden light shimmered around the four crew members. The last things to disappear were Jim's accusing eyes, like chips of ice. The bruises around Slim's throat gave a renewed throb of pain at the sight. 

"I don't know how I'm gonna explain this," he mumbled. 

Spock didn't take his eyes—or the phaser—off the transporter platform, but he answered in a low voice. "I fear I will have a great deal more to explain than you will."

There was the flicker, the weird jump, that Slim had noticed before, and then he saw the energy readings shift. "Something's coming through," he said, looking back at the transporter platform. Spock tensed, but said nothing. 

The two watched in silence as four figures materialized. At first, Slim was sure it hadn't worked properly—one figure was definitely supporting another. But as the golden lights disappeared, he saw that this Leo was not unconscious, but rather staring vacantly ahead. 

The room stood frozen for a minute. Uhura was the first to move. She leapt down from the platform and threw her arms around Spock's neck, burying her face in his chest. He dropped the phaser and returned the embrace, holding her tightly, his cheek resting against her hair. 

Slim's shoulders sagged with relief. He looked up at the three men on the platform and saw none of the hardness, the sharpness, he had seen on the others. And Jim didn't seem about to spring for his throat. Actually, at the moment, Jim didn't seem to have eyes for anything but Leo. Not that Slim could blame him. The man was obviously in some kind of shock. Slim looked at Scotty, who gave him a helpless look. 

Slim knelt down behind the console. "Addie," he said gently. "Look who's back." 

Addie's blue eyes were still big and wet, and her thumb was still firmly in her mouth as she tremblingly peered around the console. She gave a little cry and dropped Gottlieb as she ran towards the platform. "Daddy! Papa!" 

Slim hastily caught up with her and lifted her onto the platform. She threw her little arms around Leo's knees and burst into tears. It seemed to bring Leo back to himself. He looked down, momentarily confused, and then his expression cleared. He bent over and scooped Addie up, holding her tightly. 

Jim stepped down from the platform and hugged Slim fiercely. Slim hugged him back just as hard, feeling the tears start to prick at his eyes as his limbs began shaking. Suddenly the events of the last few hours caught up with him. He'd come close to being dead. He had actually shot a man—and a man who looked exactly like his stepfather—and right in front of his sister. And if he was honest with himself, until this very moment, he had doubted he would ever see his father again. 

"Thank God you're okay," he croaked.

Jim pulled back, concern in his eyes. "What's wrong with your voice?" 

Spock came forward, still holding Uhura. "Captain," he said quietly, "please forgive me. I almost didn't realize that the four people who returned were not the ones who had left—not until it was nearly too late." 

Jim’s eyes focused on his son’s neck. He raised one trembling hand and touched one of the bruises lightly, making Slim flinch at the momentary pain. "Who did that to you, Slim?" he asked in a soft, ragged voice. 

"Not Daddy," Addie mumbled, turning her head and looking at Jim and Slim seriously. 

"Your…counterpart…took umbrage at the sight of him," Spock said slowly. "He…reacted rather violently." 

"Oh, my God," Jim muttered brokenly. He hugged Slim tightly again. 

Slim didn't care that he was almost sixteen, that he'd just fixed the transporter controls himself or that he'd faced down two incredibly dangerous people without flinching. Right now, he needed comfort almost as much as Addie did. He leaned into Jim, burying his face in his father's shoulder. 

“What’s this?” Scotty’s voice sounded alarmed and slightly indignant. 

Slim lifted his head and saw that Scotty was holding the charred circuit board and turning it over in his hands. “Redundant piece of equipment—the system’s been tryin’ to reject it for years. It got dislodged in the struggle.” 

“How d’ye know that?” Scotty demanded. 

“I asked it.” Slim was too drained to make up a story. Anyway, Spock knew now. He might as well tell the others. 

Jim frowned down at him, obviously puzzled. “You— _asked_ it?” 

“Ye said something like that once before,” Scotty said slowly. “When we were stopped at—at whatever that planet was, the one with the ryetalyn—” 

“Holberg 917-G,” Spock said precisely. 

“Aye, that’s the one. Ye said everything _appeared_ normal, and when I asked about it, ye said that ye hadn’t had time to ask the ship if there was something the instruments hadn’t picked up. What do you mean by that?” 

Slim let go of Jim and took a step back so that he could see everyone. He took a deep breath. “I’ve—I’ve got this—gift. I can…best way I can put it is I can understand machines. When something might be wrong, all I have to do is this…” He laid the palm of his hand on the console, closed his eyes, and concentrated. 

He heard soft gasps and a muffled curse, and then he opened his eyes to see Jim, Scotty, and Uhura gaping at him. Leo still looked dazed, and of course Spock’s face was implacable. It was Scotty who broke the silence. “Is that how ye’ve been workin’ with the engines so well over the last couple of years?” 

“Well…sort of. It’s something I try not to rely on too often—it’s a crutch. If we’re in a time crunch—like with the RFMs last month, or today, when we only had ninety minutes to get everything up and running—I’ll use it, but for the most part, I don’t use it.” Slim bit his lip. “I don’t know exactly how it works, and I’m afraid I’ll misinterpret what I think the ship’s trying to tell me.” 

“How often have you misinterpreted the signals from a mechanical device?” Spock asked in his calm, logical voice. 

Slim swallowed, a little uncomfortable, and admitted, “It ain’t happened yet.”

“Ye can talk with the _Enterprise,”_ Scotty murmured. “Amazing. Tell me, laddie, what does her voice sound like?” 

“I can’t really describe it,” Slim said. “It’s at least ninety percent in my head anyway.” 

Jim looked at him seriously. “Other than the five of us…does anyone else know?” 

Slim shifted slightly, feeling a little guilty. “Uh, yeah. Aud—Ensign Cayne knows, I showed her the first time I helped out in Engineering, when we were working on the cooling tower. I ended up showing the others who were working on the auxiliary RFM with us—Simril and Nic’tlarn and O’Flaherty.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “And I told Sulu last year.” 

“In other words,” Spock said, “with the exception of Lieutenant Sulu, you only told those who directly needed to know, in order that you could do the necessary work.” 

“Well…yeah.” 

“Logical.” 

Jim shook his head. “Speaking of Sulu…God, we’ve still got to talk to the Halkans about the dilithium crystals. And…” He turned to look up at Leo, his expression worried. Leo seemed a little better than he had when he’d first come in, but there was still something brittle about his expression. Something had obviously happened to him while he was in the other universe. Slim wondered what it was, but wasn’t going to ask. 

Addie looked up at Leo, too. “Papa?” she asked, reaching up to touch his cheek. 

Leo flinched. A look of absolute terror flickered through his eyes, and he jerked his head away, and suddenly he didn’t seem to recognize where he was or what he was doing. Addie’s eyes filled with tears and her lower lip began trembling. She was about to burst into tears at any minute. 

Slim reached for Addie as Jim gripped Leo’s shoulder lightly. “Bones,” he said softly. “Bones, how about you go up to Med Bay and—” 

Leo jerked his head around, his eyes so wide you could see the whites all around them. “No. No,” he said, his voice low and breathless. “I don’t—no.” 

Jim looked even more worried than before. He stared at Leo for a long moment, then took a deep breath. “Lieutenant Uhura, will you take Addie for a few minutes, please?” 

Unquestioningly, Uhura lifted Addie from Leo’s arms, settling the little girl on her hip. Jim wrapped his arm around Leo’s shoulders; Leo leaned into him, almost unconsciously, as he turned to the others. “I’ll be up on the bridge soon,” he said quietly. “If Starfleet tries to get in touch about those crystals, tell them we’re still negotiating.” 

Spock nodded. Slim hesitated, watching Jim steer Leo gently towards the door, then blurted out, “What if the Halkans call?” 

Jim’s shoulders sagged slightly. He didn’t even turn around. “I don’t know. Tell them something.” With that, he was gone.

Spock raised an eyebrow. “‘Tell them something?’” he repeated. 

“You don’t know what it was like,” Scotty said passionately. “You can’t imagine what it was like…” 

Spock shook himself. “We must get to the bridge. At once.” 

Slim followed the others up the lift. Half his mind was on Leo, the other half on trying—despite what Scotty had said—to imagine what the other universe was like. Bloodthirsty and brutal, he was sure. An empire of some kind, instead of a federation—conquered rather than united. A galaxy where a father would murder his own son rather than risk his supremacy being challenged…and Slim wasn’t stupid, he could guess where the story would have gone, had Spock not cut it off by electrifying the cell door. He didn’t understand how _any_ man could have done that to _any_ child, much less to his own. 

Sulu and Chekov both looked up as the bridge doors opened and relaxed as they saw Uhura with Addie on her hip. Scotty went directly to the engineering panel, Uhura to her own console. Spock drifted towards the captain’s chair, but did not sit in it. Slim followed him. 

“Where’s ze keptin?” Chekov asked, a little anxiously. “And ze doctor?” 

“Captain Kirk will be up shortly,” Spock said evenly. “Dr. McCoy is…resting.” 

Sulu shook his head, looking back at his console. “If the whole ship was full of people like the four we beamed aboard,” he said quietly, “I don’t blame him. I can’t imagine what that was like.” 

“You have _no_ idea,” Uhura muttered. Slim was startled to notice her shooting a slight glare at Chekov across the bridge. He was even more startled when Scotty, looking over his shoulder, gave the exact same suspicious look to Sulu. Chekov cringed away from the look slightly, but said nothing. 

Uhura suddenly started and turned to Spock. “Mr. Spock, incoming communication from Halkan.” 

Spock hesitated, then said, “Put it on the screen, Lieutenant Uhura.” He turned to Slim. “Thomas, I believe we have need of your diplomacy.” 

Slim swallowed hard, but nodded. “I’ll do my best.” 

A face appeared on the screen—a benign-looking man with grey hair, grey eyes, and a gentle expression. “Hail, Enterprise,” he said in a calm, placid voice. “The ion storm has passed. Is Captain Kirk on his way back down? Is that why he is not on the bridge?” 

Slim took a deep breath. “No, sir. There was…an incident with the beam-up. Captain Kirk is tending to his husband. He should return to the bridge any moment.” 

“An incident? I trust there were no injuries?” 

“Not…exactly, sir.” Slim hesitated, glancing at Spock, whose expression said nothing. 

The Halkan representative tilted his head slightly. “You look similar to the captain. Are you a relative?” 

“Yes, sir, I’m his son. My name is Thomas James Kirk.” 

“Tell me, Thomas James Kirk. Why have you not left our vicinity? I do not imagine that even your father’s silver tongue can change our minds and convince us to hand over the crystals.”

Slim decided, to hell with it. Jim had said _tell them something,_ Spock had asked him to speak…and everyone pretty much could guess that the Federation wasn’t getting those crystals anyway, so it wasn’t as though the truth could do much harm. “Nor do I, sir, and I respect you for that. We are still in the vicinity due to the incident with the transporters. Circumstances interacted in precisely the right way to…confuse our universe with another, parallel universe. In short, sir, we accidentally beamed up the wrong landing party and have spent the last two hours attempting to rectify that mistake.” 

The Halkan looked surprised, although in the mildest way possible. Slim wondered if they were ever given to extremes of emotion. “A parallel universe? Interesting. In this universe, was the landing party successful in obtaining the dilithium crystals you covet?” 

“No,” Slim said honestly. “And that was a far more savage universe than this. From what I understood of what was said before we realized there had been a switch, the _Enterprise_ in that universe had orders to destroy your entire planet rather than take ‘no’ for an answer.” He licked his lips. “Which is why I say I respect you for your conviction. A conviction which will hold in the face of certain death is a conviction to be honored.” 

“You do not seem upset by this,” the Halkan observed. 

Slim spread out his hands, palms up. “I admit that I would be pleased if we could obtain the crystals. I’m an engineer, sir. I spend most of my time in the engine room, and I greatly admire the dilithium crystals. I know that they’re what power the ship, and I know that, were it not for them, we’d be going nowhere fast. More than that, they’re beautiful.” He paused, wondering how best to phrase it and knowing it was going to sound crazy. “When things get too hectic…I watch the energy swirling in them, and it…relaxes me, in a way.” 

“I have seen the crystals many times, but never have I seen anything moving within them.” 

“It only happens when they’re connected to a conduit—a power source of some kind. But it’s lovely when it does—like watching a storm. You know it’s powerful, you know it can be dangerous, but you can’t help but admire it just the same.” 

The Halkan smiled. “Something of the poet in you, young Kirk.”

“He comes by it honestly,” Jim’s voice said from behind him. Slim turned to see his father stepping through the doors of the bridge, his face pale but his expression as diplomatic and neutral as he could make it. “Councilor Sciwyn, my apologies for the delay.” 

“No apologies are necessary, Captain Kirk,” Sciwyn said. “Your son explained the circumstances behind your absence. I hope your husband was not too badly affected by your encounter with the other universe.” 

“To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure _what_ happened to him,” Jim said wearily, resting his hand heavily on the back of his chair. “We were…separated briefly, while he attempted to save the life of—someone on the ship, and when he rejoined us…” He shook his head. “He’ll do better after a good night’s sleep.” 

“I should imagine,” Sciwyn said, his expression softening slightly—although Slim didn’t see how it was possible to get any milder or more benign than he already was, “that he will sleep far better with you beside him.” 

“I hope so,” Jim said simply. “I’m sorry to have trespassed on your time for so long, Councilor Sciwyn. If you’ll grant us a few moments to make sure the ion storm has completely passed on, we’ll be on our way. And we’ll make sure the Federation doesn’t trouble you again.” 

“That will not be necessary, Captain Kirk,” Sciwyn said, folding his hands across his stomach. “I confess that when we initially began this conversation, it was to ask why you still remained. However…the Council is willing to reconsider our position.” 

Jim looked surprised. “I’m sorry?” 

“If I understand your son correctly, while the crystals are on our planet, they are…inert. Sleeping. It is only when they are connected to the warp core of your ship that they come awake. Is that an accurate summary?” 

Jim looked at Slim, who looked over at Scotty, who looked surprised, but nodded slowly. “Aye,” he said. “That’s a fair assessment. Mind you, I’m not sure if they could be considered alive—but it’s true enough that they don’t dance like that unless there’s power running through them.” 

Sciwyn nodded. “That, to me, seems to be an indication of some kind of life—that they respond to stimuli.” 

“I would agree to that stipulation,” Spock said from his science station, where he had moved after Jim’s arrival. 

“In that case…we are a peaceful people, yes, but we also believe that every life has a purpose. Far be it from us to stop a life— _any_ life—from fulfilling its purpose to the utmost.” Sciwyn smiled kindly. “If you feel comfortable enough to leave your ship—and your husband—and return to the planet’s surface, we would be glad to come to some arrangement about trading the dilithium crystals to the Federation, for purposes of powering your starships. Provided, of course, that there is a way to ensure that they will _not_ be used for weapons manufacture.” 

“I’m confident that can be arranged,” Jim said, still looking somewhat stunned. 

“Then I look forward to seeing you planetside momentarily.” Sciwyn bowed respectfully, and the screen winked out.

There was silence on the bridge for a moment, and then Jim turned to look at Slim. “I’m going to have you talk to everyone we need to negotiate with from now on.” 

Slim blushed scarlet. “I didn’t do anything, really. I just told the truth.” 

“A rare enough commodity, in this or any other universe,” Spock observed. 

“Mr. Spock, I’d like you to come down with me this time,” Jim said quietly. “The ion storm has passed by, so I don’t think there will be any more interference—and even if it comes back, I doubt our—counterparts—will be going back down to Halkan. Scotty, you, too. I think the three of us ought to be able to handle it. Sulu, you have the conn.” 

“Aye, Captain,” Sulu said. 

Jim turned to Uhura. “Uhura…this isn’t, strictly speaking, in your job description, but would you be willing to put Addie down?” 

Uhura looked down at the little girl in her arms, who had fallen asleep, and nodded. “If it’s okay with you, she can spend the night with me tonight.” 

Jim hesitated, then nodded. “If—” 

“If she needs you, I’ll bring her by.” 

“Thank you.” Jim looked relieved. He turned to Slim and hugged him. “You can go to bed, if you want. Or you can stick around here.” 

Slim hadn’t realized quite how late it was—but, he remembered, they’d only reached Halkan just before Beta shift started. “I’ll stay until you come back, if that’s okay.” 

“Sure. Hopefully we won’t be long.” Jim let go of Slim and headed for the lift, Spock and Scotty in his wake. 

Slim drifted over towards the helm. Sulu looked up at him. “I think they’ll be all right this time.” 

Slim rubbed absently at the bruises on his throat. “I sure as hell hope so.”


	56. What's His Name

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BE WARNED. This is the chapter where we find out what happened to Bones in the mirror universe, so there IS mention of things that may be disturbing or triggering.
> 
> Also, the song Jim sings to Bones in this chapter is called "Evermore." It was written by Sandra Boynton for her book/album _Dog Train_ and performed by Alison Krauss. I highly suggest looking it up, because it's beautiful.

Leo sat upright in the armchair in his quarters, his hands gripping the armrests tightly, staring vacantly ahead at nothing. 

Ever since the landing party had returned from the mirror universe—indeed, since even before they’d left—he’d been in a kind of fog, a state of unreality. And lurking below the surface was barely-concealed terror. He’d barely been able to speak, hardly able to focus on anything. 

Jim had gently guided him back to their quarters from the Transporter Room. He’d helped Leo out of his uniform and into a pair of sweatpants, then tucked him into bed. He’d kissed Leo’s forehead and promised to be back soon. 

And Leo had just lain there. He’d lain there with no awareness of the passage of time, seeing the images play out in his mind’s eye, over and over again, lying perfectly still with his eyes open. Jim had returned and been surprised to find him awake; he’d pulled Leo into his arms, spooning him from behind, and tried to soothe him into sleep. 

It hadn’t worked. 

Leo hadn’t slept, hadn’t eaten. In the middle of the night, hardly aware of what he was doing, he had untangled himself from Jim’s arms and gone into the living room and seated himself in the armchair. And there he had remained, still staring at nothing, still trapped in the horrors of that other universe. He was cold all over, he was in pain in a way he couldn’t explain…and he felt raw, exposed, vulnerable.

“Bones, c’mon.” Jim’s voice was gentle, pleading, but it sounded very far away, like it was muffled in cotton wool. “You’ve gotta eat something. Come on, please, for me.” 

Leo shook his head mutely. He wasn’t hungry. The thought of putting anything in his mouth made him sick to his stomach. 

He couldn’t close his eyes, either. He was even afraid to _blink._ He saw the images clearly enough with his eyes open. Closing them would make it ten times worse. He finally understood why Jim was always afraid to go back to sleep after one of his nightmares about Tarsus IV. 

It wasn’t so much the ordinary horrors of the other universe—the agony booth, the fact that people climbed the ranks through assassination, the anticipated fate of the Halkans—as it was what Leo himself had personally experienced, while the others were running for the transporters. He hadn’t told anyone about it. He couldn’t. He was only vaguely aware that other people were there, and he couldn’t speak properly anyway. 

But the images wouldn’t leave him. 

Up until the last minute, he had honestly thought that the worst thing he would see in that universe would be his daughter’s counterpart. Gone were the chubby cheeks, the impish smile, the sparkle in her eyes. Instead, the little girl’s face had been angular, her eyes calculating, her mouth set in a haughty sneer. There had been no hesitation in her steps as she strode down the corridor, tugging a golden chain, the other end of which… 

Jim had joked about not ever giving Addie a pet, but even he’d been shaken by the sight of the little girl who looked so much like theirs dragging around a woman, a Starfleet officer, on a _leash_. It had only been made worse when the child—whom all the officers deferred to as “Miss Kirk-McCoy”—had spotted them as frauds immediately. She was about as articulate as their Addie, not speaking in really complete sentences yet, but she still could have made trouble for them, and would have, had Jim not thought quickly. Leo thought she might have been in the Transporter Room, arms folded across her chest and a scowl on her face, when they left, but truth be told, he wasn’t sure what had been there and what hadn’t. 

At that point, he had discovered what was _really_ the worst thing about the mirror universe.

Jim rubbed the back of his hand with his thumb. “Bones, please,” he begged. “Talk to me. Just look at me. _Please.”_

Leo heard the desperate, broken note in his husband’s voice and wanted to say something to reassure him, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t even focus on Jim. Jim’s voice had been the counterpoint to his thoughts for so long that it didn’t even sound real anymore. The words were meaningless. 

There was a soft, electronic hiss, and then a quiet voice, not Jim’s, one he should know but didn’t, said, “Captain.” 

“How are things on the bridge?” Jim replied. He was keeping his voice down, too. 

“They are…sufficient,” the other voice replied cautiously. “I must admit that the atmosphere today was…tense. Lieutenant Uhura seems quite suspicious of Lieutenant Chekov, but she would not tell either of us the reason.” 

“The…other Chekov, the one in the mirror universe, made some…pretty explicit advances,” Jim explained. “I guess I should have thought about that before I sent her on duty…” 

“I would say, Captain, that you had other things on your mind.” 

“Yeah.” 

There was a silence, or maybe it was just in Leo’s mind. Then the other voice said, “Doctor?” 

Leo blinked slowly, but didn’t respond. _Doctor,_ something in the back of his mind prodded him. _That’s you. You’re a doctor._

“I can’t get anything out of him,” Jim said in a low voice. “I haven’t been able to since…” 

Leo felt a small shiver run through him. He knew exactly how that sentence was going to end. The other voice spoke again. “Did something happen to him?” 

“I don’t know. I was telling the truth to Sciwyn yesterday—we got separated briefly. There was a fight in Med Bay…it’s a long story, but your counterpart got injured in the struggle. He sent us to the Transporter Room while he tried to make sure your counterpart was all right, and…I don’t know exactly what happened after that.” Jim’s voice shook slightly. “But when your counterpart dragged him into the Transporter Room—at phaser point, might I add—he had the same look on his face as he’s pretty much had since.”

Some of the words filtered through to Leo’s brain, tried to make connections, but everything felt sluggish. The other’s voice spoke hesitantly. “Without knowing the nature of the trauma, it is difficult to suggest a course of action. But I may be able to…ease the pain somewhat. Ordinarily, I would need his permission…” 

“I don’t know.” Jim sounded hesitant, too. “That’s…that’s awfully invasive…” 

“I am aware, Captain. But it may help. And you will recall that he was the one to suggest it, on the planet of the Melkots.” 

There was a pause. “All right. If you’re sure.” 

Leo was vaguely aware of someone kneeling in front of him. He saw a pair of dark eyes, a dark bowl cut…a pair of pointed ears, and then he felt the pressure of fingers against his temple. Against what he knew to be the meld points. 

He flinched, terror flooding him. His eyes squeezed shut, his whole body tensed, and he waited for the rush of pain, the violation, the punishment for trying to fight, even though he couldn’t have fought if he’d wanted to. 

Instead the hand withdrew instantly. Jim’s voice sounded frantic. “Bones! Bones, look at me, tell me what’s wrong.” 

Leo’s eyes opened without him consciously ordering them to do so, his body instinctively responding to his husband. He locked his hazel eyes onto Jim’s desperately worried blue ones. “Jim,” he croaked out. 

Jim reached for him, then stopped himself. “Bones, please. We want to help you. Let Spock—” 

“No!” The cry tore itself from Leo’s throat. Panic gripped him again. He was back in that Med Bay, pressed against the wall, struggling against someone much stronger than him, both physically and mentally… 

He grabbed Jim’s hand and squeezed tightly. “No—please, no—don’t let him—” 

“Oh, God,” Jim choked. He reached up with his free hand and slid it behind Leo’s shoulder.

Leo slid off the armchair. He didn’t do it on purpose, necessarily, he just responded to Jim’s touch, to his terror and fear and his need to be safe, and his body vacated the armchair and poured onto Jim’s lap. He clung to Jim tightly, feeling himself start to tremble. 

“It’s okay, Bones. It’s okay,” Jim murmured, wrapping his arms around Leo and threading his hand through Leo’s hair. “It’s okay. I’m here.” 

“He hurt me,” Leo whispered, burying his face in Jim’s shoulder. 

Jim’s hand stilled. In a carefully controlled voice, he said, “Who did, Bones?” 

“He hurt me,” Leo repeated, like a child. “He didn’t even ask…I might have said yes if he’d asked…but he forced his way in and he took what he wanted and he didn’t…” He wanted to cry, but he couldn’t seem to, everything seemed stuck. 

There was a pause before Jim spoke again, in a faint voice. “The—other Spock?” 

Leo nodded, not lifting his head. “It hurt, Jim. I’ve never felt anything like that in my life…” 

“I know, Bones. I know.” Jim pressed his lips to the top of Leo’s head. “Oh, God, I never should have left you alone with him…” 

“An involuntary mind meld,” Spock said softly. “Small wonder he has been in shock.” 

_Shock._ Leo’s medical training nudged at him. Yes, he was exhibiting all the classic symptoms of shock and trauma. He probably should have gone to Med Bay—he vaguely remembered Jim offering to take him there, but the very thought of it gave him the screaming meemies. That was where he’d been attacked. And Jim would have had to leave him there. At least here, in their quarters, Jim was there…Jim could protect him from anyone who might try to hurt him again. Jim would never let anything happen to him.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Jim half-whispered. It might not have been meant for Leo to hear, or to answer, but he did. 

“I—I couldn’t. I couldn’t say _anything_ …not until you brought up Spock and…” Leo pressed harder into Jim, fisting the fabric of his shirt tightly. 

Jim rubbed his back in soft, gentle circles. “What did he do to you?” he asked quietly. “I mean…I know he forced a mind meld on you, but…” He swallowed hard. “It might help to talk about it.” 

“Does it help you?” Leo asked. 

“Almost always.” 

Leo took a deep, shaky breath. “After I sent you guys out…the other Spock…he woke up. He demanded to know what I was doing, and I told him I was saving his life…and he stood up and said that wasn’t what he meant. He pushed me up against the wall and…I tried to get away, but, Jim, he’s a hell of a lot stronger than I am, even in _our_ universe, and I swear he’s even stronger in that one. I couldn’t fight him…and then he touched my face, and…” He closed his eyes, feeling tears—for the first time since the incident—well up in them. “God, Jim, I know it hurt when Spock Prime did it to you, because you weren’t expecting it and he didn’t prepare you, but…at least he _tried_ not to hurt you too badly. That Spock didn’t. He just…forced his way in, and…I couldn’t stop him, Jim. He poked around in my brain like it was nothing and took whatever the hell he wanted to take and…” 

“And he didn’t care how much it hurt you,” Jim completed softly. 

Leo curled tighter into Jim’s chest, as though someone of his size could actually fit on Jim’s lap. “It would have been better if he didn’t care,” he whispered. “He _did_ care, Jim. He was…he was _enjoying _himself. He _enjoyed_ how much he was hurting me…” __

“Oh, God,” Jim choked out. He tightened his embrace around Leo. “Oh, sweetheart…”

Leo felt something warm and gentle on his back—a hand—but not one of Jim’s, since both of Jim’s were accounted for. “If you would like, Doctor,” Spock said softly, “I can ease that pain. I can help you to forget…” 

“No.” Leo’s eyes flew open and he looked at Spock, cringing away from his hand and trying to quell the panic rising again. “No—I can’t—” 

Spock looked startled, but Jim said, “I understand. You’ve been…you’ve been violated badly enough. You don’t want anyone else messing around in your brain again—even for a good cause. I understand. It’s like—” He stopped. 

Leo looked up at Jim through his haze of tears. Jim’s face was ashen, his own eyes shiny with unshed tears, but he was obviously trying so hard to be strong for Leo. “Like what?” he asked hoarsely. 

Jim bit his lip. “It’s like when you’ve been raped,” he said in a low voice. “You don’t want anyone else touching you, even just to hold you, even if it’s someone who’s never touched you like _that_ and never will—like your mother. It takes time to get over that kind of trauma. I understand. Trust me.” 

Something forced its way through Leo’s pain for himself and made him sit up a little in the circle of Jim’s arms. “Jim—were you—you weren’t—” 

“Bones—” 

“No, dammit, Jim, you’re not getting out of this one. You’re talking from personal experience, aren’t you?” 

Jim bowed his head. “Yeah,” he admitted quietly. “Couple of times. Not counting my first time, which was _technically_ rape, since I was only thirteen and he was…older.” 

“Jim,” Leo whispered, horrified. “How many times?” 

“Four.” Jim’s voice was barely audible. 

Leo felt something cold in the pit of his stomach. “What—how did—” 

But at that, Jim shook his head quickly. “Tell you later.” 

“Jim—” 

“No, don’t argue with me about this one, Bones. I promise I’ll tell you, but—not tonight. You don’t need to hear about this tonight.” 

Leo considered arguing, but he heard the brittle note in Jim’s voice and realized that Jim didn’t need to _talk_ about it right then. _One crisis at a time,_ his brain prompted. 

“All right,” he agreed quietly, resting his head on Jim’s chest again.

Jim carded his hand through Leo’s hair. “Dammit, Bones, I’m so sorry. I never should have—” 

Leo shook his head. He didn’t blame Jim and didn’t want Jim to blame himself. At his most broken, he couldn’t handle that. “No, Jim, it wasn’t your fault.” 

“Like hell it wasn’t! I heard that recitation of horrors that constituted my counterpart’s service record. I saw the agony booths in action. For God’s sake, a man who looked exactly like Sulu tried to kill me in order to gain control of the ship…” 

“But you didn’t know what that Spock was really like. He seemed…closer to the way he is in our universe. And I _made_ you go.” 

“I didn’t want to. I shouldn’t have.” 

“Still not your fault.” 

Spock cleared his throat. “With your permission, Nyota and I will keep Athena tonight as well.” 

Jim nodded. “That’s probably a good idea. We—we could all use another night to calm down.” 

Spock nodded as well, then rose to his feet. “Good night, Jim…Leonard,” he said softly. With that, he turned and strode out of their quarters. 

Leo stayed curled against Jim’s chest, hearing the comforting thud of his heartbeat. Spock rarely called him by his first name, unless things were truly serious. Jim kept running his fingers through Leo’s hair, also not saying anything. They simply clung to one another. As the moments passed, he felt himself relaxing, melting into his husband, feeling safe for the first time since the forcible mind-meld. 

Softly, Jim began to sing. Leo closed his eyes, listening to the music wash over him. It was a sweet, lilting, beautiful song, one he’d never heard before, and the words burned themselves into his slowly mending brain. 

_Evermore I will love you, evermore I will stay…ever right here beside you, never so far away…_

Jim rested his cheek on the top of Leo’s head, rocking him back and forth slightly. Leo hummed with a contentment he’d thought he would never feel again, as Jim promised him, through music, that he would always be at Leo’s side. 

_And though I know sometimes you go to find your way alone…evermore I will love you, you are ever my own…_

“I love you, Jim,” Leo whispered. 

“I love you, too, Bones,” Jim replied, kissing the top of his head. “Never, ever forget that.”

The soft hiss of the door made both of them look up. Slim came in, carrying a tray. “I thought you two might be hungry,” he said. 

Something in his voice made Leo sit up slightly. “What’s wrong with your voice?” he asked. He vaguely remembered Jim asking that question the day before, when they’d beamed back aboard, but he couldn’t remember what the answer actually was. He’d been in something of a fog. 

Slim put the tray down on the coffee table, just at Jim’s elbow. “Chicken salad sandwiches, sweet iced tea, and peach pie. I asked Chekov and he said that was your go-to comfort food.” 

“Slim,” Leo said. 

Slim looked up at Jim, then sighed and sat on the floor with his back to the sofa, drawing his knees up to his chest. “The other Jim Kirk tried to choke me. Did a pretty damned good job of it, too.” 

The fact that Slim had sworn—something he almost never did—electrified Leo almost as much as his actual statement. _“What?”_ he gasped. 

Jim tightened his arms slightly around Leo. “Didn’t you go to Med Bay and get them to look at it?” 

“Yeah. Dr. M’Benga ran a regen over the bruises, but he says there’s not much he can do about the damage to my vocal chords. It’ll have to heal on its own.” Slim rubbed his throat absently. 

“But—but _why?”_ Leo asked, bewildered. “Why would he have tried to kill you?” 

“Pa…” 

“No, dammit, will you two quit trying to avoid telling me things?” 

“No,” Slim said forthrightly. “Not with you still looking like you’ll crumble to dust if I look at you the wrong way.” 

Jim stroked Leo’s head gently. _“I’d_ like to know. We ran into Addie—excuse me, _Miss Kirk-McCoy_ —but we never saw your counterpart, and I was afraid to ask.” 

“Good,” Slim said quietly. “That’d have given you away in a heartbeat. ‘Cause in that universe, I was already dead.” 

“So he tried to kill you because…what, he thought you were trying to capitalize on his pain? Pretending to be the son he’d lost?” Leo pressed. 

Slim sighed. “Pretending to be the son he’d killed is more like it.” 

_“He_ killed—?” Jim turned white as a sheet. 

“Why? How?” Leo whispered. 

“As to _why_ , it was ‘cause he didn’t want anyone to challenge his place as captain of the ship—or, probably, to challenge his daughter’s right,” Slim said. “They were pretty ambitious for their ‘little princess’. As for the _how…”_ He hesitated. “Are you _sure_ you wanna hear this?” 

“Yes,” Jim said firmly, although he was still pale. 

Leo wasn’t so sure, but he rested his head on Jim’s chest again and raised his eyebrows. “Go on, Slim. Did he tell you how he did it?”

“Oh, yeah. In detail.” Slim took a deep breath. “He lured my counterpart into a false sense of security, led him on a tour of the ship, then had the other Spock distract him. He pounced him, choked him half to death, and then…well, he didn’t actually get the chance to _say_ it, Uncle Spock cut him off by turnin’ on the current runnin’ through the cell door. But he didn’t leave me in much doubt as to what he did. He raped my counterpart before he killed him.” 

Leo’s stomach heaved. If he’d been even slightly hungry before, he wasn’t now; in fact, he doubted he would ever eat again. He couldn’t even _imagine_ a father doing something like that to his child… _any_ father. 

Jim was shaking. “Oh, God,” he whispered. “What kind of sick son of a bitch…God, Slim, I’m so sorry.” 

“It ain’t your fault. I know you’d never—but like you said, things are different in that universe. An’ Addie didn’t hear that story,” Slim added. “She an’ Chekov were gettin’ Gottlieb at the time…” 

“I didn’t even _think_ about what Addie might’ve heard or seen,” Jim murmured. 

“What _did_ she see?” Leo asked, trying to draw comfort from Jim’s nearness, even though Jim was just as upset as he was. At least he was coming out of his shock and trauma of the day before. 

Slim ran his hand through his hair. “She saw them get off the platform, for sure. I pushed her out of their line of sight then, but…I don’t know if she saw your counterpart chokin’ me or not. She was cryin’ when Sulu brought me ‘round, though. She definitely heard what he said to me. An’ she was behind the console, sort of, when Uncle Spock had ‘em brought back to beam out, so she heard that whole exchange, too. Ain’t sure what she saw, but…” He bit his lip. “She wasn’t as well-hidden as I thought when they came in. The other Dr. McCoy saw her, called her ‘Princess’, an’ tried to get her to go to them. She hid behind me an’ I told him to leave her alone…he was baitin’ me, then he went for her, an’ I stunned him.” 

“With a phaser?” Jim asked. 

Leo swore he could _see_ the sarcastic comment on the tip of Slim’s tongue, but the young man swallowed it. “Yeah. Uncle Spock gave it to me—just in case. I didn’t want to shoot him, but…I wasn’t sure what he was goin’ to do.” 

“You did the right thing,” Jim assured him. “God…Starfleet really needs to institute a position for a ship’s counselor. After a mission like this, we could use one.” 

“We do all right,” Leo murmured. “I know I feel a lot better now.” 

“Yeah?” Jim stroked Leo’s hair back from his forehead. 

Leo looked up at him and smiled softly. “Yeah. Right here. With you.” 

Slim smiled a little. “Truth is, only reason I wasn’t more scared for the two of you while we were dealin’ with everythin’ was that I knew you were together.” 

Jim smiled, too. “There isn’t much we can’t face together.”

Leo stifled a yawn. Slim glanced at the chronometer on his wrist. “It’s late. I think I’d better get to bed…think you ought to, too.” 

“You’re probably right,” Jim agreed. “Mind if we skip reading tonight?” 

“Not at all. I’m tired, too…’night, Dad, Pa.” 

“G’night, Slim.” 

Slim pushed himself up off the floor and disappeared into his room. Jim kissed Leo’s temple and helped him to his feet. Leo’s knees creaked in protest, and he wobbled a little, his legs unsteady with lack of use. Jim steadied him tenderly, studied him for a moment, then scooped Leo up in a bridal-style carry. 

Leo squawked in surprise, wrapping his arms around Jim’s neck automatically. “Dammit, Jim, what are you doing?” 

“Taking you to bed. Quit squirming or I’m gonna drop you.” Jim kissed the end of his nose, then carried him into the bedroom. “You need your rest.” 

Leo, reluctantly, let Jim set him on the bed, then watched as Jim changed into his own sweatpants before climbing into bed next to him, pulling the covers over them both, and wrapping his arms around Leo. “Lights, two percent,” he ordered. 

In the darkness, Leo snuggled into Jim’s arms. Unlike the night before, when he’d lain still and stiff before wandering out of the room, not feeling much of anything but his own terror and pain, he was able tonight to take comfort from Jim’s embrace. 

“I love you, Jim,” he whispered, turning to lie on top of Jim, his ear close to his husband’s heart. 

Jim wrapped him close. “I love you, too, Bones,” he murmured, kissing the top of his head. Quietly, he sang, “Forever and evermore.” 

Leo gave a soft sigh, closed his eyes, and drifted off to sleep.


	57. But Dancing Is as Far as It Goes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is one of those chapters that really makes me wish I could draw, and I think you'll know exactly what I'm talking about when you see it.
> 
> Chapter title is taken from "You Shouldn't Kiss Me Like This" by Toby Keith. I usually take the titles from "Oklahoma" lyrics, but a) I'm starting to run out of lyrics and b) this fit better for this chapter. As I start pulling titles from other places, I'll try to remember to acknowledge them.

“Uh, s-sir, may I speak with you for a moment, please?” 

At the stammered question, Jim turned in mild surprise to see Ensign Nic’tlarn standing behind him, shifting xyr weight slightly back and forth onto the balls of xyr feet and twisting xyr hands unconsciously. Whatever it was, xe was obviously nervous as hell. 

“Certainly, Ensign,” Jim said. “What can I do for you?” 

Nic’tlarn swallowed. It was mid-shift—Alpha shift, but Jim happened to know that Nic’tlarn was off that day—and the corridor was mostly deserted, but xe still looked over xyr shoulder and lowered xyr voice before answering in a halting fashion. “I—we were—of course if you’ve already made plans—we wouldn’t want to—but if you haven’t—” 

“Ensign Nic’tlarn.” Jim was mildly amused—and a little annoyed. “Spit it out.” 

“Have you made plans for Slim’s birthday, sir?” Nic’tlarn blurted. 

Jim bit back a curse. With all the turmoil of recent events—helping Bones recover from his mental rape, trying to coax a smile out of Addie, making sure Slim rested his voice as much as possible—plus the general administrative duties of a ship’s captain, he’d completely forgotten how soon his son’s birthday was. “No, I haven’t. I suppose I ought to think of something…” 

“We—that is to say, we thought—” Nic’tlarn swallowed again. “We thought…a dance…” 

“That’s a good idea,” Jim said encouragingly. He didn’t know who “we” was, but he almost didn’t care if it took the burden of planning off of him. “Would you be willing to put it together? I know—” 

“Uh—Captain?” Nic’tlarn blushed and lowered xyr eyes. “We’ve _already_ put it together. That’s why—I mean, we just wanted to make sure we weren’t stepping on any toes.” 

Jim exhaled. “Thank God. I don’t mind telling you, Ensign, that I can hardly remember which end is up these days…would it be possible for me to come to this party?” 

“Oh, yes, sir, we’d hoped the whole senior command would come. I mean, we—we know it’s not—” Nic’tlarn’s blush deepened. “It’s just that—we’re his friends, too, sir. We thought…maybe he could have friends _and_ family…” 

“That’s a brilliant idea. When were you thinking of having it?” 

“1630 hours, sir. Port—uh, Ensign Simril is the only one who’s working today, officially, although Slim’s down there, too, but we thought that would give them time to get cleaned up and the senior command time to come in—” 

“Wait.” Jim started. “You’re doing this _today?”_

Nic’tlarn looked up in surprise. “Yes, sir. After all, today _is_ his birthday.”

This time Jim wasn’t able to stop himself from swearing aloud. “Fucking hell! I must’ve lost a day somewhere!” 

“Been a hell of a few weeks.” Nic’tlarn’s eyes widened and xe clapped a hand over xyr mouth. “Oh—pardon my language, Captain…” 

Jim waved a hand. “Only if you’ll pardon mine. _Damn_ …all right, Ensign, thank you for reminding me, and thank you for the invitation. I’ll be there—1630, did you say? And, uh, where?” 

“Oh. Uh. The tertiary gym, sir.” Nic’tlarn twisted xyr fingers again. “I’m sorry, I…I should’ve mentioned that, I…I’m sorry.” 

Jim stopped and took another look at the young ensign. “Ensign, if I may—who else was involved in planning this?” 

“Ensign O’Flaherty, Ensign Cayne, and Ensign Simril. Uh, and Lieutenant Chekov helped us put together the finishing touches.” 

Jim nodded; that made sense. O’Flaherty and Nic’tlarn had been close before joining the crew of the _Enterprise_ , and they’d been absorbed into Slim’s small circle of friends. The curious thing, then, was not who had planned the party but why they had sent Nic’tlarn, who was so shy around authority that xe usually just hovered in the background without saying anything when Sulu and Chekov joined them for Fizzbin. “And…the reason O’Flaherty or Cayne didn’t come to tell me about this party is…?” 

Nic’tlarn blushed again. “We drew straws, sir. I lost.” 

Jim couldn’t help but laugh. “Go finish what you were doing, Nic’tlarn. I’ll spread the word to the rest of the senior command, if you like, and we’ll be there.” 

Nic’tlarn looked relieved. “Thank you, sir. We’ll see you later, sir.” Xe turned so fast xe practically left a puff of smoke and darted off down the corridor.

Jim went up to the bridge first and passed along the ensigns’ invitation. Sulu already knew about it, which Jim had expected from the moment Nic’tlarn told him Chekov had helped out with the planning, but neither Spock nor Uhura knew. However, they both promised to attend. Having duly given the message, and ascertained that Spock could hold things down for an hour or so, he took himself off to Med Bay. 

It was Bones’ first day back at work since their encounter with the mirror universe (as it was now officially designated by the Federation). Jim would have preferred to let Bones rest a little longer—and despite his brusque protests, he suspected that Bones would rather have waited a little longer, too—but he’d managed to sleep through the last two nights without waking up, and he insisted he hadn’t had any nightmares. Physically, medically, he was cleared for duty. 

And McCall, Williams, Gage, and DeSoto had each pulled Jim aside that morning and separately assured him that they would keep an eye on Bones for him. 

“Captain on deck!” Gage called cheerfully and impudently as the door slid open and Jim stepped through. “What’s up, Cap? I didn’t hear them announce an away mission. You couldn’t have gotten _that_ badly hurt just wandering around the _Enterprise—”_ He broke off with a scowl as DeSoto swatted him on the back of the head. “Ow! Jesus, Roy, what was that for?” 

McCall rolled her eyes, but she was smiling affectionately. “He’s in his office, Captain.” 

“Thanks, Dix.” Jim winked at the nurse as he passed her towards Bones’ office. He reached for the door controls, hesitated, and knocked. 

“Enter!” came the gruff voice from inside. 

Jim let the door shut behind him as he studied his husband. On the surface, everything was as usual; his movements were sure and steady as he sorted through paperwork, his forehead was puckered in its typical frown, and he mumbled under his breath as he worked. But all the same, there were differences. Bones was thinner than he had been a scant week before—and he’d never exactly been fat to begin with. He was still pale, and he sat hunched over his work, a weary set to his shoulders. And in the harsh light of the office, Jim could no longer deny what he thought he’d noticed over the last few days: silver threads had begun to appear in Bones’ dark brown hair. Bones was only just shy of forty-six, but for the first time, he looked old. 

He looked up with a faintly irritated scowl, which melted away when he saw Jim. “Hey. Everything okay?” 

“Yeah, everything’s fine. How are you?” Jim perched on the edge of Bones’ desk. 

“All right. The damn paperwork’s piled up while I was out—Dix did pretty well with it, actually, but there’s so much I have to sign before they’ll accept it.” Bones swept his hand around the pile, then looked up at Jim again. “Did I get so wrapped up in it that I missed the end of shift?” 

Jim smiled fondly. “Nah, there’s still about four hours to go. But I just spoke to Ensign Nic’tlarn—remember xyr?” 

Bones’ brow furrowed in thought. “The Zathros, right? Engineering? Hangs around with Slim an’ his friends?” 

“That’s the one. Xe drew the short straw and came to extend an invitation to the birthday party xe and Cayne and Simril and O’Flaherty put together for Slim.” 

“Christ, yeah, Slim’s birthday,” Bones muttered, rubbing his forehead. “Forgot that was coming up. Yeah, I guess we should go to that…save us having to put something together this year, right? When is it?” 

Jim took a deep breath. “Today, Bones. It’s half an hour after Alpha shift ends.”

Bones froze. _“What?”_

“Today is Slim’s sixteenth birthday,” Jim repeated. “I forgot, too. Been a crazy month.” 

“Shit,” Bones breathed. “Shit, no, his birthday’s not—” He stopped, biting his lower lip, then said slowly, “No, it _is_ his birthday. Christ, I keep losing days. First our anniversary, now this…” 

“It’s okay, Bones.” Jim leaned over and kissed Bones’ forehead. “You’re a doctor, not a calendar.” 

“Shut up,” Bones said, but a smile tugged at his mouth anyway, which Jim counted as a victory. “Meet me after shift? We’ll get cleaned up and head to…where is this party, anyway?” 

“Tertiary gym. They’re having a dance, apparently.” Jim slid off of Bones’ desk and claimed another kiss. “See you at 1600.” 

Punctually at the appointed time, Jim was back in Med Bay. Medical staff tended to show up ten to fifteen minutes early, so that they could be briefed on anything they needed briefing on and the people they were relieving could get out on time. Most of the nurses and orderlies called greetings to Jim as he passed them; he returned each with a nod and a smile and a quick word. The only one who didn’t greet him—and whom he didn’t greet in return—was Christine Chapel; they tried as unobtrusively as possible to avoid looking at each other, which probably meant the whole room had noticed. 

He did notice, however, that even the other staff members seemed to be avoiding her. McCall was briefing her—but without making eye contact, and there was an exam table between them. Nobody else even acknowledged her presence. Jim wondered what that was all about. Bones hadn’t mentioned any issues… 

Again he knocked on the door, again Bones summoned him, and he stepped in to see Bones handing over a PADD to M’Benga. “That’s the last of it,” he said. “Unless something goes wrong.” 

“Got it.” M’Benga accepted the PADD. “Good evening, Captain.” 

“Evening, M’Benga. Hey, Bones.” Jim smiled and kissed his husband on the cheek. “Everything okay?” 

“Yeah, never better.” 

Jim glanced over his shoulder, then changed his mind. There would be time enough to ask Bones about what was going on with the nurses later. “Then let’s go get cleaned up.”

They stopped to pick Addie up from Carol, then went back to quarters to get changed. Jim was a little concerned that Slim wasn’t there, but he decided the young man was still in Engineering. He set Addie in the middle of his and Bones’ bed as they stripped out of their uniforms and into something more casual. 

Bones pulled out one of his shirts, hesitated, then put it back. He dug around in the back of the closet and emerged with an extremely faded grey-and-black flannel shirt. “This should be good,” he said, mostly to himself, and shrugged into the shirt. 

Jim started. He recognized the shirt. “Bones, why do you even still _have_ that shirt?” 

“Because you bought it for me, idiot. It’s the one you said looked really good on me.” Bones smiled softly with reminiscence. “I didn’t even know I loved you yet and I still treasured that compliment…” 

“Yeah, but it doesn’t…” Jim trailed off. Bones had been absently doing up the buttons on the front of his shirt as he remembered the shopping trip the two of them had taken, at Jim’s insistence, the first Saturday at the Academy, when he’d realized that they’d both shown up for the shuttle with nothing more than the clothes on their backs, hadn’t even technically taken the entrance exams yet (they’d waived Bones’ on the grounds that he already had an MD and just needed to learn about Starfleet, and Pike had personally vouched for Jim and wrangled him a spot without all the red tape). It fit just as well as it had the day they’d plucked it off the rack at the San Francisco department store. 

But Bones had outgrown it. They’d both put on muscle during their Academy years, and even three years later when they graduated, it had been tight on him. And he’d put on a slight coating of fat during their years in space. It shouldn’t have still fit him. He should have been straining the buttons, if he could even make them meet. 

“Jesus, Bones,” Jim whispered, touching Bones’ side. “I should’ve been taking better care of you.” 

Bones stopped and looked at Jim. “I should’ve been taking better care of myself.” 

“No, you were hurt, you were—” Jim broke off and wrapped his arms around Bones’ waist. “I promised I’d always be there for you, that I’d look after you. And I let you down. I let you get like this…” 

“Jim,” Bones said gently, resting his forehead against Jim’s. “You did everything you could for me. You’ve been better than I deserved this week. I wouldn’t have survived it without you. Like you said, I was hurt—I was sick, I guess. Now I’m…getting better. Slowly. But it’s a recovery like any other. I’ll get back up to where I should be eventually, but meanwhile…well, it’s a good thing I have a few things I hung onto for sentimental reasons.” 

“God, Bones…” 

“C’mon, Jim, we’ve got a party to get to.” Bones kissed Jim tenderly, then pulled away and turned back for the closet.

While Jim was sitting down to put on his shoes, he observed Bones stand on his tiptoes and retrieve a wrapped box from the upper shelf. “What’s that?” 

Bones glanced over his shoulder. “A package bomb.” 

Jim couldn’t help but laugh. “I deserved that. When did you get Slim a birthday present?” 

“I knew what I wanted to get him, so I had Dix pick it up for me when we were at the last space station. Never planned on going over, and as it turned out…” 

“Yeah,” Jim said with a nod. He was still grateful to Bones for holding him that evening. Suddenly he remembered the purchases _he’d_ made on the space station. “Shit, I never wrapped what I—” 

Silently, Bones handed him another box, wrapped in gold paper with a blue ribbon. Jim looked down at it, then sheepishly up at Bones. 

“You were busy,” Bones said with a soft smile. “Being captain, being a good friend, being a good father, being a good husband. I thought I’d do something for you.” 

Jim caught Bones’ head and drew him down for a kiss. “I don’t deserve you.” 

“You deserve better.” 

“Let’s not have this discussion tonight.” 

Bones laughed—actually laughed—and drew back, then scooped up Addie. “C’mon, baby, let’s go dancing.” 

Addie pointed to the package in Bones’ arm. “Present?” 

Jim put his free arm around Bones’ waist, embracing both him and Addie. “Yes, baby. It’s a present for Slim.” 

“’Lim,” Addie repeated dutifully. “Addie, too?” 

“No, not today.” 

Addie stuck out her lower lip in a pout. Jim couldn’t help but laugh as they headed down the corridor like some sort of awkward four-legged monster.

When they reached the tertiary gym, it was to find the rest of senior command, minus Scotty, already there, as well as three of the hosts. Nic’tlarn and O’Flaherty—the latter presenting male in a striped shirt open at the throat and with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows—were putting the finishing touches on a table of gifts; Cayne, wearing a three-quarter-length dress of some diaphanous purple material and a pair of tan shoes with a slight heel, was fussing over the music system. Her hair hung in a thick golden braid down her back, and she, or someone else, had woven flowers and ribbons through it. 

Addie’s eyes got big and round when she saw Cayne. “Apunza!” she exclaimed. 

“Bless you,” O’Flaherty said absently. 

Cayne looked up and smiled. “Hey, Addie,” she said warmly, then turned her smile to Jim and Bones. “Hello, Captain, Dr. McCoy.” 

“Apunza,” Addie insisted. 

Uhura, who was wearing a short, pleated sleeveless dress in a spring green, laughed. “She _does_ look like Rapunzel, doesn’t she, Addie?” 

Jim set Addie on the floor and let her run over to give Uhura and Spock hugs. “Where do you want us to put these?” 

“Uh, here, I’ve got it.” O’Flaherty took the box from Jim’s hands and set it on the table, adjusting the angle meticulously. It was a brilliant effect, Jim had to admit, but he wondered if it was absolutely necessary. 

Bones looked around. “Missing a couple.” 

“They’re coming up from Engineering,” Sulu reminded him. “They’ll probably all grab showers before they come in.” 

Almost as the words left his mouth, the door slid open and Scotty came in, a box under one arm and what hair he had left still wet. “The laddies will be along in a minute,” he said, setting the present on the table. “Sorry we’re behind. Got a wee bit…tied up.” 

Jim narrowed his eyes suspiciously at the slight twitch of Scotty’s lips. “In what?” 

“Tubing, mostly. Although there were some loose wires, too. Not live ones.” 

“Scotty…” 

“It’s all right, Jim. I’d have called you if it wasn’t. You know that.” Scotty patted his shoulder.

Addie came over and tugged at Jim’s pant legs. “What dat?” she asked, pointing at Scotty. 

Jim was about to fight down a surge of panic that his daughter seemed to have forgotten one of her uncles when Scotty said blithely, “’Tis called a _kilt,_ lassie.” 

Of course, she was talking about his outfit, Jim realized. He was just so accustomed to seeing Scotty in full kit—he broke out his kilt and sporran every time he wore his dress uniform—that he’d given up being surprised by it. It had never occurred to him that Addie couldn’t remember ever having seen it. But the last time Scotty had had occasion to wear it, she had been only a couple of months old. 

He amused himself for a few moments watching Scotty patiently attempt to teach her to pronounce _kilt_ correctly. She was still having trouble with her L’s and R’s, pronouncing both of them like W’s, and she didn’t quite get the hang of two consonant sounds right after the other yet, so the word was a little beyond her powers. 

A communicator chirruped. O’Flaherty pulled one out of his pocket, then called out, “They’re coming!” 

Jim moved back to Bones’ side and slid his arm around his waist as they all turned to the door. Slim’s voice could be heard in the hallway. “…still say this is ridiculous. I can’t fence in somethin’ like this.” 

“Trust me, Valdez,” Simril’s deeper voice replied. 

“Valdez?” Bones whispered in Jim’s ear. 

“I have no idea,” Jim whispered back. 

The door slid back to a general cry of “SURPRISE!” Slim certainly looked surprised—although not as surprised as Jim was. His son was wearing a blue vest over a white shirt, a pair of brown pants, and his workout shoes—the only thing that didn’t go with the outfit. It made him look a lot older than sixteen. Jim glanced at Cayne’s purple dress and wondered if she had had a hand in his outfit. From the way her green eyes widened before a blush came to her cheeks, he guessed not. 

“You guys—” Slim blushed, too, although he was looking at the room in general and not Cayne in particular. “You didn’t have to do all this—” 

Simril was grinning ear to ear as he cuffed Slim lightly on his shoulder. “Sure we did. It’s your birthday.” 

“Birfday, ‘Lim!” Addie cried, clapping her hands in delight. 

Slim laughed and picked his sister up, kissing the top of her forehead. “Thanks, Addie. Thanks, everyone,” he added, looking back at the others. 

“Don’t thank us,” Sulu said, gesturing to Nic’tlarn, O’Flaherty, Cayne, and Simril. “They’re the ones who set this all up.” 

“Lieutenant Chekov helped,” O’Flaherty and Nic’tlarn said in unison, then turned red simultaneously. Jim couldn’t help but laugh, and most of the senior command joined in. Even Simril laughed, although he was the only one of the ensigns who didn’t look flustered.

When the merriment died down, Uhura handed a plain unwrapped box to Slim. “This is _not_ your birthday present,” she warned him. “I’ve been meaning to give you these for a couple of weeks and just haven’t had a chance. And you’re going to need them.” 

“Should I be worried?” Slim asked lightly, undoing the seal on one end and pulling the box open. His smile dropped as he pulled out a pair of black shoes. “Oh, no…” 

“Oh, yes.” Uhura smirked. 

Addie frowned. “What dat?” she asked again. 

“They’re dancin’ shoes, Addie,” Slim told her. He gave a theatrical sigh and sat in a chair, then began changing his shoes. 

As he tied off the laces on the second pair, Cayne pressed a button on the music system. Jim instantly recognized the song that came on as “Boot-Scootin’ Boogie,” a staple of country line dancing and one he remembered very well. Slim’s face lit up, and he moved into the center of the gym, along with his friends. 

Jim dragged Bones onto the dance floor, Uhura right behind them. Sulu and Chekov joined in, too. It was obvious that neither of them knew the steps, nor did Simril; they stumbled as they tried to keep up, at least at first, but by the third rotation, Chekov had caught on. Cayne was impressive, though; she added in a twirl to the second set of “grapevines” without missing a step. All of the young ones were grinning, obviously enjoying themselves. 

There were quite a few line dances after that. Jim knew most of them; he and Bones had frequented a club called Rooster’s during their Academy days, which offered free line dance lessons three nights a week. He was pleasantly surprised that he could not only remember them, but keep up with them, since some of the songs were incredibly fast. When those came on, it was usually just him, Bones, Slim, and Cayne on the floor. 

“You two are good at these,” Jim complimented them as they headed towards the end of “T-R-O-U-B-L-E.” 

“Learned in gym,” Cayne said, a little breathlessly. Slim nodded in confirmation.

There was a moment between each song to enable them to catch their breath. The next song, though, was one Jim didn’t recognize—at least, not as a line dance song. “What’s this?” 

Slim’s face lit up. “Western slide. C’mon!” 

“Is zat anything like ze Electric Slide?” Chekov asked hopefully. 

“Same thing.” 

“Illogical,” Spock said, frowning. “An electric slide would be painful and—” 

“Come on, you mad bastard.” Scotty dragged Spock onto the dance floor. “Look, it’s the easiest thing in the world…” 

Slim and O’Flaherty were both singing along to the music as they danced—it sounded like a love song—and Jim was just glad they were enjoying themselves. When it ended, there was that brief pause, and then the strains began to a song every single Terran child learned at one time or another, a classic party staple from the twentieth century. It just so happened that when they started, Jim’s back was to Spock. On the third repetition, however, Spock was in front of him, and he almost fell over laughing at the sight of the stoic Vulcan, his face perfectly blank and not a hair out of place, mechanically and perfectly executing the motions to the “Macarena.” 

“Anyone for a drink?” O’Flaherty asked as the song ended and something else came on, a little bit more generic, one of those songs that you could dance to but that didn’t have a specific meter or a designated dance. 

The group swarmed over the small refreshment table, which seemed to have nothing but the apple soda Slim liked (Scotty pulled a face, but drank it willingly enough). Bones raised an eyebrow at Cayne. “You planned this playlist with breaks in it, didn’t you?” 

Cayne blushed, but grinned. “I find it hard to stop dancin’ if I know the dance to the music, so…yeah, reckon I did.” 

“The dances you have selected are…interesting,” Spock said blandly. “I prefer more traditional Earth dances, however.” 

“They’re comin’ up, sir,” Cayne told him. “I like ballroom better, too, but I thought line dances would get everyone movin’.” 

Jim smiled up at Bones. His husband’s face was flushed with exertion, but he looked happy as well, happier than he had in days. “Been a few years since we’ve done those, huh, Bones?” 

“Just a few,” Bones agreed with a grin. He turned to the four ensigns. “Is Rooster’s still there? We didn’t exactly have time to go wandering around ‘Frisco the last time we were there.” 

“Sure is,” Cayne said cheerfully. “’Leastaways, it was when I was there.” 

“It’s still there, all right.” O’Flaherty indicated Nic’tlarn. “Where d’you think xe learned those dances?” 

Nic’tlarn blushed and lowered xyr eyes. Simril chuckled. “I never went…I was never much for going out in the evenings. Mostly stayed in studying. I kind of wish I _had_ gone, now.” 

“I’ll have to check it out when I get there,” Slim said absently as he drained his cup.

Jim didn’t say anything, but deep down he felt a pang of regret—and perhaps a bit of fear. He tried not to think of Slim at the Academy more than necessary; while he, and everyone else on the _Enterprise,_ had always assumed it was going to happen, he rarely thought about the _when_. But the fact remained that Slim was sixteen now. He’d left it too late to take the entrance exams for this year, they were sending notifications now, and unlike when Jim had attended, he couldn’t just get in by saying he was a Kirk. He would have to take the exams and go through the interviews like anyone else. Still, it was almost a certainty that he would get in when the time came—and he was almost certain to do it in the next year or so. 

Which meant that Jim would lose his son. 

He’d always known it was coming eventually. After all, he’d been the one to tell Slim, the very first morning, that they would only be allowed to stay together for the duration of the five-year mission at best. And yet…he’d somehow forgotten about that. He’d let himself get lulled into a sense of complacency, like the mission would go on forever. But Slim’s innocent comment had thrown the truth into sharp relief. They had been aboard the _Enterprise_ for a bit less than two and a half years. There was only a little more than half of the mission to go. Addie was two and a half. Slim was sixteen. God, where had the time gone? 

It wasn’t like people hadn’t warned him this was coming. He remembered Spock Prime’s quiet words to him, at the conclusion of the banquet on New Vulcan: _My Jim had a son as well, although by a different woman and under different circumstances, and he never knew until he was already grown—it is fortunate for you that you knew in time to capture even a few brief years of his childhood._ Hackett, too, had cautioned him before the picnic: _Your son’s practically a young man now._ Even Pike—or the man who seemed to be Pike—had remarked on it: _You’ve got a son who’ll be a man before you know it._ Maybe he hadn’t wanted to believe it. Certainly it had been easier not to think about it. 

He was thinking about it now.

The song switched over to one Jim didn’t know. Cayne pulled a face. “Gods of Olympus, why did I put this one first?” she muttered, sounding like she was talking half to herself. “I ain’t any good at the cha-cha.” 

“You didn’t do the ballroom music,” O’Flaherty reminded her. “I did. I didn’t know you don’t cha-cha well or I wouldn’t have put it on at all.” 

Uhura set down her cup. “C’mon, Slim, time to prove you haven’t forgotten everything I taught you.” 

Slim blushed, but stepped out onto the dance floor with Uhura. Jim watched as his son led her through the dance. He was rough—even Jim, who had never taken a ballroom dance class in his life, could see that—but he did passably well. He did even better when they started facing one another and showing off individual steps rather than doing them together. At least he had good rhythm. 

O’Flaherty nudged Nic’tlarn, then dragged xyr onto the dance floor. They were significantly better at the cha-cha than Slim was. Jim couldn’t hold back an affectionate grin as Sulu coaxed Chekov out, too. Chekov stumbled a lot, but Sulu kept him from falling. Chekov kept his eyes fixed trustingly on Sulu’s. 

“I won’t ask you,” Bones said in Jim’s ear. “I think Chekov’s better at this than you would be.” 

“I’ve never taken a lesson in my life, so you’re probably right,” Jim said, smirking. 

He watched the other three couples go through a couple more Latin dances. When a two-step came on, Jim and Bones joined them, but the second it was over, they were off the dance floor and watching again. The Latin dances gave way to more traditional ballroom, and Jim could see that here, Slim was much more confident. Halfway through what Scotty informed him was a foxtrot, Spock moved onto the dance floor and to Slim’s side, matching the boy’s steps. Slim let go of Uhura’s waist, then smoothly transferred her hand to Spock’s without breaking stride. Once Spock had taken the lead, Slim stepped back, then left the dance floor and accepted a cup of soda Cayne handed him. 

“You do well with the ballroom dances,” Jim complimented him. 

Slim blushed. “Thanks, Dad. Ain’t so good at the Latin, though.” 

“I wasn’t going to say that.” 

“It’s true, though.” Slim laughed. 

“Don’t feel bad,” Cayne told him, nudging him gently. “I ain’t much good at ‘em either. Not that I learned many. Rumba, cha-cha, an’ tango.” 

“Where did you learn them?” Bones asked. 

“Elective at the Academy.”

Addie, who had been quietly watching everything, ran over to Slim and held up her arms. “’Lim, dance!” she begged. 

Slim looked startled. “You wanna dance with me, Addie?” 

“Dance,” Addie said again, stretching her arms closer to him. 

“Well…all right.” Slim started to pick Addie up, but she wiggled and squirmed until he set her down again. 

The song ended and a new one came on. Addie, gripping Slim’s hand, dragged him onto the dance floor, then took his other hand. Jim recognized the beat as a two-step, but he didn’t bother asking Bones to join him. Instead, he just watched Slim trying, patiently, to lead Addie through the steps. She stumbled and giggled and generally made a mess of it—at first. To his surprise, by about halfway through, she was starting to get the hang of the steps. 

“I think we have a dancin’ prodigy on our hands,” Bones said, sliding his arm around Jim’s waist. 

“Think you’re right.” Jim smiled broadly at the sight of Slim and Addie. 

At the very end of the song, Slim hoisted Addie up and set her on his shoulder, beaming up at her. She giggled, clapping her hands, as Slim carried her off the dance floor. Jim held out his arms for her. “Did you have fun?” he asked her. 

“Uh-huh.” Addie nodded, then beamed at Slim. “T’ank ‘ou, ‘Lim.” 

“You’re welcome, baby.” Slim kissed her cheek.

Cayne brightened at the next song. “Hey, this is a good one.” 

Jim tilted his head. “How do you even know what it is? All I hear are drums.” 

“Rawlins used to use it in class when we warmed up with swing.” 

Slim bowed to her. “Swing’s probably my second-best dance. May I…?” 

“Absolutely.” Cayne smiled and accepted his hand, letting him lead her onto the dance floor. 

Jim watched closely as they danced. They were obviously having a good time, laughing as Slim led Cayne through a series of passes and turns. Both of them were good at it—very good—but they were enjoying the dance more than anything else. Unconsciously, he found himself relaxing. Probably they would have danced like that even if they were partnered with someone else. 

The next song was also a swing dance, a slightly faster one. O’Flaherty and Nic’tlarn were the first to leave the dance floor; Jim wouldn’t have paid much mind to it, except that O’Flaherty had a barely-suppressed smile on his face. Sulu and Chekov came off next, breathing a little heavily but smiling. Towards the end of the song, Spock caught O’Flaherty’s eye, and when the song ended, he led Uhura off the dance floor, leaving Slim and Cayne alone, grinning and obviously waiting for the next song, expecting a swing tune. 

Except it wasn’t. The next song was softer, slower—obviously a waltz. Slim began leading Cayne as though it were merely a continuation of the swing. Jim held his breath, his arm tightening unconsciously around Bones’ waist, as he watched the two of them dancing. 

It was obvious that this was Slim’s best dance, and equally obvious that it was one of Cayne’s best. She seemed to float across the floor. Slim, too, moved with unexpected grace, as though he wasn’t touching the ground. Their broad grins had faded into soft smiles, then serious expressions, but their eyes never left one another’s. 

Jim was only halfway paying attention to the song itself, but he was aware that it was a duet, and a love song at that. Slim lifted his arm and Cayne spun gracefully under it, her skirt swirling outward, before putting her hand back on his shoulder. 

“Oh, God,” Jim said softly, feeling tears start to spring into his eyes. He’d teased Slim before about having a crush on Cayne, but he’d never seen the evidence so clearly before his eyes. Nor had he realized that the crush was reciprocated. 

Suddenly, he wondered if either of them had mentioned it to the other.

The music slowed down, and Slim and Cayne slowed their steps appropriately. The vocals trailed off into a ripple of piano keys, then the music stopped, leaving the two of them standing in the middle of the dance floor, still held in the correct frame, staring at one another. 

Simril began clapping. The other two ensigns joined in immediately, as did Sulu and Chekov. The sound seemed to break the spell. Slim and Cayne dropped one another’s hands and blushed, taking a step back each, then quickly left the dance floor. 

“Presents?” Nic’tlarn suggested, casting a very brief, anxious glance at Jim before turning back to Slim with a broad smile. 

Jim made himself focus on the rest of the party, on Slim’s obvious delight at his gifts (mostly books, as it turned out) and Addie insisting that everyone, even Nic’tlarn, dance with her. But some of the joy had gone out of the day. 

As everyone was cleaning up, Jim buttonholed O’Flaherty. “What was that song called?” he asked in a low voice. 

To his credit, O’Flaherty knew exactly which song he was referring to. “‘This Never Happened Before.’ It’s from a musical called _Bonnie and Clyde,_ from the early twenty-first century.” 

“It’s a good song,” Jim said, truthfully. “Did you…plan that?” 

“Um…kind of, sir,” O’Flaherty admitted. “I didn’t expect it to be so…” 

“Yeah,” Jim agreed. “Me, either.”

That night, after Slim and Addie were in bed, Jim stretched out on the bed while Bones took a shower. His reading glasses perched on the end of his nose—most people got Retinex injections, but Jim was allergic to the serum, so he had to settle for the old-fashioned method—he scrolled through a database of Broadway showtunes until he found _Bonnie and Clyde_. It took him a little longer to find “This Never Happened Before,” but once he did, he pressed the play button and settled back to listen. 

It was soft and achingly sweet, a duet between (Jim assumed) Bonnie and Clyde, who were obviously exploring a new relationship. Tears welled up in his eyes as he listened. 

_Think I’m in heaven…_

_Feel that way, too, babe…_

It was the way he felt with Bones, but it was just as obviously the way Slim and Cayne were beginning to feel about one another. Jim felt a lump come into his throat, as much at the emotion behind the words as the words themselves. He wondered if they had even heard the words, or if they’d just felt the music and danced. 

_This never happened before…_

Bones came in as the song ended, shirtless and damp. “Jim?” he said gently, sliding into the bed. 

Jim turned and nuzzled into his husband’s side, letting the tears spill down his cheeks. “God, Bones,” he whispered. 

Bones didn’t ask questions. He simply pulled Jim into his arms, removed his glasses, set them and the PADD on the nightstand, and quietly ordered the lights down low. Jim curled against him in the darkness, crying unashamedly, as Bones held him and stroked his hair, rocking him back and forth. 

Finally, when Jim felt as though there weren’t any tears left, he leaned limply against Bones. Bones threaded his fingers through Jim’s hair. “It’s all right, Jim,” he whispered, kissing the top of his head. “It’s okay. Whatever it is, it’s not somethin’ we can’t fix together.” 

“We can’t fix this, Bones,” Jim murmured, a little brokenly, feeling himself slowly slipping into sleep. “Our little boy is growing up.”


	58. He Knew

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Allow me to preface this chapter by stating that I am not now, nor have I ever been, a teenage boy. Nor do I have one. I have a younger brother, but when he was sixteen I was graduating high school and moving into college, and he's also an oddball.
> 
> So if Slim seems to be behaving in a manner inconsistent with a typical teenage boy in this chapter...let's hand-wave it away by saying that he's NOT a typical teenage boy, and move on.

If this was what being sixteen was like, Slim decided, he wanted no part of it. 

He was still going through puberty, which meant his body was still growing and changing, on what seemed like a daily basis. Hair was beginning to sprout—not in as many places as it could have, from what he’d read in school back on Earth, but in enough that it was marginally unpleasant—and about the only consolation in that was that it was pale and fine. He was on the verge of a growth spurt, too, which meant that his legs ached and he seemed to be constantly hungry. And to top it all off, he was maturing in…other ways as well. 

In the week since his birthday, Slim had woken up four nights out of seven from some… _incredibly_ vivid dreams to find the inside of his underwear wet and sticky. He wasn’t sure what was more embarrassing, the dreams themselves or his reaction to them. His father would probably have something to say when the laundry came back that week with twice its usual volume of underpants, and Slim had no idea what he was going to say when it came time for _that_ conversation. 

He also had no idea how to deal with erections, exactly. He’d been waking up with them for close to a year and feeling embarrassed; luckily, he’d discovered that if he ignored them, they usually went away after a few minutes. But in the last month or so—and especially since his birthday—he’d been getting them at random other times during the day, and he had no idea why. Some of them had occurred when he was thinking about Audra (and that was a whole _other_ level of embarrassment right there), but other times he would be doing something innocuous like eating, fencing, or his astrophysics homework, and suddenly his penis would jump to attention for no discernable reason. He dreaded the day one happened and somebody (like Audra) noticed. 

Part of him had toyed with the idea of looking it up, finding out if this was common or what could possibly be causing it, but he always stopped himself. The captain, the first officer, and the chief of security could all access the search history of any computer or device on the ship’s network—for security reasons—and Slim dreaded Spock or Jim or, heavens forbid, Dickenson finding out that he’d been looking up these things and asking embarrassing questions. Then again, maybe he _should_ , because if there was a genuine issue, then he should go to Med Bay and get someone to look at him, but he didn’t really want to look his stepfather in the eye and admit he was having problems like that…

The whole thing gave Slim a headache, which was something _else_ he probably should have gone to see Leo about. Except that he could tell the difference between a sick headache, a tension headache, and a headache from over-thinking things. This was the latter. He knew he ought to just stop thinking about it, but as well tell a supernova to just stop exploding. 

Even besides the physical issues, Slim’s first week of being sixteen had been a little stressful. He hadn’t seen Audra or the others, except when they were on the clock, and Audra hadn’t looked him in the eye at any point, had barely spoken except when absolutely necessary. He was afraid that he’d inadvertently crossed some sort of invisible line when they’d been dancing together. It was only that he’d gotten lost in the dance and the music. He’d felt as though Audra was…a _part_ of him, like they weren’t really dancing with anyone else, like he was dancing with himself. It had been wonderful and amazing. The problem, though, was that if Porter and the others hadn’t started clapping when the dance ended, he might have kissed her, right then and there in the middle of the gym, in front of God and everybody. He didn’t know if she knew that or not. If she did, he didn’t know if she was angry at him because he’d been about to cross another one of those lines…or if she was upset that he hadn’t. 

If the rest of his sixteenth year was going to be like this, Slim thought he might just go to bed and ask his dad to wake him up on his seventeenth birthday.

With a sigh of frustration, Slim pushed aside his (finally completed) homework and glanced at the chronometer. 1427—about an hour and a half to go in Alpha shift. He could go up to the bridge to see what was going on, but he was starting to get leery of going up there without an invitation or an order; he was only a civilian, and not a particularly high-ranking one. He couldn’t go down to the engine room, he’d worked there the day before. He could go run fencing drills, or practice his dancing, but he didn’t like being alone in the gym anymore because it made him remember dancing with Audra. 

Really, the number of places on this damned ship that _didn’t_ make him think of Audra was getting discomfortingly small. 

Growling under his breath, Slim got abruptly to his feet. Maybe pacing a deck or two would help. 

It didn’t, exactly. Twenty minutes later he found himself on the observation deck, and although he wasn’t _quite_ as frustrated as he had been, he was still confused and stressed. He hadn’t consciously set out to come here, but maybe it would turn out to be a good thing. The stars usually calmed him. 

Usually. 

Slim strode across the room and stood in the corner by the window, half-glaring at the universe as it passed them by, or they passed it by. Even the dance of the stars and planets couldn’t make him stop thinking about the things roiling in his mind.

The worst of it, he thought, was that he couldn’t _talk_ about it to anyone. Partly he was afraid of being told he was deviant or unnatural or something; the mistreatment he’d received in foster homes reared its head and made him shy away from sharing anything with adults he wasn’t one hundred percent certain would be readily accepted. Partly it was that he was on an active starship. The Klingons or the Romulans—or even the Tholians, although they didn’t seem to be conquerors in the way the other two were—could attack at any moment. There could be an outbreak of some kind of xenobiotic plague. They could wind up in an uncharted asteroid field, fly through an ion storm, or be near a star that unexpectedly went nova. The engines could stall, overheat, or explode. When one considered all the serious, very real concerns the ship’s officers had to deal with, Slim’s uncontrollable penis was hardly worth mentioning, something so trivial there was no point in bothering anyone. 

“Hey, what are you doing up here?” 

Slim about jumped out of his skin. He whirled around, unconsciously stepping into one of the defensive crouches his father had taught him, then relaxed when he saw Porter standing behind him, both hands held up in a placating gesture. “Port? I could ask you the same. Is Alpha over already?” 

“Today’s my day off.” Porter ambled over to stand next to him. “Believe it or not, I’ve actually been asleep for most of it…I was _exhausted._ What are you up to?” 

“I was just…” Slim gestured helplessly at the firmament. “Sorting stuff out. Or tryin’ to. Not really doin’ too well at it.” 

“Anything I can help with?” Porter asked, raising an eyebrow. 

Slim hesitated. “Probably not.” 

Porter leaned forward against the railing. “Try me.” 

Slim mimicked the posture. “I just…I don’t know. Stuff.” 

“Wanna be more specific? I know some ‘stuff,’ but that covers a lot of ground.”

Slim laughed, a little unwillingly. “It’s just…I don’t know. I ain’t sure…in the grand scheme of things, it ain’t that big a deal, but…” 

Porter chuckled. “You may be unique in the annals of human history. I’ve never yet met a teenage boy who didn’t think the universe revolved around him, myself included. But seriously, if it’s not a big deal, maybe I can actually help with it.” 

Slim considered continuing to put Porter off. But the truth was that he _did_ desperately want to talk to _someone_ , and his friend was probably the only person aboard the ship who might be able to give him some answers without judging him. He seriously didn’t want to bother any of the senior command—not even Chekov or Sulu, who treated him as more or less an equal when they were off-duty—and the only other people Slim might have considered discussing this with were O’Flaherty and Nic’tlarn. But even discounting the fact that he didn’t know them quite as well as he knew Porter—yet—they both presented unusual genders, and Nic’tlarn wasn’t even human. They probably didn’t have much insight into his problems. 

Taking a deep breath, he said quietly, “I—I’ve been havin’—I ain’t sure how to explain it. But I’ve been havin’…dreams…an’ when I wake up, I’ve…” He blushed, not sure how to phrase it. 

But Porter was nodding in understanding. “Wet dreams. Gotcha.” 

“What?” Slim looked up in surprise. 

“Wet dreams. It’s—that’s kind of the slang term for them. You have really vivid dreams—usually they have to do with sex, but sometimes they’re just about a particular person—and they’re usually accompanied by—I think the term is ‘nocturnal emissions.’” 

Relief flooded through Slim. “You mean it’s normal?” 

“Sure is.” Porter grinned. “You thought there was something wrong with you?” 

“I just—I didn’t know.” Slim exhaled deeply. “It ain’t exactly somethin’ anyone talked to me about.” 

“Well, for crying out loud, Valdez, why didn’t you just ask your dad? Or McCoy?” 

“Didn’t think it was worth botherin’ them about.” 

“You thought there was something wrong with you, but not that your parents deserved to know? I’d love to hear the logic behind that one.”

“I didn’t think about ‘em bein’ my folks, just…bein’ adults.” Slim rubbed the back of his neck. “Most of my foster families…if I’d gotten caught with stains like that in my underwear, I’d’ve gotten a beatin’. I know I ain’t been in the system for more ‘n two years, but…some things are harder to shake ‘n others.” 

“Yeah…I can understand that. You’re not gonna shake eleven years of conditioning in two.” Porter studied Slim. “Is that your only problem?” 

Relief freed Slim’s tongue. “Well, if that ain’t a problem—I guess gettin’ erections for no real reason ain’t a problem, either?” 

Porter gave a hoot of laughter. “Gods of Olympus, no. When I was sixteen, a stiff breeze could set me off. It’s just blood rushing down to that particular portion of the anatomy. And if you’re worried about waking up with one, don’t be. It’s apparently a side effect of REM sleep.” 

“I really should have asked someone sooner,” Slim mumbled, half to himself. “I’ve been worryin’ over nothin’…” 

“You want the truth, Slim?” Porter asked. “I thought there was something wrong with me at first, too—only psychologically, not physically, because I kind of assumed that there was always a reason. And I shared a room with Allyn, so I thought I was attracted to my sister and freaked the hell out in the privacy of my own mind. But I had an advantage over you in that I was going to a regular high school, so I had male friends my age who talked about _nothing else._ That’s how I found out morning wood was normal. And I went to talk to the school’s guidance counselor— _that_ was an adventure, she was about a hundred years old and chain-smoked—and she reassured me that there was nothing wrong with me. The way she put it was—” he adopted a raspy, feminine voice—“‘As long as you’re not jerking off to mental images of your sister, you’re just fine.’ You’d better believe I had some nightmares over _that_ for a while.” 

Slim laughed. “Okay, long as you don’t mind answerin’ my weird, awkward questions…” 

“Hey, no, go right ahead. I always wanted a little brother, complete with answering these kinds of questions.” Porter flashed him a grin. 

Slim smiled back. “‘Jerking off?’” 

“Masturbating.”

“I—uh—don’t know how to do that. Or what it is.” Slim flushed again under Porter’s incredulous gaze. “I mean…I’ve seen the word, in books and stuff, but…I ain’t never gotten around to looking up what it actually _is.”_

“Well, I’m not gonna give you a demonstration,” Porter said with the ghost of a grin. “But…well, okay. I’ll do my best to explain…” 

And, to his everlasting credit, he did. Slim listened carefully as Porter talked him through things he probably should have asked his father about a long time ago. For the first time, he realized what he was missing out on by not being on Earth, in a regular school setting. Before he’d gotten to know Audra and Porter, the closest person to him in age had been Chekov, who was twice his age. Even the four ensigns he now considered his friends were five, six years older than he was. He didn’t have contemporaries—didn’t have anyone his age with whom he could discuss the changes in their bodies. Even though nobody ever specifically said so, Slim knew that he was generally lumped in with the ensigns in their early twenties. The senior command—even his own father—didn’t think much about the fact that he was only a teenager. He tended to act older than he was, too, which probably didn’t help. 

But at least Porter was close enough to puberty to remember what it was like, and Slim found that the more he listened, the less awkward he felt about asking questions. He was incredibly grateful that Porter answered him as easily as though they were talking about the warp core. 

He was even more grateful that nobody came onto the observation deck during the explanation.

“Have you got all that?” Porter asked at last. 

“Think so,” Slim said honestly. “Thanks, Port.” 

“No prob.” Porter grinned. “Anything else been bothering you lately?” 

Slim hesitated. “Well…yeah, kind of. I…did I do somethin’ wrong last week? When I was dancin’ with Audra?” 

Porter’s smile disappeared. “What do you mean?” 

“It’s just…I ain’t sure if I crossed a line that I didn’t know about. If you hadn’t started clappin’, I…” Slim bit his lip and couldn’t finish. 

But Porter nodded slowly. “That’s kind of why I started clapping. I wasn’t sure which one of you was going to forget yourself first.” 

Slim looked up quickly. “What do you mean?” 

“I don’t know for sure,” Porter said, “but you two…I mean, I’ve seen the way you look at Audra, especially when you think she can’t see you, and I’ve seen the way she looks at you. You _like_ her like her, right?” 

“Yeah,” Slim admitted. “I do. Reckon I have for a while.” 

“Yeah, well…I don’t know if she likes you, too, but I do know that if she hasn’t said anything one way or another, it’s probably for a good reason. You’re sixteen, and…I hate it when adults say teenagers don’t know their own hearts or minds, and it’s not true anyway, so I won’t say that, but she’s twenty-one. She’s a legal adult. You’re not. If I had a crush on a sixteen-year-old—even one as mature as you—I sure as hell wouldn’t admit it. Even to my crush.” 

“So did I do somethin’ wrong by dancin’ with her?” Slim asked again. 

Porter hesitated. “I don’t think so. I think she’s just afraid you might have noticed how she felt—or that your dad might have—so she’s avoiding you for a while. Just until she sorts things out. But I don’t know. You two really ought to talk to each other.” 

“That’s hard to do when she won’t look at me,” Slim pointed out. 

“True. Well…if you can’t get her to talk to you, I’ll try to get her to. But…yeah.” Suddenly, Porter’s grin returned. “This is a hell of a reversal. Wasn’t it Frank who had the crush on his best friend and Leo who only fell for girls who were way out of his league?” 

Slim couldn’t help but laugh. “Never fear, Zhang, we’ll find your Calypso someday.” 

“Oh, she’s out there. I’m sure of it.” A wistful look came over Porter’s face as he turned back towards the stars, his face tilted upwards.

Slim watched his friend for a moment, then asked softly, “Or maybe you’ve already met her?” 

“No…I don’t think so,” Porter said, his voice just as soft. “Like I said, it seems my fate to crush hard on any girl I meet, as long as she’s totally out of my league. But I’ve never fallen in love. Well…that’s not quite accurate. I did, once. But I didn’t have a chance there.” He gave a slightly bitter laugh. “The one and only time I know of that I’ve been attracted to a guy, and he just so happens to be one hundred percent straight.” 

Slim bit his lip. He wasn’t quite sure what to say to that. “I’m sorry.” 

“Not your fault.” Porter waved a hand without looking up. “I’m over it.” He clearly wasn’t. 

Tentatively, Slim reached over and put his hand on Porter’s shoulder. “Like you said, she—or he—is out there somewhere. Maybe you’ll even find her on this mission.” 

“Maybe.” Porter looked up with a slight grin and ruffled Slim’s hair. “Thanks, Valdez.” 

“Some small repayment, maybe.” Slim smiled up at his friend. “Any time, Zhang. Any time.”

They resumed watching the stars for a while, until a loud sound disturbed them. Slim jumped. “What the hell was _that?”_ he blurted. 

Porter laughed, patting his abdomen. “My stomach. I’m starving. Come on, let’s go grab something to eat.” 

“I’m game.” Slim stepped away from the railing. 

Halfway down to the correct deck, the lift stopped and Sulu, Chekov, and Jim joined them, obviously on their way from the bridge. Jim smiled when he saw Slim. “Having a good day, son?” 

Slim couldn’t help but laugh. “I am now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would also like to add here that this chapter has been completed for some weeks. The fifth book in the Heroes of Olympus series, _The Blood of Olympus,_ only came out yesterday. And I have not read it yet. (And probably won't for a while.) So if any of my readers ARE also Demigods, and you HAVE read it, and I have made any inaccurate comments, however obliquely...that's why.


	59. 'Til They Reached

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning:** This is the chapter where Jim and Bones finally have that conversation Jim promised after "Mirror, Mirror." So there is discussion of rape. This may be triggering to some. Read at your own risk.

Leo drummed his fingers on the desktop, staring at the files in front of him. Space was at a premium on a starship, and most data was stored electronically, but Leo had a file cabinet jammed with old-fashioned folders full of flimsi sheets. He knew exactly where each file was and how to access them. They were his backups. As a young doctor, he had learned the importance of keeping backups, and once a year he made hard copies of all his files, storing them in the cabinet. 

He had been keeping these files since he was appointed permanent CMO of the _Enterprise,_ and so far he hadn’t thrown away a single one. The files in front of him were technically defunct; he had no logical reason to still have them. 

But on a day like today, he was glad he did. 

With trembling fingers, he picked up the first file, which was labeled MITCHELL, GARY. He didn’t need to open it to know what was inside it. Gary Mitchell had been the second navigator on the _Enterprise_ when they had set off on their first five-year mission, temporarily acting as senior navigator when Sulu accepted a six-week temporary posting on a starbase that was having trouble with its botanical garden. He had been driven insane when they penetrated the galactic barrier, become almost godlike—at least in his own mind—and set off a chain of events that had cost him his life and the life of the woman he claimed to love…and had nearly cost Jim _his_ life, too. 

The file beneath it read DEHNER, ELIZABETH. Dr. Dehner had been the target of Mitchell’s twisted affections, and she, too, had been warped by the encounter with the galactic barrier. Or perhaps it had been a projection of Mitchell’s madness that had possessed her. Leo hadn’t been able to tell which it was when the symptoms first presented themselves in her, and even if there had been anything left of their bodies after they died on the barren planet, he wouldn’t have been able to bring himself to do a proper postmortem. He’d been shaking too hard, too terrified about how close he’d come to losing his husband of only five short days. 

Both files, and the next nine on Leo’s desk, had a red stamp on the front that read DECEASED.

Leo flicked open Mitchell’s file. The first three pages were basic Starfleet medical records, and the information he was looking for—even though he knew it by heart—was at the bottom of the second page. The layman’s term was “psi scores,” but the technical term was “apperception quotient” or “esper rating.” Mitchell’s AQ had been 20/104, with an esper rating of 091—the highest aboard the _Enterprise_ at that time. Despite that, Leo remembered, he hadn’t had any particular gifts, other than a heightened sense of déjà vu and an annoying tendency to win at poker. But it had made him more susceptible to whatever they had encountered in crossing the galactic barrier. 

The door hissed open. “Hey, Bones.” 

Leo looked up briefly. “Hey, Jim. Is everything all right?” 

“Yeah, but it’s an hour into Beta. I thought I’d come by and…” Jim trailed off, frowning at the files on Leo’s desk. “What’s all this?” 

“Just…looking at some stuff. Something was bothering me.” Leo worried at his lower lip for a moment before looking up at his husband again. “Jim…I know I was…kind of in a fog when we came back from—from Halkan.” He couldn’t say the words _mirror universe_ without getting the shakes, and he knew that Jim knew he was still having nightmares. “But…did Slim say he had a psychic bond with the _Enterprise?”_

Jim hesitated. “Yes and no. He can talk to machines in general. Apparently his bond with the _Enterprise_ is the strongest, and…you know, I never really thought about it being a psychic bond, but, yeah, I guess it kind of is.” 

“I was afraid of that,” Leo said quietly, fingering Dehner’s records. “What would you say his esper rating is?” 

“His—oh, hell, Bones.” Jim frowned at the files. “That was a one-time thing.” 

“Are you sure about that?” Leo said.

“I’m positive. Look, nobody’s going to be crossing the galactic barrier anytime soon, not until we’ve finished mapping _this_ galaxy, anyway. Probably not in our lifetime, maybe not even in Addie’s. And whatever happened to Gary…it’s probably just something you’d find around there.” 

“Are you _sure?”_ Leo asked again, shifting the files aside and revealing another file. This one was thinner than the others and labeled EVANS, CHARLIE. 

Jim’s face turned white. “Oh, hell.” 

The _Enterprise_ had picked Charlie up from the _Antares_ , simply because they were heading in the right direction to take him back to his only living family. The crew of the _Antares_ had been effusive in their praise of the boy, who had been about sixteen—about the same age Slim was now. He had developed an instantaneous crush on Yeoman Rand, who was then about twenty years old, but she hadn’t been interested in the slightest. The _Antares_ had blown up while the captain was trying to warn Jim of something, and it hadn’t been until much later that they had realized Charlie was responsible. It turned out that the boy had been severely injured in the crash that had killed his parents, and the alien race who had found him had given him powers in order to save his life—powers they were unable, and unwilling, to remove. Before the aliens had arrived to take Charlie back with them—against his will—he had used his fearsome mental powers to take over the ship and torment the crew. 

“I know he had powers humans weren’t designed to have,” Leo said softly, staring at the file. “I know he was extraordinary…but, Jim, what if Slim’s powers go overboard? I mean…what can he _do?”_

“He can talk to machines,” Jim said firmly. “Period. And they talk back to him. That’s all, Bones. He can’t…you know, magically fix them or manipulate them or anything. And he doesn’t have that kind of gift with actual people.” 

Leo brushed the file with his fingertips. “But…” 

“No buts,” Jim said. He picked up the files, stacked them neatly in order, and carried them over to Leo’s filing cabinet. “Seriously, Bones. I know what you’re worried about. I get it. I do. But you don’t need to. Slim doesn’t have the kind of mental power that’s in danger of taking over a vessel, or killing people or anything like that. And it’s not going to kill him.”

Leo watched as Jim deftly put the files back where they belonged. He still couldn’t shake the image of Mitchell’s silver eyes…of Dehner’s mad, brittle smile…of Charlie running past a faceless man, an old woman, and an iguana who had only moments before been members of the crew…of nine otherwise innocent crew members, lying dead, overwhelmed with psychic shock… 

“Bones? Bones!” Suddenly Jim’s face was up against Leo’s, his hands gripping Leo’s upper arms firmly. “Bones, it’s okay, look at me…” 

Leo gripped Jim’s shirt, burying his face in his husband’s shoulder. Jim wrapped his arms around Leo and held him, rocking him back and forth and murmuring soothingly. Now Leo could feel himself trembling, and he clung to Jim tightly, anchoring himself to the present and reality as best as he could. 

After what seemed like forever, but was probably only a few minutes, Leo felt his heart rate slow down and his breathing even out. He pulled back slightly and looked up at Jim, managing a shaky smile. “Maybe I’m not as over…what happened…as I thought I was.” 

Jim stroked Leo’s hair back from his forehead in a tender gesture. “It’s not gonna happen overnight, Bones,” he said gently. “Trust me on this one.” 

Leo touched Jim’s cheek lightly. “Jim…you promised you’d tell me…what happened.” 

Jim hesitated, then sighed. “Let’s get something to eat first. I don’t want to talk about it in your office.”

Obediently, Leo let Jim pull him to his feet and take him down to the mess hall. Slim was already there, his hair plastered to his head—obviously he’d just gotten out of the shower—and sitting at a table with his friends, including Chekov and Sulu. Leo couldn’t help but smile at the two goldshirts, whose fingers were twined together beneath the table. They were obviously mid-conversation and didn’t seem to notice Jim and Leo’s approach. 

“Yes, but then there would be twenty of them,” Simril was saying. 

Cayne shook her head mournfully. “Think of all the blood…” 

“I’m not sure I want to know what’s going on here,” Jim said. 

Simril jumped, Nic’tlarn dropped xyr fork, but Slim just looked up and grinned. “Hey, Dad. Hey, Pa.” 

“Hey, son.” Jim ruffled Slim’s hair. “As you were, then.” 

He led Leo over to the food slots. At first, it surprised Leo that they sat at a different table rather than joining Slim and the others, but glancing back over his shoulder, he understood. Simril and Cayne had grown more comfortable with Jim and Leo in the past few months, since they had grown closer to Slim, but O’Flaherty and Nic’tlarn were clearly still nervous—especially Nic’tlarn, who tended to jump whenever _anyone_ in authority looked at xyr. Leo made a mental note to check the Zathran’s file the next day. 

Spock, Uhura, Carol, and Addie joined them a few minutes later. Addie chattered away in her mixture of English and baby talk, her speech still a little stilted and fractured, about ninety-five percent intelligible but occasionally using words or syntaxes that were incomprehensible to anyone but her and had to be pieced together from context. Leo didn’t mind. In fact, he found he kind of welcomed her babble of conversation. 

Slim and his friends had a deck of cards, and from the sound of it, they were playing the game they’d invented, so Leo didn’t disturb them when he, Jim, and Addie left the mess hall. The three of them spent a quiet couple of hours in their living room together, playing with some of Addie’s toys. When the little girl’s eyes started to droop, Jim scooped her up. “I’ll put her to bed, Bones,” he said quietly. “You go ahead and get ready, okay? I’ll be there in a few.” 

Leo nodded, knowing that Jim hadn’t been avoiding his question—he’d just been waiting for the right time. He went into the bedroom and changed into sweatpants and a t-shirt before crawling under the covers and trying to interest himself in a medical journal. Privately, he acknowledged that he hadn’t taken in a single word by the time Jim came in. He, too, changed into sweatpants, although he forewent the t-shirt, and climbed into bed beside Leo. 

“Lights, eight percent,” he ordered.

Leo set aside his PADD and curled into the safety of Jim’s arms. It didn’t make much sense, since Jim would be the one reliving a difficult past, but Jim snuggled against Leo, stroking his hair absently. For a few moments, neither of them spoke. 

At last, Jim said softly, “I told you about…my first. That was _technically_ rape, even though I sort of said yes…I was only thirteen, I wasn’t old enough to consent legally. But the first time I…the first time I _definitely_ didn’t consent…I was almost fifteen. First semester, sophomore year of high school. My P.E. coach called me into his office and ordered me to bend over his desk and hold still. I…I wasn’t his only victim. He worked his way through most of the guys in the class. I just…I fought harder, and I ended up pretty beat up. I was afraid to tell anyone, so I deliberately picked a fight in the cafeteria, so I’d have an excuse for all the bruises, at least the visible ones. I think Mom guessed, but she never said anything. He ended up getting caught—with the one guy who actually technically consented, even though he wasn’t legally old enough yet—and went to jail.” 

Leo reached up and laced his fingers through Jim’s. Jim squeezed back gently and continued. “The second time…it was the summer I turned sixteen. I got picked up in a bar fight and thrown in lockup until Mom could get home to get me. Ended up being three days and two nights. My cellmate…the first night, I was kind of plastered and kind of bruised and sore already, so I didn’t fight back as hard as I normally would’ve when he slammed me against the wall and yanked my pants down. The next night he cornered me in my bunk and told me that if I didn’t do what he told me, I wouldn’t live to get bailed out. That was…that was the first time I ever gave anyone a blowjob.” 

“God, Jim,” Leo said softly. He curled closer to Jim.

“The third time,” Jim said, taking a deep breath, “it was actually a woman. I was twenty, and…you know, up to that point, I’d never been with a girl before, only guys, and I tried to tell her I wasn’t interested, but she wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. She manhandled me into the backseat of her car, and…I really did fight her, Bones, I tried as hard as I could to get away from her, but…it was such a small space, and I was trying not to hurt her, and…” He sighed. “She hit all the right buttons, and my body reacted, whether I wanted it to or not. When it was over, I remember, she—she kept kissing me and telling me she _knew_ I’d liked it, that _obviously_ I wasn’t as disinterested as I thought I was. I…I think that’s why I started sleeping with any woman who was willing. I _wasn’t_ interested, not really, but…I don’t know if I was trying to prove that to myself, or prove it to her, or to get her out of my mind. It never quite worked.” 

Leo nodded. “I can understand that. I can’t imagine…” He trailed off, not sure what he wanted to say. 

“The last time…oh, God.” Jim’s voice, which had held steady all along, suddenly cracked, and he buried his face in the top of Leo’s head. “Bones, you…I know you’re not gonna…just promise you won’t…” 

“Jim.” Leo looked up at his husband in the dim light, genuinely concerned. “Jim, you know I love you. You know that, whatever you’ve done, whatever was done _to_ you, it’s not gonna change that. And I won’t be mad at you. I promise.” 

Jim shifted his position so that he was lying next to Leo, as much curled up in his husband’s arms as Leo was in his. “I was gang-raped.” 

“What?” Leo whispered, feeling his blood run cold. 

“I was…it was the night before…” Jim swallowed hard, and Leo felt him start to tremble. “The cadets I got in the bar fight with, over Uhura…not Cupcake, but the other four…I was heading home to sleep off my bruises and think over Pike’s offer, and they…they lured me into an alley. They were talking about paying me back, about seeing how big I was without Pike there to save my ass, so I thought they just wanted to fight and…I decided to see if I could lick them, because if I could, what was the use of joining Starfleet? But that…that wasn’t what they wanted. Two of ‘em held me down while one slugged me in the stomach, and then I heard the sound of a zipper and…”

“Oh, God,” Leo choked out. “Jim…my God, Jim, how could you…how did you even get on the shuttle after that?” 

Jim shook his head. “I don’t know,” he admitted hoarsely. “I thought…hell, I don’t know. Maybe I thought that…if I was one of them, they would leave me alone…that the stupid Starfleet codes would let them rape a civilian but not a fellow officer. I didn’t sleep much that night, and I still wasn’t sure what I was going to do in the morning. Then I saw the _Enterprise_ under construction, and…I guess I wanted to be a part of her. I thought I’d be safe with her…” 

“Jim, darlin’…” Leo’s heart ached for Jim. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?” 

“I _couldn’t_ , Bones. I couldn’t tell you…that first day, I didn’t know you well enough, and the more I got to know you…when we were at the Academy, I was afraid that if I told you some of the men we might serve with one day were that kind of man, you would drop out of Starfleet altogether and…I couldn’t do this without you, Bones. Even back then, I knew I couldn’t do this without you.” Jim trailed his hand along Leo’s cheek, cupping his jaw gently. “And later…I don’t know. I guess it was just…you know how hard it is for me to let anyone else into the darkness. Partly I’m afraid it’ll overwhelm me again, and partly I’m afraid it’ll overwhelm _you._ I never wanted that to touch you, Bones. I never wanted my pain to poison you…” 

Leo leaned forward and kissed Jim, sweetly but urgently. “Jim,” he murmured against his husband’s lips. “Oh, darlin’, don’t you know by now that you’re everything to me? I would gladly take all your pain and darkness if it meant you would get even a moment of happiness.” 

“I could never be happy if you were suffering,” Jim whispered. 

“Neither can I, Jim, so don’t beat yourself up over what other people have done to you. I love you, dammit. I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone in my life, I love you so much it hurts, and I will spend the rest of our lives telling you that.” 

“I love you, too,” Jim said. “God, Bones, I love you so much…”

“I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t know about what happened to you and I’m sorry I can’t…there’s got to be some way I can fix it.” 

Jim was silent for a long moment. At last, he looked at Leo, his blue eyes luminous in the dark, and asked softly, “Can I fix what that other Spock did to you?” 

Leo froze as the words hit him. Slowly, he leaned forward until his forehead touched Jim’s, cupped the back of his husband’s head with his hand, and sighed, closing his eyes. “Just…just be here for me, Jim. I think it has to heal on its own. Just be here for me. I know I can get through this if you’re here.” 

“I’m not going anywhere, Bones. I’ll be here, now and forever.” Jim wrapped his arms around Leo’s neck and pulled him closer. “And you _are_ fixing what they did to me. Every minute of every hour of every day. Every time you kiss me, every time you hold me, every time you look at me like it’s the first time, every time you touch me like I’m a work of art, every time you tell me I’m beautiful or that you love me, every time I hear my name on your lips. Even when all you’re doing is sitting across the table from me, you’re you and you’re _there_ and that…it heals the wounds a little more every day.” He snuggled against Leo. “Even five years ago, I couldn’t have told you all this. I’ve never told _anyone_ about…about any of that.” 

Leo idly ran his finger over the tattoo on Jim’s left shoulder, the one with their children’s initials and birthdates surrounded by the last line of “Song for a Fifth Child.” He knew all of Jim’s tattoos by heart, knew every line of poetry and the story behind each one, as well as he knew every knot and scar. “You’re amazing, Jim,” he whispered. “You’re an amazing father and an amazing husband and an amazing captain and an amazing man. I’m so proud to know you.” 

Jim buried his face in Leo’s shoulder. “I love you, Bones.” 

“I love you, too, Jim.” Leo tilted Jim’s face upwards and kissed him again. 

Most nights, a kiss like that would have deepened into sex, but Leo knew that he wasn’t up for it, and neither was Jim. They were both too fragile, too raw, to do anything like that just then. Instead, they broke the kiss gently and curled into each other. Jim pressed the palm of his hand over Leo’s heart, and Leo carefully wrapped his fingers around Jim’s wrist, two fingertips against his pulse point. 

And feeling the rhythms of one another’s hearts, the most comforting lullaby Leo knew, they fell asleep in each other’s arms.


	60. The Enemy Within

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is based on the episode of the same name.
> 
> Like "The Mark of Gideon," this episode had...a few plot holes. (Who's seen this episode and NOT thought, "Why don't they use the shuttle?!" Anyone?) I tried my best to fill in those plot holes. I've also altered a couple of details in order to make it fit better with the canon of the story (Yeoman Rand's place has been taken by Bones, for example--actually, that's the big one). Still, I've tried to stay true to the spirit of the original episode, as I have with all the others.
> 
> (Also, if the formatting looks weird, it's because this is a longish chapter and my tablet wasn't cooperating with the HTML process, so I said "screw it" and borrowed my mom's computer to use the Rich Text editor, which I was originally going to say "doesn't work with my tablet for some reason," but which I have just discovered simply does not copy the formatting from Google Docs.)

            Jim eyed the creature at Sulu’s feet with some amusement. “Shouldn’t that be in a specimen container, Mr. Sulu?”

            “He’s perfectly docile, sir,” Sulu said, clinging tightly to the makeshift lead he had fashioned out of a thin cable. “I’m sure a specimen container isn’t necessary. And I don’t think he’s got any contaminants we should be worried about.”

            “So sure it’s male?” Jim asked lightly.

            Sulu flushed. “Just a guess. He’s the only one we saw—with regards to most species, males are more likely to be loners than females.”

            “I’m teasing you, Sulu.” Jim flashed his helmsman a grin as he checked over the other specimen containers. “Well, this has been an interesting trip, for sure.” A gust of icy wind blew past him, and he couldn’t help but shiver. The uniform shirts had been designed for the carefully modulated environment of a starship, not the extremes of planets.

            “Temperature’s beginning to drop,” Sulu observed.

            “Gets down to a hundred sixty below at night, if I recall Slim’s research properly.” Jim looked down at the creature again. It vaguely resembled a dog, some kind of terrier would have been his guess, wrapped in thick reddish-orange fur, but with a single pointed horn. And, unlike most small dogs in Jim’s experience, it was calm and perfectly friendly. “Too bad we don’t have the same advantages as the native fauna.”

            Sulu grinned. “If we all had coats like Sebastian’s, we could probably stay longer—even overnight.”

            “You named this animal Sebastian?” Jim asked, raising an eyebrow.

            “Everything’s got to have a name, sir.”

            “Yes, I know—but _Sebastian?_ ”

            “You named Addie’s stuffed tribble Gottlieb,” Sulu pointed out.

            Jim had to laugh. “True.”

            He knelt down to pet the little animal when a sudden shout distracted him. He whirled around to see Jackson Fisher, the senior geologist—Jim having promoted him to that position after D’Amato’s death—sprawled on the ground, wincing in pain. His entire outfit was smeared with a sticky yellow ore. “Mr. Fisher, what happened?”

            “I don’t know, Captain,” Fisher said, struggling to sit up and wincing again. “My leg just…locked up all of a sudden and I overbalanced.” He shifted his leg, and Jim heard a metallic _click_. “It seems fine now. Maybe the fall jarred it loose again.”

            “Hurt yourself?” Jim asked. He would have offered Fisher his hand, but he knew better. The man had lost his leg during their Academy days, in a survival class gone wrong, and he was fiercely proud of his independence. If he asked for help up, fine, but Jim wasn’t going to give it unsolicited.

            Fisher pushed himself upwards, using one hand to haul himself up on the bank, and Jim noticed him cradling the other close to his chest. “Cut my hand.”

            Jim inspected it. The cut was ugly and fairly deep, and some of the ore had gotten into it. “That looks pretty nasty. Report to Med Bay.”

            Obediently, Fisher pulled out his communicator with his good hand. “Fisher to _Enterprise_ _._ One to beam up.”

            Jim stood back as the transporter beam caught Fisher and carried him upwards. Once he was sure the man had cleared, he turned to Sulu. “Where’s the rest of the party?”

            “Still coming in, Captain,” Sulu replied. “And I’ve got to finish tagging these specimens.”

            “I’ll get that.” Jim picked up the tagging tool and affixed labels to the remaining specimen containers, then laid it back on top of the case. “I’m going to beam on up and check on Fisher. You stay with the specimens. If I’m not back by the time everyone has returned and all the specimens are tagged, bring them back up yourself.”

            “Acknowledged.” Sulu saluted respectfully, but there was a flash of worry in his eyes. “You don’t expect to take long, do you?”

            Jim clapped Sulu warmly on the shoulder. “Sulu, I trusted you with the entire ship while we were on Kronos. And you didn’t let me down. I’m sure you’ll do just fine with a party of four and a few specimens.”

            “Thank you.” Sulu smiled wanly.

            Smiling back, Jim flipped out his communicator. “Kirk to _Enterprise_ _._ Ready to beam back aboard.”

            “Just a minute, Captain,” Scotty’s voice said from the other end, which surprised Jim. Before too long, however, the transporter beam surrounded him as well.

            He felt an odd sensation as he rematerialized—as though he had left part of himself behind—and his head whirled like he’d just gotten off the teacups at a fairground. He stepped off the platform and staggered, catching himself against the wall of the transporter. Scotty caught him. “What’s wrong, Captain? Let me give you a hand.”

            “It’s nothing,” Jim said, realizing he was lying through his teeth. “I’m—just a little dizzy, is all.” He looked around, noticing that the room was empty. “You’re not leaving the Transporter Room unattended to help me, are you?”

            “No, Kyle’s just gone for a tool.” Scotty supported Jim into the hallway.

            Jim’s head gradually cleared as they made their way down the corridor. At last, he took a deep breath and straightened. “I think I can make it from here on my own, Scotty.”

            “You ought to have McCoy look at you,” Scotty said solicitously.

            “All right, Scotty, I’ll have him check my engines.” Jim smiled wanly. “Better get back to your duties.”

            “Aye, sir.”

            Scotty turned and walked away. Jim stood where he was, making absolutely sure he was all right, then continued on his way to Med Bay. Rounding the corner, he bumped straight into Bones, who at first looked annoyed. “I’m going to put a traffic light on—” he began, then stopped, looking at Jim. “Are you all right? You look like you’ve run face-first into a brick wall.”

            “Is that your diagnosis, Dr. McCoy?” Jim said with a lightness he didn’t really feel.

            “Never mind my diagnosis! I have a patient to treat.” Bones’ expression softened. “Go have a rest, Jim. I’ll see to you after I’ve dealt with Fisher.”

            “All right.” Jim smiled up at Bones and set off down the corridor again. He was actually at the door of his quarters before he remembered that he had been planning to go check on Fisher.

            He stood for a moment in indecision. At last, he decided that he would go up to Med Bay after all. His head was beginning to pound again. And more than that, he was starting to get a little worried about himself. He suddenly found himself feeling weak and helpless.

            Med Bay was in the exact center of the _Enterprise_ _;_ it ordinarily took no more than five minutes to get there from any point on the ship. But Jim was meandering. He realized that, he was ambling, not in any particular hurry, partly for the pain in his head and partly because he was a little uncertain, a little nervous about what Bones would say if he walked into Med Bay after being ordered to get some rest. And what if Bones was on his way to their quarters right then? What if they missed each other?

            Three times, Jim stopped at a crossroads, gnawing his lip with indecision, and once he actually turned back for a few steps before talking himself out of it and turning around again. He wasn’t normally this indecisive, and that was an issue, a _major_ issue. What if there was something seriously wrong with him? He wouldn’t want to spread it to the children. A tender smile tugged at his lips as he thought of Addie.

            There was some kind of ruckus going on when Jim reached the door of Med Bay. He hesitated at the doorway, not sure if he should go in or not, not sure if he should interrupt, if Bones was yelling at a recalcitrant patient. Biting his lip again, he listened to the muffled voices for a minute, then finally steeled himself to go in.

            Fisher was lying back on an exam table, obviously arguing as Bones tended to his face, and Jim felt a moment of panic. He hadn’t noticed any injuries to Fisher’s face. Had he missed it? Had he somehow let his crew down? Spock stood next to them, his arms folded over his chest.

            “I’m telling you, sir,” Fisher was saying stubbornly, “it wasn’t him. I _know_ it wasn’t him.”

            “Doctor?” Spock asked Bones.

            For a moment, Bones didn’t answer. At last, he said in a low voice, “I’d like to think the same—but I think, after all these years, I’d know…” He looked up, caught sight of Jim, and froze, his face turning white and a flash of fear in his eyes. Jim froze, too, his panic increasing. What was wrong? Was there something behind him?

            Spock turned to face Jim. “Captain,” he said evenly, taking a step forward. “May I ask where you have been for the last fifteen minutes?”

            Jim felt himself turn white as well. Had they been calling him—trying to get hold of him? Had he somehow missed…? “I—I was on my way up here,” he stammered. “I know you told me to get some rest, but I—I wanted to check on—” He broke off, looking anxiously from face to face. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

            Silently, Spock held up a mostly empty bottle. Jim recognized it instantly as a bottle of Saurian brandy—Bones had one in his cabinet in his office, they sometimes shared a glass when it had been a rough week. “Where did that come from?”

            “Dr. McCoy’s office,” Spock replied. “He claims that you took it and drank the majority of it, then dropped it in your haste before leaving.”

            “What? But I—Bones, I didn’t—” Jim’s eyes widened in bewilderment. “What is going on?”

            Fisher sat up. “Sir—I came across someone attacking Dr. McCoy, but I—” He swallowed. “The man looked exactly like you, sir.”

            “I’ve never seen you like that before,” Bones said softly, swallowing hard. “You were—you were like a madman…”

            Jim took in the disheveled state of Bones’ uniform and suddenly knew exactly what kind of attack was being discussed. He didn’t know how it was possible to get paler, but he swore he did. “Bones, it wasn’t me. I _swear_ to you—I went back to quarters when you told me, I just didn’t go in. I wouldn’t—I’d never—”

            “But it was—” Bones looked up, and his eyes were full of tears. “I couldn’t _talk_ to you, Jim! I had to—to kick and scratch and—”

            “Do you see any scratches on me?” Jim asked desperately, stretching out his hands.

            Bones flinched and backed away. Spock moved slightly to get between them and said tensely, “Doctor—your patient.”

            “Bones—it _wasn’t me,_ ” Jim said pathetically.

            Bones went back to tending to Fisher, but he didn’t look up. Jim could feel himself trembling. They were accusing him of being something he’d never been—something he’d never _thought_ of being. It was worse than what Chapel had accused him of. And to do something like that to _Bones…_

            Bones wouldn’t look at him. Oh, God, could Bones possibly believe it? There had to be another explanation, had to be something else…Spock stared at him implacably, and Jim could feel the judgment rolling off of his first officer.

            Fisher spoke up quietly, but with conviction. “It wasn’t you, sir. I’d stake my commission on that.”

            Jim looked helplessly at Fisher, unable to speak. Spock turned to the geologist. “You agreed with Dr. McCoy’s account, Mr. Fisher.”

            “That I do, Mr. Spock,” Fisher agreed. “But only up to the point where he said that the man who attacked him _looked_ like Captain Kirk. And I’ll admit that he spoke the same way, that he answered to that name. I swear, though, that it _wasn’t_ the captain. Look, sir.” He held out his hands, and Jim could see that the knuckles were scuffed. “I got in one good hit before he tried to choke me, sir. And Dr. McCoy is telling the truth. He scratched his attacker’s cheek, pretty badly. I saw the blood. Medical creams don’t work _that_ quickly, sir. It’s been five minutes, tops. The person who attacked wouldn’t have had time to run back to quarters, apply a cream, and get here looking like nothing had happened. It wasn’t Captain Kirk.”

            There was a moment of silence before Bones spoke softly. “I’ll grant you, knowing what I know, even while it was happening, I found it hard to believe that you’d…” He looked up, and Jim could see the hurt in his eyes. “Who came in for the brandy?”

            “Not me, Bones, I swear. Breathalyze me.” Jim spread out his hands pleadingly, feeling like he was going to burst into tears at any moment. “Bones, _please,_ you’ve got to believe me.”

            There was another of those pauses before Spock spoke solemnly. “Captain, there is an imposter aboard this ship.”

            _And that’s Spock,_ Jim thought. _Loyal to the end._ He swallowed and nodded, acknowledging his first officer’s faith, but he kept his eyes fixed on his husband. After a long pause, Bones took a deep breath. “Then he needs to be caught, before he does something you’ll face a court-martial for. Or worse,” he added darkly, tugging nervously at the front of his shirt.

            Jim shuddered. And just then, the intercom whistled and Scotty’s voice came over it. “Captain, can I see ye in the Transporter Room, please?”

            Indecision paralyzed Jim for a moment. If Scotty had heard the rumors…had heard what the imposter was doing…could he really face his second officer, knowing that there was at least one person aboard who believed that the captain had tried to rape his own husband? But Spock silently turned alongside him, heading for the door, and Jim left with his friend.

            Lieutenant Kyle stood behind the transporter console, looking worried. Scotty was working on the transporters, looking torn between concern and anger. Jim was worried about what he would say, but when he looked up, all of his worry seemed to be for the machinery.

            “Complete system failure, Captain,” he said grimly. “But there’s more.” He pointed to the animal Sulu had named Sebastian, which lay on the floor next to the console. “We beamed this creature up, and…”

            “And?” Jim prompted, biting his lip. Sulu was obviously fond of the furry little creature. Had something gone wrong? He remembered his headache…oh, God, was it space-sick? Had it messed up the mechanisms?

            “It’s there,” Scotty said slowly. “But…it’s over _here,_ too.”

            He put his hand on the lid of a specimen container and opened it a fraction. Inside was a duplicate of Sebastian, but where the other one trembled and stared, this one snarled and frothed at the mouth. Jim jumped back as the animal leapt at him; Scotty slammed the lid shut just in time.

            “It appears to be the twin to the other animal,” Spock said, raising an eyebrow. “Except for the vastly different temperaments, they might be one and the same.”

            “A few seconds after we beamed this one up, Captain, the other one appeared on the platform, too,” Kyle said, scooping the quieter Sebastian into his arms. “I talked to Lieutenant Sulu, and he swears there was only the one animal—certainly we only _tried_ to beam one—and that it was the more peaceful. It’s like it’s been split in two.”

            “Aye,” Scotty said. “If that happened to a man…one beast savage and wolfish, one gentle and docile, but otherwise absolutely identical. Jim, until we know what happened here, we dare not beam up the rest of the landing party.”

            “Oh, my God,” Jim whispered, terror gripping him. He thought of the man both Fisher and Bones had described—remembered, too, that Bones had been absolutely certain. _After all these years, I should know._ So _that_ was it. Not an imposter, but a duplicate. An evil copy of himself…a man with all of his memories, all of his training, all of his skill, but no morals, no scruples, no filters…the part of him that had gotten into bar fights, the part that had made him the only genius-level repeat offender in the Midwest. The part that had led him to make decisions that got people _killed._

            All of that…in one, unfettered package…

            Spock took the creature from Kyle’s arms. The sight of him stroking the lamb-like creature calmed Jim, just a little, helped him to relax, even as he wished he could have Bones hold _him_ like that, even though he didn’t deserve it right now. “Do you know what caused this to happen, Scotty?”

            “I think so,” Scotty answered. “When Fisher beamed up, he had some soft, yellowish material all over his uniform. He said it was ore. It spattered, and some of it got onto the transporters. We scanned it and it was magnetic. That may have caused an overload. We’re not sure—not yet.”

            “Do the transporters work at _all?_ ” Jim asked as fear gripped his heart again. He thought of Sulu, his apprehension, the easy confidence he’d placed in his navigator. He’d promised everything would be all right. He’d _promised…_

            “Oh, aye, but to use it to bring up the landing party…they might all end up like y—” Scotty caught himself. “Like the animal.”

            So he _had_ heard. Jim swallowed hard. “How long will it take to isolate the trouble?”

            Scotty hesitated. “I couldn’t say.”

            “We can’t just leave the landing party down there,” Jim said, fighting for calm, seeking the reason he thought he had cultivated long ago. “They’ll freeze to death. The temperature on that planet gets down to one hundred sixty degrees Celsius at night.”

            “We’re doing everything we can, Captain!”

            Jim looked at the transporters, wishing he had Slim’s gift. Should he ask Scotty to call for Slim—or send his son up here himself? No, that would imply that he didn’t have faith in Scotty. He _did_ have faith in Scotty, of course he did, the man was a miracle-worker who did things in half the time it would have taken other engineers. If anyone could figure out what was wrong and fix it, surely it would be him.

            But the men on the planet, the men he’d left behind…

            Spock cleared his throat, handing Sebastian back to Kyle. “Captain, there is the matter of your duplicate.”

            Jim jumped, startled out of his own private hell. “Right. You’re right. We’ve got to find him. Search parties—we’ve got to organize search parties.”

            “We can’t risk killing it,” Spock pointed out. “We have no way of knowing what effect its death may have on you.”

            Jim exhaled, nodding. “We don’t know what—but the men must be armed. Phasers set on heavy stun—he’s to be taken out without—but don’t kill him. I don’t know that they _could_ kill him…it’s not the way to get rid of him…” He trailed off. How long had he been trying to kill that part of him—not just suppress, but _kill_ it, destroy it utterly? Or _had_ he ever tried? Did he really _want_ it gone?

            “It will be difficult to order the search parties to capture a being which so closely resembles you, Captain.”

            “Tell them—” Jim broke off, biting his lip in indecision. Worry knotted his stomach. What _could_ he tell them? How could he ensure that the search parties didn’t go after him—or worse? “I’d better make an announcement to the entire crew—tell them what happened as best as I can. They’re a good crew, they deserve to know—”

            “No!” Kyle blurted out. He clapped a hand over his mouth and looked embarrassed.

            “I must agree with Lieutenant Kyle’s objection,” Spock said. “You are the captain of this ship. You cannot afford to appear vulnerable in the eyes of the crew. It is your fate that you must appear perfect to them. I’m sorry, but this is the fact. If they lose their confidence in you, you will lose your command.”

            “I know that,” Jim murmured, rubbing his forehead and hating himself for having lost sight of that. “Why did I forget it?” He looked up at Spock. “Spock, if I slip again…correct me.”

            “That has always been my duty, Captain. I shall not neglect it.”

            Jim stepped out into the corridor, followed by Spock. As he passed one of the red intercom devices, he hesitated, licking his lips. “Maybe—maybe I should just make the announcement from here. Maybe I shouldn’t go up to the bridge…”

            “Illogical, Captain,” Spock replied immediately. “These intercoms do not connect with the entire ship, merely with one specific room at a time. You would be forced to repeat yourself. And if you asked Lieutenant Uhura to make the announcement—”

            The scream echoed down the corridor, cutting him off. Spock's eyes suddenly registered fear. Jim recognized the voice in the same split second. It was Addie's. Without another word, both men took off running towards the captain's quarters.

            Spock was the first through the door. Jim checked just inside, staring at the sight. Slim lay on the floor, his head lolling to one side, obviously unconscious. Next to him knelt Addie, tears on her cheeks, shaking his shoulder and pleading, "'Lim, 'Lim, wake up!"

            "Slim!" Jim cried, anguished at the sight of his only son hurt…bleeding…and what had happened to him? Was he sick? Was he dying—dead?

            Addie looked up and gave a squeak of fear, burying her head in Slim's shoulder. Slim groaned and moved his head, grimacing. Instantly, Spock was on one knee at his side, assisting him to sit up. "Thomas, can you hear me?"

            "Yeah...yeah, I can hear you," Slim replied, his voice soft and strained with pain. His eyes fluttered open and he groaned again, reaching up to touch the back of his head.

            "'Lim?" Addie whimpered, raising her head.

            Slim turned to his sister, his eyes softening. "Addie, you all right?" he asked gently.

            Addie nodded, then touched his cheek. "'Lim okay?"

            "I'll be fine, baby." Slim managed a grin, then winced and rubbed the back of his head again.

            Spock scanned the boy's face rapidly. "Are you certain that you are all right?"

            "I reckon Pa'll wanna take a look at me. I'll head up to Med Bay soon as I can get up." Slim looked up at Spock. "Did we run into another ion storm?"

            Spock's eyebrows met briefly. "No. The weather is clear."

            "Then there's something else wrong." Slim grabbed Spock's arm. "Uncle Spock, my dad was here…only he wasn't Dad. The look on his face—it was like that man from the _I._ S.S. _Enterprise_ that showed up a month or so back. I thought for sure it was a doppelganger or a mirror counterpart or somethin'."

            "It is certainly something," Spock agreed, glancing up at Jim.

            Slim followed his gaze, met his father's eyes, and froze. Addie burrowed deeper into Slim's side; the boy let go of his head and put a protective arm around her.

            "It's…all right," Jim said, a little brokenly. "I'm…I'm not…"

            Addie eyed him suspiciously. Slim winced again, then sighed and looked back at Spock. "Could you give me a hand up? Reckon I oughta go have my head examined."

            "A sentiment I have heard Dr. McCoy make on behalf of several others, although I doubt he meant it in the context you do," Spock said dryly. He helped Slim to his feet. "Come along. I will escort you."

            "Come on, Addie," Jim said gently, bending down to pick up his daughter.

            Addie gave a small shriek of alarm and clung to Slim's leg, blue eyes wide with terror. "No!" she cried.

            Slim rested a hand lightly on her dark hair. "It's okay, baby," he said, but his voice still had the strained quality and Jim knew he was in pain. It broke his heart. "Want to walk?"

            Addie nodded, avoiding looking at Jim.

            Their progress up to Med Bay was hampered by the two-year-old's necessarily slow gait, plus the fact that Spock needed to assist Slim. Addie refused to let Jim touch her, and when he tried to help Slim, he merely got "I can do this."

            Bones was readjusting his equipment. He looked up, saw the small party, and yelped. "Slim, what the hell?"

            Slim tried to smile. "Little knock on the head."

            "A _little_ knock on the head?" Bones practically flew across the room to the examining table where Spock had helped Slim to sit. His fingers explored the wound, which, Jim now realized with dismay, was surrounded by dried blood. "What the hell _happened_ to you?"

            Slim stayed still as Bones examined him. "Addie and I were in the living room reading. I'd gone into her room to get another book when I heard her scream. I ran out and…" He winced. "He was scaring her. Just looking at her and grinning. I said something and he looked at me and…and just sort of dismissed me. Like I wasn't worth his time. He reached for Addie. I got between them and…" He raised his eyes to Bones'. "I hit him, Pa, I had to. I was just going in for another punch when he shoved me back. I reckon I hit my head on the bookshelf. Next thing I knew, I woke up with Addie an' Uncle Spock on either side of me."

            "Who did this, Slim?" Bones asked, but Jim could tell that, by the expression on his face, he knew.

            "Not Daddy," Addie said in a small voice. "Bad."

            Slim stroked his sister's hair with one hand. She clung to it like a lifeline. To Bones, Slim explained, "It was Dad…only it wasn't Dad. It was like the ones who tried to take y'all's places a couple months back."

            Bones' jaw tensed. "The imposter."

            “Not…precisely, Doctor,” Spock said quietly.

            Slim looked from Bones to Spock and back. "What happened _this_ time?"

            "A malfunction with the transporter," Spock said, "seems to have split the captain into two separate beings—the dark and the light, if you will."

            Slim sighed. "Great. So there are _two_ of 'em running around."

            Thinking that Slim was implying there was another doppelganger on board, Jim said hastily, "It's all right. It's…just me. And him. And…just that."

            "Yeah, I know." Slim looked up at Bones. "Am I good to go, Pa?"

            Bones hesitated, then handed Slim a headache pill. "Take this and you'll be fine."

            Slim popped the pill into his mouth and swallowed it, then stood. "I oughta get down to the Transporter Room. I reckon Uncle Scotty could do with an extra pair of hands." He looked up at Spock. "If that's all right with you, I mean."

            Was it Jim's imagination, or did Spock's expression flicker, just for a minute? "I am certain Mr. Scott will appreciate your assistance. But what do you plan to do with your sister?"

            Slim hesitated. "Aunt Carol oughta be comin' off shift about now." The young man’s southwestern accent was broadening. "I'll see if she can keep an eye on Addie for an hour or two."

            "She could stay with me," Jim offered. He wasn't sure how well he could do his job with Addie in tow, but at least she could keep him grounded, help him to remember who he was. And it would be nice to have company while he sat around and tried not to be scared about the potential deaths of his crew members. He knelt down on his daughter's level. "Addie, want to stay with me?"

            To his surprise—and dismay—Addie burst into tears. Slim instantly knelt down in front of her, putting his hands on her shoulders. "Addie, Addie," he said gently. "It's okay. Don't cry. It's okay."

            "Want Daddy," Addie sobbed.

            The words went through Jim like a phaser blast. He stood up, giving Spock and Bones an anguished, stricken look. "I _am_ your daddy," he said pathetically.

            Slim gave him a look, then spoke softly to his sister. "That _is_ Daddy. It's just…it's only the _good_ parts of Daddy."

            "That's right," Jim said hopefully.

            But Addie shook her head. She threw her arms around Slim's neck and buried her face in his chest, but for all that, her words, when she spoke, were perfectly clear. "Want _all_ Daddy."

            Jim stared at his children in shock and horror. Surely she didn't mean that? Surely she wouldn't want that…that _monster_ back inside him, back with him? It was horrifying. He hated it, and feared it. Surely she did, too. And if she knew it was inside him…

            Slim rested his cheek on her head, hugging her tightly. He glanced up at Jim briefly, then said quietly, "I know what you mean."

            Without another word, he stood, nodded to Bones and Spock, and left the room.

            Tears flooded Jim’s eyes. He looked fearfully up at his husband. “They—they can’t—they don’t mean—”

            “Captain,” Spock interrupted. “I believe you have an announcement to make?”

            “Right. You’re right.” Jim forced himself to take a deep breath and wiped his eyes. He could do this. He _could._

            He started for the door, but before he reached it, Bones called, “Jim…wait.”

            Jim turned around, fearful, with no idea what his husband was going to say but all sorts of terrible possibilities flooding his mind. After all, his dark side, his double, had tried to rape him _and_ attacked their son. To his shock, however, Bones merely wrapped him in a hug, pulling him tightly to his chest for a moment.

            “Be careful, darlin’,” he said quietly. “I love you.”

            Jim closed his eyes and clung to Bones, wishing he could stay here forever. He couldn’t bring himself to say _I love you, too…_ he didn’t deserve to love Bones, not now, he was worthless…but he knew Bones understood when he pressed a soft kiss to the top of Jim’s head and slowly, reluctantly, let him go.

            Jim took another deep breath, squared his shoulders, and headed for the bridge.

            Chekov looked around anxiously when Jim entered the bridge, Spock behind him. “Keptin? Is ze landing party back aboard?” he asked, a little tremulously.

            “Not—not yet,” Jim managed. He fought the urge to start shaking again. Oh, God, how had he not thought about that? Sulu and Chekov…naturally Chekov would be worrying about his lover. And Jim had left him on that planet…

            Swallowing hard, he said, “Lieutenant Uhura…open a shipwide channel for me.”

            “Right away, Captain.” Uhura turned back to her console for a moment, then nodded at Jim.

            Jim touched the back of his chair lightly, reminding himself that he was in command. _Command._ Calm, controlled, the image of perfection. Sitting down with his back as straight as possible, he forced himself to sound assured. “Attention, _Enterprise_ _._ This is the captain speaking. There is an imposter aboard this ship—a man who looks and sounds exactly like me, and is pretending to _be_ me. This man is extremely dangerous. Utmost caution is to be observed. All crew members are to arm themselves.” He took a deep breath. “The imposter may be identified by scratches on his face. Repeat, the imposter can be identified by the scratches on his face. Search parties will report to Mr. Spock for assignment. All phasers will be set to heavy stun. The imposter is not to be injured. Repeat, the imposter is _not_ to be injured. Kirk out.”

            He took his hand away from the intercom and glanced up at Spock briefly, searching approval, seeking confirmation that he had done the right thing, that he hadn’t said too much or caused too much damage. Spock’s eyes didn’t flicker, but he nodded ever so slightly.

            Jim knew he needed to get off the bridge. If he stayed here, he would go to pieces. Standing up, he managed, “I’ll be in the Briefing Room, Mr. Spock.”

            “Acknowledged, Captain. I will report there as soon as the search parties have been deployed.”

            “Thank you.” Jim managed a smile and strode off the bridge.

            Once in the solitude of the briefing room, he sat down, watching his hands shake. Well, that was it. The crew knew now that there was a man wearing his face but committing horrible deeds. They would hunt him down. The trouble was that Jim had no idea how long it would take, or what would happen—or what they could do after they had captured him. Was there any way to put him back together? And, quite frankly, did he _want_ that?

            The plain, unvarnished truth was that he didn’t. The man who personified his inner darkness terrified him. Frankly, he was surprised they _were_ so identical. Jim didn’t feel like he was half one way and half the other—he felt like the darkness had consumed so much of his soul that there was only a very, very small part of him hanging on to goodness. And that scared him almost as badly.

            He fumbled for his communicator and twisted a dial, hoping that talking to the crew on the surface would ease his mind, maybe. “Kirk to Sulu.”

            “Sulu here.” Sulu’s voice crackled over the line. “Are we ready to beam up?”

            “Not yet,” Jim said reluctantly. “There’s…still an issue with the transporters. Are you okay down there? Is it—”

            “We’re okay for now,” Sulu replied. “Sort of. Temperature’s still dropping steadily. It’s about ten below now, which is…not pleasant, but at least it’s survivable, to a point. There’s enough light to see by, though, and we’re putting together a rock shelter. At least it’ll keep some of the wind off.”

            Jim closed his eyes briefly, fighting off the surge of panic. _What if it collapses on them? What if they seal themselves in and it suffocates them? What if…?_

            “Good work, Mr. Sulu,” he forced himself to say. “We’ll keep in touch. Kirk out.”

            He closed the communicator as Spock came in and sat down opposite him. “I have deployed thirty search parties, Captain, each comprising five members. They will report to me as they progress around the ship. Ensigns Simril, Cayne, and O’Flaherty have joined Mr. Scott and Thomas in the Transporter Room. Ensigns Cayne and O’Flaherty are assisting in the repairs, and Ensign Simril is standing guard.”

            “Oh, God,” Jim muttered brokenly. He hadn’t even considered the danger to his son. And Addie…he should have insisted that Addie stay with him, should never have let her go off with anyone else, even Dr. Marcus…but how could he have forced her to stay with him?

            Spock’s intercom went off periodically as people reported on their progress. Jim listened anxiously, hoping that he would hear that his double had been found, but all reports came back negative. Half an hour went by with no result.

            Unable to stand the strain of not doing anything, Jim twisted the knob on his communicator again. “Kirk to Sulu. How’s that rock shelter coming along?”

            “It’s a compliment to these rocks to call them a shelter, sir,” Sulu replied with a texture of humor in his voice. “But we’ve almost got a space big enough for the four of us—just. And just in time, too. It’s about fifty below now.”

            “Hang in there, Sulu,” Jim said, feeling horrible. “We’re doing the best we can. Kirk out.”

            It killed him to have to say those words. He might as well say _Kirk down and out._ He felt useless, knowing that his crew was beginning to freeze and he couldn’t save them…

            “We’ve got to get those men up,” Jim said desperately, looking up at Spock.

            Spock’s intercom suddenly cracked to life. “Search party eight reporting. Lieutenant Kyle has just been found crawling out of the captain’s quarters, bruised and bloodied. He says the imposter attacked him, called him by name, and stole his weapons.”

            “Transport him to Medical Bay and resume search,” Spock said.

            “Acknowledged. Party eight out.”

            Jim couldn’t hold back a cry of despair. A crew member attacked by his double—by _him_. This was one of his worst nightmares.

            “Captain,” Spock said urgently. “It seems that the double has all of your memories, all of your knowledge of the ship, and all of your training. If you wished to hide from search parties, where would you go?”

            “Engineering,” Jim replied without hesitation, the only time since stepping off the transporter that he hadn’t hesitated. “The lower levels. Let’s go.”

            He got to his feet and headed for the lift, Spock right beside him. As they descended, Spock unslung his phaser and said, without looking up, “I am setting this, not to the kill setting, but to the stun setting. What about your phaser?”

            Jim took the hint and checked the settings on his phaser. As he did so, Spock added, “That thing is dangerous. Do you not think we will need some help if we find it?”

            Again the torture of indecision. On the one hand, it _would_ be nice to have backup…on the other hand, he wasn’t sure he wanted anyone else to see him like that. At last, he said, “No, Mr. Spock. If we catch up to him, I don’t want anyone else around but you.”

            _And maybe Bones,_ he admitted to himself. _I’m always stronger when Bones is here. And let’s be honest, I wish Pike were here. He’d know what to do. He’d make this better…_

            As the doors slid open, he tried to ignore the little voice in the back of his head that told him Pike would never have allowed this situation to happen in the first place.

            “Captain!” Spock said sharply as Jim began to step out.

            Jim stopped and turned around, worried. “Yes?”

            “You ordered me to tell you—” Spock began.

            “I said no,” Jim interrupted. It had been hard enough to make up his mind, and he was already torturing himself with doubts. If he allowed Spock to convince him to reconsider, they’d never find his double because he’d never make his mind up again. “No one but you.”

            Spock’s eyebrows drew together briefly, but he followed Jim out into the corridors.

            Engineering was a veritable labyrinth, a dark and echoing maze, especially this part of it. The engineers were mostly around the warp core itself; this level was fairly deserted during Beta shift, which was how Jim knew that his double would come down here. It would be easy to get lost even if you _did_ know the department. Any non-engineers who came down here searching would need a search party of their own.

            Jim looked down at the phaser in his hand, repulsed at the device and what it stood for. Why had he ever allowed his son to learn how to use it? It was dangerous, something for killing, for harming. Set on stun or not, it was still dangerous. Shuddering to himself, he returned it to his belt.

            Suddenly, a figure stepped out in front of him, its own phaser held at the ready. Jim froze, inhaling sharply as he recognized himself in the face before him. It raised its phaser, pointing it directly at his heart.

            Jim forced himself to speak calmly. “You can’t do that. You can’t hurt me. You can only live as long as I do. If you kill me, you kill yourself.”

            The double looked suddenly uncertain, and Jim saw the reflection of his own hesitation, his own indecision. He clung to the knowledge that his double would only hurt himself if he hurt Jim.

            Too late, Jim remembered that he had attempted suicide when he was fifteen.

            _“I_ don’t need you!” the double snarled. “I don’t have to believe anything you tell me.” He raised his phaser, and Jim took a half-step back, terrified, too terrified to even go for his own weapon, as the double put his finger on the kill trigger.

            Suddenly Spock leapt from behind the generator next to Jim, his inertia lending force to his fist as it connected with the double’s chin. The phaser fired wildly as the double fell, hitting a machine unit behind Jim. The unit glowed and toppled.

            Spock nudged the double with his toe—the way, Jim remembered, he had nudged Sulu during the incident following the breakup of La Pig. “I fear the ministrations of Dr. McCoy will be needed.”

            Wordlessly, Jim bent down and helped Spock lift his double.

            Bones turned white when he saw them dragging the body into Med Bay, but he only pointed to a treatment table for them to deposit it on. Jim wrapped his arms around his midsection, watching Bones work, as Spock contacted the search parties to tell them the “imposter” had been found. The double seemed to show a certain reluctance to return to consciousness.

            “Some hit, Mr. Spock,” Bones said dryly as he worked.

            Unable to stand the strain, Jim moved over to the intercom unit. “Kirk to Transporter Room. Scotty, what about those transporter circuits? They’re all checked through now, aren’t they?”

            “Aye, Captain.” Scotty’s voice sounded harassed. “And we thought we’d corrected the trouble. But now something else has gone wrong.”

            “ _What?_ ” Jim demanded, fear knotting in his stomach.

            “We don’t know, sir. We’re working on it. Is that all, Captain?”

            Jim couldn’t answer. Indecision tore at him. There were questions he could ask, things he could suggest…but would Scotty think he was losing confidence in him? And Slim was there, Slim and Cayne…surely the two of them could make better suggestions than he could…

            After an uncomfortably long pause, Scotty said, “Then I’d better get back to work, sir.”

            “Find out what’s wrong, Scotty!” Jim burst out, the image of Sulu and the others waiting on a darkening planet growing colder by the minute. “And fix it, in God’s name. Four human lives are depending on that transporter!”

            “We’re doing our very best,” Scotty said stiffly.

            Jim closed his eyes, resting his head on the wall next to the intercom. “I know, Scotty. You always do your best. Keep me posted, will you?”

            “Aye, Captain.” Scotty’s voice softened. “Scott out.”

            Bones straightened up from the double. Jim moved over to him anxiously. “How is—he?”

            “Pulse and blood pressure high,” Bones said, shooting a glance at Spock. “Probably due to that sock on the chin.”

            “It was necessary, Doctor,” Spock replied.

            “This—thing—will be regaining consciousness soon,” Bones continued. “And since I can’t do more than guess about its mental state, I can’t give it a tranquilizer. I think we’d better bind it.”

            Jim hesitated, aware that Bones was watching him, waiting for authorization. Part of him wanted to protest—he knew that _he_ was terrified of restraints, and this thing, to all intents and purposes, _was_ him—but he also knew Bones was right. He suddenly felt, for the first time in thirteen years, just how heavy the weight of command was.

            “Yeah, all right,” he said at last. “I just—I wish someone would tell me what was wrong with _me._ ”

            He knew he sounded pathetic, and the look Bones shot him confirmed that, but Spock spoke before Bones could. “You are losing the power of decision, Captain.”

            “What?” Jim said, startled.

             “By my observations, you are rapidly losing your capacity for action. You hesitate in time of crises—you are losing your perception. You refuse to defend yourself. You refused to demand adequate assistance when we went down to the engineering level, when you should have placed yourself in guarded isolation until your double was captured.”

            “Your point, Spock?” Bones snapped.

            “Point?”

            “I assume you have one.”

            “I am analyzing, Doctor, not making a point.”

            “This is Jim’s gut you’re analyzing!” Bones shouted. “You _do_ realize that, don’t you?”

            Spock lifted an eyebrow. “The human mind is full of dichotomies, Captain. The dichotomy of command is especially pertinent in this case. It is a balance of the positive and negative energies—an equilibrium of the forces generated by each of these energies. The proof?” He turned to look at Jim. “Your negative energy was removed from you by that duplication process. Thus, the power of command has begun to fail you. If this continues, you will not be able to—”

            “Jim,” Bones interrupted, “give him a command. Tell him to get lost!”

            “If I seem emotionally unsympathetic to the agony of your ordeal, Captain, please understand that it is simply the way I am.”

            “That’s for damned sure,” Bones growled.

            “Gentlemen,” Jim interrupted, feeling a headache coming on. “I may be losing the ability to command, but while I still have a little of it left, please knock it off.”

            He looked up at Bones and saw that there was still pain in his husband’s eyes, still a world of hurt, and it destroyed him that he had put it there. Well—his double had, but in the end, wasn’t that the same thing? God, how could he put that part of him back inside himself _now?_ Dichotomies or not, how could he live knowing that there was a part of him that would attack unwillingly—that _was_ , in the end, as bad as his mirror universe counterpart?

            The intercom suddenly whistled. Jim flicked the appropriate switch. “Kirk here.”

            “Engineering, sir. We’ve found the source of the new trouble. Its ionizer unit has been destroyed. Looks like by a phaser blast.”

            Fighting back the urge to cry—or faint—Jim said quietly, “If you need me, I will be in the Briefing Room.”

            Without waiting for acknowledgement from Spock, Bones, or the voice at the other end of the intercom, he turned and walked out of Med Bay.

            He was hardly aware of the walk to the room. Coldness had settled over his shoulders. The unit his double’s phaser had hit…was to the transporter. If they couldn’t repair it, his crew members would be dead…and it would be their captain, the man who was supposed to lead them, who had done it, who had sealed their death warrants.

            Sitting down at the table, he looked at his hands, wondering if it was just his imagination that they were soaked in blood. Down below on the planet, the temperature would be dropping yet. His men would be getting colder…

            Almost before the thought had left his mind, the communications system chirruped and Sulu’s voice came over, a little muffled. “ _Enterprise_ _,_ this is Sulu. Can you give us a status report? It’s fallen to ninety degrees below zero here.”

            Jim touched the appropriate button. “Mr. Sulu, this is the captain speaking. We’ve located the source of the trouble. It shouldn’t be too long now.” He spoke optimistically, knowing damned well that he had no idea how long it would take to fix the ionizer.

            “Think you could rig up a cord and lower us down a pot of coffee?”

            How did the man manage to keep a sense of humor in subzero temperatures? Jim wasn’t sure _he_ could do it. “I’ll see what I can do. Kirk out.” He swallowed hard and stared at the intercom. He was afraid to call Scotty…but at the same time, he was afraid _not_ to. If he found out he’d lied to the men…

            Biting his lip, he pressed the button. “That mangled unit, Scotty. Status report.”

            “Nothing much left of it, sir.” Scotty’s voice was full of foreboding.

            “How long will it take you to fix it?” Jim asked desperately.

            “Not less than a week.”

            A week. The men on the planet didn’t _have_ a week. They didn’t even have more than a few hours. Without appropriate clothing, without blankets and the survival gear—oh, God, why hadn’t he taken down blankets, just as a precaution? Why hadn’t he—?

            “Scotty,” Jim said, his voice strangled. “Isn’t there _anything_ you can do?”

            Scotty hesitated. “We’re working on it, sir. Scott out.”

            Jim dropped his head to his hands, imagining his men on the surface getting slower and more sluggish as their body heat dropped, imagined them huddling together for rapidly disappearing warmth…

            A knock at the door startled him. “Enter,” he called, expecting Spock to come in.

            Instead, the door revealed a young woman in a red uniform. It took Jim a moment, in the state he was in, to recognize who it was. “Ensign O’Flaherty? What is it?”

            “Sir—I’d like permission to take one of the shuttles down to the planet, sir,” O’Flaherty blurted out. “The transporters are down, and it’s getting colder by the second down there. I’ve got my pilot’s training, sir, Volta said I was one of his best students at the Academy. If anyone can do it, I can. _Please,_ sir, they’re running out of time!”

            Jim stared at O’Flaherty. _The shuttles._ Why had that not occurred to him sooner? God, how long had he frittered away his men’s lives? Was that the answer? On the other hand…he remembered the fate of the _Einstein,_ of the _Galileo,_ and he hesitated. If something went wrong with the shuttle…if it crashed, or if it was damaged in the landing, there would be a _fifth_ crew member stranded on the planet, someone _else_ to freeze to death. Then again, maybe they could put blankets and parkas in the shuttle, too, so just in case…

            “Impossible,” said a voice from the doorway. O’Flaherty whirled around as Spock came in. “We have already considered that possibility.”

            “We have?” Jim said before he could stop himself.

            Spock ignored him. “The atmospheric conditions are such that it would be extremely difficult, if not virtually impossible, to pilot a shuttle to the surface—”

            “Mr. Scott said it would take a pilot with brass balls and a sure touch,” O’Flaherty interrupted, her voice desperate. “I have both, sir, Volta always said—”

            “Ensign,” Spock said, gently but firmly, “the swirls of clouds that make it difficult under ordinary circumstances are worse after dark. There is a great deal of ice forming in the atmosphere, now that the sun of Alfa 177 is on the far side of the planet. And it is growing dark. Finding a safe landing place would be next to impossible.”

            Tears flooded O’Flaherty’s eyes. “Sir—my best friend is down there. _Please,_ there’s got to be a way.”

            Jim bit his lip hard, tasting blood. Spock merely shook his head. “Then I suggest, Ensign, you return to Mr. Scott and assist him in repairing the transporters, quickly.”

            O’Flaherty bowed her head. “Yes, sir,” she said softly. Wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, she hurried out of the room.

            Jim tried to remember why he had included an engineer in the landing party. Before he could come up with a satisfactory answer, the communicator whistled again. “ _Enterprise_ _,_ this is Sulu.”

            “Sulu, Kirk here,” Jim said, quickly stabbing at the button. Hearing the man’s voice meant he was still alive…

            “Direct hotline to the Captain again. Are we that far gone, sir?” Sulu’s voice was light, but Jim could imagine the terror in his eyes.

            He smashed his fist against the table in frustration. “Everyone but you has the evening off. I’m minding the store. How are things down there?”

            “Lovely,” Sulu replied. “We’re using our phasers to heat rocks. One of them quit on us, but we still have three operational. Any chance of us getting out of here before the skiing season opens up, sir?”

            Thoughts whirled through Jim’s head, too fast for him to catch any of them. O’Flaherty’s desperate shuttle plan, Scotty’s hesitation, the ice in the atmosphere…maybe it would be swift, merciful. _Think,_ he scolded himself, but he couldn’t, he couldn’t settle the turmoil of his mind long enough…

            He wasn’t surprised when Spock stepped between him and the mouthpiece. “Mr. Sulu, this is Spock. You will hold out for a while longer. _Hold out._ Survival procedures.”

            If Sulu felt any confusion at the change of speaker, he gave no sign of it in his voice. “Aye, sir. I’ll do what I can.”

            Jim reached a desperate hand towards the communicator, as though he could reach through it and pull the men back to the _Enterprise_ _._ “Sulu, just don’t drift, don’t lose—awareness. Sulu, beware of sleep…”

            “Spock out,” Spock said firmly, switching off the communicator.

            As he did, Jim felt an overwhelming weariness pass over him, and a desire to return to Med Bay, to his other half and his better half, he thought with a flash of whimsy. He got to his feet. Spock didn’t ask where he was going—he seemed to understand, even without words. It was what made him such a good first officer.

            When he got to Med Bay, he found Bones alone, a look somewhere between worry and loathing as he straightened up from the biobed. The double obviously hadn’t taken the return to consciousness well. He was screaming, straining at the restraints, writhing and frothing in agony, the veins on his neck standing out like cords. Jim could taste the acid of fear on his tongue and knew, without knowing how he knew, that it was his double’s fear he was tasting—that the other was running from the demons in its own mind.

            “It should be calming down,” Bones said, setting aside a hypo and stepping back with a worried glance at the screen above the biobed. “This tranquilizer should be taking effect right about now.”

            Jim looked at the screen as well. He knew enough to know that the double was in very bad shape, the vital signs all at dangerous levels. The double strained against the bonds again, every vein and sinew popping up. Then, suddenly, it slumped back. The indicators all fell rapidly. Bones turned white.

            “What’s happening?” Jim cried, terror gripping him again.

            “The tranquilizer was a mistake,” Bones said. He moved back to stand next to Jim, arms folded across his chest. “Its system rejected it.”

            Jim’s eyes widened. “He’s not—dying?”

            “Yes,” Bones said, in a flat, toneless voice. “It is.”

            Panicked, Jim gripped Bones’ arm tightly. Bones turned to him with a look of surprise as he said, pleadingly, “He _can’t_ die. I can’t live without him and he can’t live without me.” Not, he had to admit secretly, that he didn’t want to try the experiment, but deep down, he knew it was true. He couldn’t live as only a part of himself.

            The double’s head lolled, like Addie’s during a nightmare. “Afraid, afraid,” he whimpered.

            Jim, moved by pity even for this _thing_ that had tried to kill him, moved over to the side of the bed. The double looked up at him. “Help me,” he moaned. “I’m afraid…so afraid…”

            “Jim, be careful,” Bones said sharply.

            For once, Jim ignored him. He reached over and took the double’s hand. “Don’t be afraid,” he said, as gently as he would to his daughter. “Here’s my hand. Feel it. Hold on to it. That’s it. Hang onto my hand. I won’t let you go.”

            “Afraid,” the double said again, tears in its eyes.

            Words came unbidden to Jim’s lips—words he knew, words he remembered hearing, once upon a time, although he couldn’t quite think of who had said them or why. “You’ve got to hang on to me, because we’ve been pulled apart. Come back.” He felt the double’s hand slip and redoubled his own grip. “No, you’re letting go! Hold on Tight! Tighter! I’m pulling you back to me. That’s it! Tight! _Tight!_ We have to hold on—together…”

            Behind him, Bones made a quiet noise of surprise, but Jim kept his eyes locked on the terrified eyes of his double—the eyes of a small child almost, a little boy standing in the ruins of the only love he’d ever known. “No fear,” he whispered. “You’re not afraid. _You are not afraid._ Come back, come back, come back, come back…”

            “Jim, it _is_ back,” Bones said softly.

            Jim let go of the double’s hand and stumbled backwards, collapsing heavily onto a chair. He felt as though he’d just climbed the cliffs at Yosemite unassisted.

            Bones held out a glass. “Now _you_ need some brandy.”

            Gratefully, Jim accepted the glass, but he choked on the fiery liquid. “I’ve gotta take him back into myself,” he muttered, shooting a brief glance at his double. “I don’t want to, Bones. He’s just—he’s a brutish, mindless animal in human shape. But he’s me. He’s _me._ ”

            “Don’t take it so hard, Jim,” Bones said gently. He took the glass from Jim’s hand and drew Jim to his feet, hugging him, half-comforting and half-supporting him. “We’re all part lion and part lamb. Finding the balance is what it means to be human.”

            “Human?” Jim repeated bitterly.

            “Yes, Jim, human. God forbid I should agree with Spock on anything, but he’s right about this.” Bones ran his fingers through Jim’s hair tenderly. “You need the lion to be an effective commander, to put some steel into your orders and help you make decisions. And you need the lamb to temper the lion so that the discipline isn’t too harsh.”

            Jim looked up at Bones desperately. “But…Bones, that ‘lion’ is the one who…” He trailed off, unable to even say the words.

            Bones nodded slowly. “I know that—but at the same time, it’s the part of you that persists in annoying me even after I’ve told you to go away. It’s the part of you that kisses me even when I’m in a bad mood and tries to talk me into going out drinking or having sex. But usually, this part of you—” he touched Jim’s cheek lightly—“tempers it. This is the part that knows where the line is and knows not to cross it. But then again, this is also the part of you that wouldn’t even _try,_ because you don’t think you’re worth it. Am I right?”

            Tears flooded Jim’s eyes. “Oh, Bones…”

            “Listen to me, Jim. Just listen.” Bones pulled back a little. “Think about the _Kobayashi Maru._ Think about that for a minute. You’ve got three choices there. You can get your ship and crew away to spread the word about the attack, but leave the _Kobayashi Maru_ to the Klingons. You can attempt to rescue the other ship’s crew and risk losing _your_ ship and crew—without succeeding. Or you can cheat, hack the test sim and reprogram it so that the Klingon shields drop long enough for you to get a few shots in. You’ve got only seconds to decide. What do you do?”

            “I—” Jim froze, paralyzed with indecision again. He could feel his double’s interested eyes on him, but tried to focus. Cheating was _wrong…_ but not doing it put two crews at risk. He’d sworn loyalty to the Federation and to Starfleet, and part of his duty was to rescue any other Federation member in distress…but at the same time, this was _his_ ship, _his_ crew…his _family._ Could he put them in that kind of danger on the off-chance that he would be able to withstand the Klingons for a little longer?

            “Too late. The Klingons have already destroyed _both_ ships.” Bones ran his fingers through Jim’s hair again. “That’s what Spock and I are trying to tell you, Jim. You can’t command a starship like this—with nothing but your kindness and gentleness and love. But at the same time, we’ve seen the results of a world where the _Enterprise_ is commanded by a man like _that._ ” He jerked his head over his shoulder at the double. “But…you know, forget command for a minute. Think about the kids. You—you’re the daddy who reads books to Addie at bedtime, but _that’s_ the daddy who roughhouses with her. _You’re_ the dad who plays duets with Slim, but _that’s_ the dad who teaches him hand-to-hand. _That’s_ the one who punishes them when they do something wrong, but _you’re_ the one who makes sure it isn’t excessive or unjust.”

            Jim bit his lip. “I know, but…”

            “And what about me, Jim?” Bones asked softly. “The man I married is a good, loving, generous man who can be ruthless or tender as he needs to be. For better or for worse, remember?” He leaned his forehead against Jim’s, and Jim closed his eyes, imagining healing thoughts passing from his husband’s mind to his. “I love you, Jim. I love _all_ of you, no matter what thoughts you may have, no matter what you may have done in the past…no matter how far you push me, I will always love you. And I want you whole again. How can I put myself back together if you’ve fallen apart?”

            Jim clung tightly to Bones’ shirt, fighting the urge to start crying. The whistle of the intercom startled both of them, and slowly, reluctantly, he extracted himself from Bones’ arms and crossed to it. “Kirk here.”

            “Spock, Captain. Will you come to the Transporter Room? We think we may have found the solution.”

            “I’m on my way.” Jim turned away from the intercom and squeezed Bones’ fingers lightly. “Keep your fingers crossed, okay, Bones?”

            Bones managed a smile. “Tell Spock I’m shaking all my rattles to invoke good spirits.”

            Jim felt an unwilling smile cross his lips as he headed out the door.

            Spock, Scotty, Slim, and O’Flaherty all stood in the Transporter Room when he reached it. O’Flaherty held the milder version of Sebastian in her arms; it seemed to have calmed her, although her eyes were extremely red. Slim was behind the console, fussing over something. He looked up and gave the briefest of nods as Jim came in. Jim nodded back before turning to Spock and Scotty.

            “What’s that solution you think you’ve found, then?” he asked.

            “A way to make the transporter safe,” Scotty replied. “We attached some temporary bypass and leader circuits to compensate for the velocity variation. There shouldn’t be more than a five-point variation in speed. ‘Twas Slim who found the way.”

            “We propose to send the two animals through at the same time,” Spock said.

            Jim immediately grasped what Spock was saying. They hoped that, with the repaired transporter circuits, the two creatures would become one again by the same machine that had ripped them apart. They hoped that they could put Jim back together in the same way. They hoped that the four stranded crew members could be brought back safely.

            _Hope._ Well, without it, humans couldn’t exist.

            “All right,” Jim said. “Do it.”

            Spock picked up a hypo from the console and nodded to Scotty, who crossed over to the specimen container and opened it. “I’ll try to hold it still,” he said.

            The animal leapt, snarling and spitting, but Scotty grabbed it by the scruff of the neck, twisting it slightly to improve his grip as he lifted it out, all four legs sticking straight out.

            “Don’t hurt it!” Jim cried, feeling his heart wrench.

            Spock pressed the hypo to the angry creature’s neck. “It is painless and quick, Captain. The creature will lose consciousness only for the few, necessary seconds.”

            The snarls subsided and the creature went limp. Scotty placed it on the transporter platform. O’Flaherty quickly lay the docile Sebastian next to it. It curled up next to its duplicate’s side, staring around nervously, as Scotty took a step back and folded his arms. “Ah, if this doesn’t work, I don’t know what will,” he said, almost under his breath.

            Spock signaled to Slim, who twisted a knob on the console. The platform glowed, humming its comforting hum, and the two animals vanished.

            “Energize to reverse,” Spock said.

            Slim complied. Two animals reappeared…and the lights dimmed. Slim cursed under his breath. Before Jim had time to panic, however, he had tweaked several dials and buttons. “Trying again, Mr. Spock.”

            “Go on.”

            The process was repeated. Bones came in just as Slim reversed the beam. There was the flare of light Jim was familiar with, and there, lying on the platform, was a single animal. It lay unmoving on its side.

            “It’s dead,” Jim said, feeling his heart sink with heavy certainty.

            “Not so fast, Jim,” Bones said quickly. He crossed over to the animal and checked it over minutely. Jim knew, however, even before he looked up and shook his head, that it was futile. The animal had died.

            Into the silence, Spock said, “The shock…the shock of reabsorption…”

            “Med Bay,” Bones said tersely, scooping up the animal. “Now.”

            Jim stumbled after Bones, torn between his promise to keep the landing party updated and his desire to let them hold onto hope a little longer. On the other hand, it _had_ worked…just because the animal was dead didn’t mean they couldn’t beam the landing party up…

            Bones lay Sebastian’s body on an exam table and began studying him more closely, watched by both Jim and Spock, the three engineers having remained in the Transporter Room. After a few moments, he straightened. “Maybe the shock of reabsorption _was_ what killed this little beast. But it’d take a post-mortem to be sure.”

            “Why shock?” Jim asked.

            “We’re only guessing, Jim.”

            “I know, but you both used that word.”

            “This animal lacked the ability to comprehend what was being done to it—the understanding that it was reabsorbing a darker part of itself,” Spock said. “Its fear was so great that it caused shock. Other causes of shock are lacking. You can see yourself, the body is undamaged.”

            Jim’s eyes drifted over to where his double lay, bound by a web of cords and straps to a biobed. Bones stopped, obviously reading his thoughts in his eyes. “No. I can see that thought coming, Jim. You want to take that double of yours with you through the transporter—you and it, _with_ it. No, Jim, no!”

            “Four of my men are freezing to death,” Jim protested.

            “There isn’t one shred of evidence to indicate that this creature died of fear! Shock, yes, but fear—that’s just a guess!”

            “Based on the laws of probability,” Spock said calmly.

            “Probability be hanged!” Bones burst out. “This is Jim’s _life_ hanging in the balance, you green-blooded bastard, and you’re talking about _probability!_ All of a sudden you’re a fear expert? That’s a human emotion!”

            “I _am_ half-human, Doctor,” Spock reminded him. “The struggle between two selves is one I experience daily.”

            “That may be—but we’re talking about the transporter. A machine. What do the laws of probability say about _that?_ Is it safe? We don’t know!” Bones snarled at Spock.

            “I am going through that transporter with him,” Jim said with as much firmness as he could gather.

            “For God’s sake, Jim, use your head!”

            “I’m getting my four men back on this ship,” Jim said. “And we can’t risk using that transporter until we know whether this animal died of shock, or because of mechanical failure on the part of the transporter.”

            “I want to save them, too—but you’re more vital to the crew of this ship than four men, Jim, and you know it,” Bones said, his eyes wide and desperate.

            Jim felt his determination waver for a moment, then settle into the pit of his stomach. He was terrified, but this was what had to be done. “I have to—to try. You’ve got to let me try. Otherwise, they’ll die—and I will, too. You were right, Bones. What good am I to this crew if I’m only half a captain?”

            Bones looked as though he wished he could travel back in time and stop himself from saying those words. “Do me one favor, Jim,” he pleaded. “Before you do anything else, let me run a necropsy on this animal.”

            “We can’t afford the delay,” Jim said.

            “At least give Spock and Scotty time to test the transporter some more. And let me get the lab started on the necropsy. Wait, Jim, please wait.” Bones gathered the animal in a sheet and hurried out of the room.

            Spock nodded. “I will put the transporter through another test cycle as soon as the doctor returns.”

            Jim whirled on Spock, as angry as he could bring himself to be. They’d been on him about his indecisiveness, and now when he’d finally actually steeled himself to a decision, they were _questioning_ him. “I don’t need nursemaids, Mr. Spock!”

            Spock paused. “If you will excuse me, Captain.” He turned and left Med Bay.

            Jim watched him go, feeling his anger drain away instantly, then turned and started for the biobed. Before he reached it, the wall unit crackled to life. “Sulu…to _Enterprise_ _…_ ”

            Quickly, Jim pressed the correct button. “Kirk here.”

            Sulu’s voice was no more than a hoarse whisper. “Captain…the rocks are cold…the phasers have all died out. I tried, but…Boma is unconscious already…we can’t hold out much longer.” The communicator crackled. “Captain, the cold…is freezing the communicators…no time left…”

            There was another crackle, and then the communicator went dead.

            Jim stared at the intercom, then at the biobed. Four lives at risk on the planet. Two at risk with the transporters. There was no alternative, really.

            The double looked fearfully up at him. “What are you going to do?”

            Without words, Jim began untying the web of restraints. The double watched for a moment, then brushed his fingers against the phaser at his hip. “You won’t need that. I’m not going to fight you anymore. What are we doing?”

            “We’re going through the transporter together,” Jim told his double.

            The double tensed briefly, then exhaled. “If that’s what you want.”

            “It’s what I have to want.” Jim undid the last knot and the whole complicated web of ropes fell apart. Drawing his phaser, he stepped back.

            The double got to his feet and staggered. “I feel so weak,” he murmured. “I’ll be glad when this is over.”

            “Let’s go,” Jim said, although he silently agreed with the sentiments.

            The double took a step, and then faltered. Jim moved instinctively forward to help him. Without missing a beat, the double drove his shoulder into Jim’s stomach, knocking him off-balance. The phaser clattered to the floor and the double lunged for it.

            “No!” Jim shouted.

            Before he could move, the double swung the phaser at the side of his head. It connected and he blacked out.

            A stab to the side of the neck roused him, and he came around with a gasp. Opening his eyes, he found himself face-to-face with Bones. “Jim?” the doctor said tentatively.

            “Bones,” Jim gasped. “The double—where is he?” He tried to sit up and found himself restrained. Terror coursed through him. In a flash, he was fifteen years old again, his arms bound together, bent over a pommel horse while a man relentlessly forced his way inside of him, over and over again…

            “Oh, God, Jim, it _is_ you.” Bones hastily undid the restraints, talking all the while. “It’s just the wrist and ankle straps, not the heavy-duty ones I put on, so I figured you had planned to untie the double and take him up to the Transporter Room. Then I saw the bruise and I—I _knew,_ in the state you’re in, you wouldn’t have hit him…there,” he added. He pulled Jim upright and hugged him tightly, rubbing his back. “There, it’s all right, you’re safe…”

            Jim let Bones hold him for a moment, but only for a moment, before pulling back. “Bones, the double—we’ve got to find him. He’s loose on the ship again, and he _knows_ —he was listening to everything we’ve been saying, he’ll know how to fake it…”

            Bones handed Jim a phaser. “If you were in his place, where would you go?”

            Once again, Jim didn’t need to think. “The bridge, and try to get us the hell out of here.”

            “Come on, then, we’ve got to hurry.”

            Jim ran headlong down the hallway, Bones keeping pace with him easily. It seemed to him that the elevator had never risen so slowly, but they managed to step onto the bridge just as Riley, the relief helmsman, reached for a switch. The double sat in the captain’s chair. Although Jim was terrified by what he had to do, he kept the phaser steady.

            The double leapt to his feet. “That’s the imposter!” he yelled. “Get him!”

            Chekov got to his feet and faced the double, his eyes as red-rimmed as O’Flaherty’s had been. “ _You_ are ze imposter,” he said, his voice deadly calm.

            Jim and Bones walked towards the command chair. Spock held out a hand, stopping Bones’ progress, and Jim continued forward alone. The double backed up, step by step, as Jim moved forward inexorably. Chekov took a step forward, but was checked by a shake of Spock’s head. “This is the captain’s fight alone.”

            “I am Captain Kirk, you ship of pigs!” the double screamed, still backing away from Jim. “All right, let the liar destroy you! He’s already killed four of you! I own this ship! I own _you!”_

            Jim ordinarily would have hesitated to fire a phaser on the bridge, afraid to risk hitting something vital—especially now—but he was so close that he knew he could not miss. He fired. The bolt struck the double in the chest, and he crumpled.

            “Spock, Bones,” he said quietly. “Quickly.”

            Chekov instantly knelt to lift the double’s shoulders; Spock and Bones took the feet. Jim led the way down the hallway, none of them commenting on the navigator’s unsolicited assistance. They all knew what he was thinking.

            Slim looked up as they entered the Transporter Room and spoke quickly. “There ain’t anything wrong with the transporters. We checked.”

            “Good.” Jim climbed onto the platform.

            “You’ll have to hold him,” Bones said, his voice shaking.

            Jim accepted the burden of his double from the three officers, holding him like a limp doll. Then he looked up. “Mr. Spock, if this doesn’t work…”

            “Understood, Captain.”

            “Jim, don’t!” Bones burst out. “In God’s name, wait!”

            Jim swallowed hard and looked around the room, memorizing faces—even O’Flaherty’s—knowing perfectly well that this could be the last time he saw any of them. His eyes lingered longest on Bones, conveying all the love and gratitude he could to his husband. At last, he turned to Slim and nodded. “Energize.”

            Slim turned the dial. Jim felt the transporter beam surround him, experienced the dematerialization he was familiar with. It was normally instantaneous, but this felt slower than usual. Suddenly he got a wrenching headache, and his arms felt lighter, emptied of a burden.

            Slowly, the Transporter Room came back into focus, the face of his husband, his best friend, his crew, and his son. Bones ran towards him. “Jim—Jim?”

            “Bones,” Jim murmured. He stepped down off the platform—alone—and let Bones hold him, just for a moment, before he pulled away and crossed over to the console. There were tears in Slim’s eyes. Jim ruffled his hair affectionately. “Let’s get those men back onboard, at once.”

            “Aye, sir.” Slim smiled through his tears and began the process.

            It wasn’t accomplished at once. In fact it was fully twenty minutes before four figures appeared on the platform. Three were unconscious, or the nearest thing to it. One was upright. Jim, complete once more, remembered why he had included an engineer in the party. The Zathros were a desert race, coming from a planet whose conditions closely mimicked those of the planet below them, and Ensign Nic’tlarn was therefore the only person aboard the _Enterprise_ equipped to handle them.

            Chekov gave a slight cry and hurried to Sulu’s side, wrapping his arms around the helmsman just as consciousness left him and his head lolled against Chekov’s shoulder. O’Flaherty gave a sigh of relief, supporting herself against the console. Bones took immediate charge. “Med Bay. I need help…”

            It didn’t surprise Jim in the slightest that Chekov was able to lift Sulu by himself. Spock took charge of the unconscious Boma, and O’Flaherty and Slim between them supported Nic’tlarn, who was still weak. Jim and Scotty between them carried the remaining crew member.

            As Bones examined the three unconscious patients, Jim turned to Nic’tlarn, who lay back on a biobed, breathing steadily as xe recovered. “Ensign Nic’tlarn, I apologize for the delay in beaming you up. There were…complications.”

            “We know, Captain.” Nic’tlarn was obviously too tired to be nervous around him. “Lieutenant Sulu assured us…that you would get us out as soon as you could. His job…was to keep us alive until then.” Xe closed xyr eyes momentarily, then opened them and looked up at Jim. “Zathros doesn’t get quite _that_ cold, sir. I was…beginning to shut down.”

            “I’m sorry, Ensign,” Jim said, and meant it.

            Bones straightened, relief stamped on his features. “They’ll make it, Jim. They’re all suffering from frostbite—but that’s all. I think they’ll recover quickly.”

            “Those rocks they heated saved their lives,” Jim said gratefully.

            “Not just the rocks,” Nic’tlarn said, xyr breathing coming easier now. “Lieutenant Sulu had everyone pull our shirts over our heads—because so much of a human’s body heat is lost through the head—and even figured out the most efficient way for us to huddle together for warmth. He did admirably, sir.”

            “I can see that,” Jim said.

            Bones took in his face. “And you, Jim? Are you all right?”

            Jim smiled, a little sadly. “What’s that old expression—‘sadder but wiser?’ I feel infinitely sadder, Bones, but no more wise.”

            Bones sighed. “Join the human race, Jim.”

            Jim squeezed Bones’ fingers, then turned to Spock. “Call up a relief navigator, Mr. Spock, and let’s get the hell out of here.”

            Spock inclined his head. “I shall meet you on the bridge, Captain.”


	61. She Could See

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FLUFF FLUFF FLUFF FLUFF FLUFF. All the fluff in this chapter.
> 
> Also, Slim and Sulu quote, in order:  
> \- Zorro: The Gay Blade (it's the opening to the first swordfight between Zorro and Esteban)  
> \- The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan (it's the fight between Jason Grace and Porphyrion)  
> \- Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail (it's exactly which scene you think it is)  
> \- The Princess Bride (it's the tail end of the Fire Swamp scene)
> 
> I didn't necessarily intend for that to happen, but...it did. Enjoy the mental image of John Cho saying "You're a loony."

Slim waited on the balls of his feet, carefully watching his opponent through his mask. They hadn’t fenced for almost two weeks—he’d been doing a lot more dance practice instead—but he knew that was much more likely to be to his detriment than Sulu’s. After all, Sulu had been doing this a lot longer. 

It had been about a week since the incident at Alfa 177, and Sulu had finally been cleared to return to duty. Slim hadn’t been sure Sulu was ready for fencing practice, even if it was one of their usual days, but Sulu had pulled him aside and practically _begged_ him to let them do the lesson. So, the minute Alpha shift was over, they had changed quickly into workout gear and headed to the gym. 

Oddly, they were alone. Slim wondered about that; Chekov had barely missed a practice in a year and a half, not since he and Sulu had finally gotten together. He chose not to say anything, instead focusing on trying not to forget everything he’d ever learned. 

Suddenly, Sulu lunged forward with one of his typical opening moves. Slim parried it, and the match was on. 

They’d opted for the foils, which they hadn’t used in a while, but with which Slim was a great deal more comfortable than the heavier epées or sabers. He was hard-pressed to defend himself at first, but the memories came back to him before long, and soon he was holding his own. 

It wasn’t enough. Less than twenty minutes into the match, Sulu got past his guard and stabbed him in the chest, directly over the heart. Slim stepped back, conceding the point. 

Five points won a match. Sulu had just scored a fourth. Again they circled one another warily, this time feinting lightly. Slim thought over the swashbuckling movies he had seen, then selected a movie at random and threw out a challenge. “Is your blade as sharp as your tongue?” 

“Is yours as dull as your wit?” Sulu retorted, lunging forward. 

“I hope not,” Slim grunted as he parried and riposted. “Because otherwise I won’t do a lick of damage.” 

“So hard on yourself?” Sulu clucked. 

“I picked the movie with two lines of banter and couldn’t come up with a single damned thing to say afterwards. I’d say I’m pretty dull-witted.” 

Sulu actually stopped in surprise, enabling Slim to lunge past him and stab him in the center of the chest. He didn’t seem to notice. “I don’t think I’ve _ever_ heard you swear.” 

Slim blushed, glad Sulu couldn’t see it under his mask. “I never used to, ‘cept when I was sick. But ever since the encounter with the mirror universe…” He trailed off. 

Sulu seemed to understand. “That would make anybody swear.”

They got back into the _en garde_ position. This time it was Sulu who led off the banter. “So, Zeus chooses to sacrifice a son to me? The gesture is appreciated, but it will not save him!” 

Now _this_ was an exchange Slim could do in his sleep. He smiled to himself. “If you knew who I was, you’d be worried about me, not my father. I hope you enjoyed your two and a half minutes of rebirth, giant, because I’m about to send you back to Tartarus.” 

Sulu grinned. “So, we begin by bragging, do we? Just like in the old days! Very well, demigod. I am Porphyrion, king of the giants, son of Gaea. In the olden days I rose from Tartarus, the abyss of my father. To start the war, I stole Zeus’s queen. I was created to be Zeus’s replacement, born to destroy the Lord of the Sky. I shall take his throne. I shall take his queen—or, if she will not have me, I will let the earth consume her life form. What you see before you is my weakened state. I will grow stronger by the hour, until I am invincible. But already I am quite capable of smashing you into a grease spot!” His sword flickered outwards; Slim sidestepped to avoid it. “So, child of Zeus, I have finished my boasting. Now it is your turn. What were you saying about destroying me?” 

It wasn’t _exactly_ word for word the way it had been in the books, but it was close enough that Slim got the gist of it. And anyway, the speech had been interrupted by the presence of Hera, and the summoning of more enemies to Porhyrion’s aid. 

“I’m the son of Jupiter!” Slim declared. “I’m a child of Rome, consul to demigods, praetor of the Twelfth Legion Fulminata. I slew the Trojan sea monster. I toppled the black throne of Kronos, and destroyed the titan Krios with my own hands. And now I’m going to destroy you, Porphyrion, and feed you to your own wolves.” 

“Wow, dude, you been eating red meat?” Sulu laughed. 

Slim lunged forward, catching Sulu off-guard. That didn’t surprise him; in more than two years, Slim had never once attacked first. He invariably waited for Sulu to make the first move. But in this case, the narrative called for Slim to attack, as much as he hated the idea. 

Sulu recovered quickly from his surprise, however, and soon had Slim on the jump. “Thought you could gain the upper hand by attacking first, huh?” 

“Kinda,” Slim said, grinning behind his mask. “Mostly, though, I seem to recall the line after Leo’s little bit of sarcasm being ‘Jason launched himself at the giant, determined to tear him apart,’ so…” 

“Oh, yeah, I forgot about that.” 

“Finally read the Heroes of Olympus, did you?” 

“I had to do _something_ while I was recovering from hypothermia. It was either read or go quietly mad.” Sulu tried for a thrust, which Slim parried, barely. “That or talk Spock into playing chess with me, which amounts to the same thing.” 

“People who play chess with Uncle Spock don’t go _quietly_ anything,” Slim grunted. 

“This is true.”

Slim tried to beat the blade aside and go for a thrust, to no avail. “You liked them, at least, I assume?” 

“Yeah, I did,” Sulu replied. “I understand why Simril’s always calling you ‘Valdez’ now, and why you’re always calling him ‘Zhang.’ But he’s not a child of Mars, is he?” 

“Nah, Vulcan—uh, that’s the Roman aspect of Hephaestus, not the planet.” 

“I figured.” Sulu laughed. “You, however, are _definitely_ a Hephaestus kid. Special gifts and all.” 

“Thanks.” Slim spun on one foot to avoid Sulu’s blade. “What about you? Who’s your godly parent, do you think?” 

Sulu was quiet for a moment. At last, he said, “My instinct is to say Demeter. I’ve always been fond of plants.” 

“I can see that,” Slim agreed. “You’re definitely Greek, though? Not Roman?” 

“Yeah…I’m not particularly warlike. Never have been.” Sulu beat Slim’s blade to one side and thrust quickly forward, the foil bending as the point buried itself in Slim’s sternum. “Match point.” 

They stepped back, saluted one another, and removed their masks. Sulu’s face was flushed and sweaty, and Slim knew his was the same. By silent agreement, they collapsed onto the pile of mats in the corner, tugging off their gloves and reaching for their water bottles. 

Sulu took a huge swig of water before returning to the conversation. “I think most of the senior command is Greek. Except McCoy. He’s definitely a child of Aesculapius, and I don’t think he had a Greek counterpart.” 

“He didn’t. The Romans…specialized a lot.” Slim had learned to sip his water slowly. “I ain’t too sure ‘bout Uncle Spock, either. Is he Greek or Roman?” 

“Mmm, true,” Sulu mused. “You know what? I think he’s the son of Terminus.” 

Slim couldn’t help but giggle. “The OCD God of Boundaries. Yeah, I can see that.” 

“Your dad, though…I would say he was a son of Zeus, but I don’t think so, actually. Percy Jackson reminded me a lot of him. I think he’s a son of Poseidon.” 

“Yeah,” Slim agreed. “He’s like the sea—temperamental and powerful and not liking to be contained or controlled.” He thought for a moment. “Aunt Nyota is an Apollo kid—the Greek version, not the Roman.” 

“She’s got a beautiful singing voice. Have you ever heard it?” 

“Yeah, she sings Addie lullabies all the time.” 

Sulu wiped his forehead. “Mr. Scott is a Hephaestus kid, for sure. I think most engineers are.” 

“Not necessarily. I am, an’ Uncle Scotty is, and so’s Port in the Roman aspect, but Nic’tlarn thinks of xemself as a child of Athena, which I get.” 

“Xe’s read the books?” 

Slim nodded. “Xe an’ Port an’ I all agree that O’Flaherty is _definitely_ a child of Hermes. We ain’t too sure ‘bout Audra, but…once we get her to actually read ‘em, she’ll probably figure it out.” He looked up at Slim. “What about Chekov?” 

“I don’t think he’s read them, either.” Sulu didn’t look at Slim as he spoke.

There were several ways of responding to that. Slim considered and rejected several of them before saying, quietly, “Is everything all right with y’all? It ain’t like him to miss one of our practices.” 

Sulu stared into the depths of his water bottle as though it held the secrets of the universe. Slim said nothing, simply watching him. He would accept whatever Sulu told him, even if it was to bugger off and mind his own business. But he genuinely hoped that, if something was wrong, Sulu would tell him. They were friends. 

Finally, Sulu spoke in a voice scarcely above a whisper. “I didn’t tell him we were practicing today. He’s been…fretting a lot. I understand, really I do, but…I’m _alive._ I don’t know how to get him to understand that I’m okay, that I don’t need to be coddled. How does your dad do it? How does he stop McCoy from smothering him every time he gets sick?” 

“You’d have to ask him,” Slim said. “But…you know, you _did_ have kind of a close call…” 

“Yeah, I know, but I’m _fine_ now.” Sulu sighed. “It’s just…I don’t know how to explain it to him. I need things to be normal. I need to be at my post, during my regular shift. I need to come down here and fence with you on our regular days. I need to eat in the usual mess and tend my plants and take slow, ambling walks through the botanical gardens. I need everyone to treat me the way they’ve always treated me.” 

Slim could understand that. “You don’t want to be treated like you’re gonna shatter into a thousand pieces if someone looks at you the wrong way.” 

Sulu nodded. “That about covers it. But I don’t know how to tell Pasha that. You know, last night…it was my first night out of Med Bay, and…” He swallowed hard. “It was the first time in a year and a half that I’ve slept in my own bed without him next to me. Well, I say _slept…”_

“I know. Dad an’ Pa don’t sleep too well alone, either.” Slim remembered the night after the encounter with the mirror universe; he’d heard his dad tossing and turning restlessly most of the night, while Leo sat in his armchair, staring ahead unseeingly. And even further back…he remembered Jim walking the floor with Addie asleep on his shoulder, regulations barring him from the bridge for at least half a shift, but unable to rest while Leo’s fate, and that of the Galileo, was unknown. It wasn’t just sex. It was the comfort of one another’s arms, the sound of each other’s heartbeats. 

“Yeah. Pasha had some excuse about how I needed my rest, but…I wasn’t sure how to ask him to stay without sounding needy.” 

“You know, I ain’t exactly an expert when it comes to romance,” Slim said dryly. “Obviously. But…do you need him?” 

“Like I need air,” Sulu said softly. 

Slim shrugged. “Then what’s so bad about soundin’ like it?” 

“I just don’t want to smother him is all.” 

“Wouldn’t he tell you if you were?” 

“I’d like to think so.” 

“Then talk to him. At least you’ll both know where you stand.”

“True.” Sulu smiled. “I’ll go find him as soon as we’re done here…you ready to go another round?” 

Slim took another drink, then capped his water bottle and set it aside. “Whenever you are.” 

“Want to switch swords? It’s obvious you still remember everything…we could practice with the sabers for a bit.” 

“Sounds okay to me.” 

Sulu switched out the blades and handed Slim one of the sabers, hilt first. They pulled their gloves back on, drew their masks over their heads, and took up the _en garde_ position. Slim stood his ground, determined not to attack first; Sulu evidently realized this fairly quickly, because he attacked within seconds. Because sabers were cutting as well as thrusting weapons, it required a slightly different strategy and the parries were different, and for the first round, Slim found he was focusing all of his mental powers on remembering how to work with the sword. He was pleasantly surprised that it didn’t take as long as he had feared for it to come back. However, he was still a little clumsier with the saber than he was with a foil, and it wasn’t long before Sulu got around his parry and struck a blow on his shoulder. They both took a half-step back, signifying acknowledgment of the point. 

“Now stand aside, worthy adversary!” Sulu declaimed theatrically. 

It took Slim a moment to place the line, since he had only seen the movie in question once, but once he got the reference, he grinned behind the mask. “’Tis but a scratch.” 

“A _scratch?!_ Your arm’s off!” Sulu cried. 

“No, it isn’t.” 

“Well, what’s that, then?” Sulu gestured off to one side. 

Slim pretended to take a quick look. “I’ve had worse.” 

“You liar!” The grin in Sulu’s voice was obvious. 

“Come on, you pansy!” Slim taunted.

Sulu tried for an overhand chop. Slim managed to block it. This time the round lasted longer, and was accompanied by lots of exaggerated grunts and cries, before Sulu struck Slim on the other arm. 

“Victory is mine!” Sulu crowed. 

“Hah!” Slim laughed. “Come on, then.” 

“What?” 

“Have at you!” Slim flicked the saber in Sulu’s direction, but without any real intent to connect. 

Sulu started the round, even as he continued quoting the scene. “You are indeed brave, Sir Knight, but the fight is mine.” 

“Oh, had enough, eh?” Slim almost tripped over his own feet before correcting and risking a sweep at Sulu’s legs, which didn’t work. 

“Look, you stupid bastard, you’ve got no arms left!” Sulu shouted. 

“Yes, I have,” Slim said quickly. 

_“Look!”_

“Just a flesh wound.” 

Sulu just barely managed to parry Slim’s next thrust. “Look, stop that.” 

“Chicken! Chicken!” Slim taunted. 

“Look, I’ll have your leg,” Sulu said. 

Slim tried for another blow. Sulu beat the blade aside and lunged for Slim’s leg. Slim actually managed to parry it, but Sulu quickly cut across and prinked him in the other thigh. 

Biting back a yelp of surprise, Slim stepped back, conceding the point, then got back into position. “Right, I’ll do you for that!” 

“You’ll what?” Sulu said, with a convincing amount of incredulity. 

“Come here.” 

“What are you going to do, bleed on me?” Sulu shot back. 

“I’m invincible!” Slim shrieked. 

“You’re a loony.” Sulu was laughing. 

“The Black Knight always triumphs!” Slim, too, found that he was laughing in a way that made it difficult to continue. The sequence in _The Princess Bride_ hadn’t been that hilarious.

Sulu attacked. They were both laughing almost too hard to do it properly, so it really wasn’t very long before Sulu managed to get Slim on the other leg. Slim made a _time-out_ gesture with his hands, and they lowered their sabers and leaned against the wall, laughing and fighting to get their breath back. 

Finally, once they had calmed down, they resumed the _en garde_ position. Slim forced himself to be hyper-aware. If Sulu won this point, he would win the match again, without Slim scoring at all. He would have to be on his guard, literally. 

As if guessing what was in Slim’s mind, Sulu rapped out a command. “Surrender!” 

Slim inclined his head slightly. _Speaking of_ The Princess Bride…“You mean you wish to surrender to me? Very well, I accept.” 

“I give you full marks for bravery,” Sulu said, squaring his shoulders and seeming to make himself a little taller. “Don’t make yourself a fool.” 

“Ah, but how will you capture us?” Slim asked. “We know the secrets of the fire swamp, we can live there happily for quite some time. So whenever you feel like dying, feel free to visit.” 

“I tell you once again, surrender!” Sulu growled. 

Slim kept his calm. “It will not happen.” 

“For the last time, _surrender!”_ Sulu shouted. 

_“Death first!”_ Slim shouted back. 

“Will you swear not to hurt him?” cried a voice from the direction of the doorway. 

Slim and Sulu both jumped and whirled, swords in front of them, to see Audra standing in the doorway with her hands clasped dramatically in front of her. “What was that?” both of them said in unison. 

Audra looked a little sheepish. “I don’t remember the next line.” 

“That’s okay.” Sulu removed his mask and stepped back. “What’s up?”

“Chekov’s lookin’ for you,” Audra said, leaning against the doorframe as if reluctant to come in. “The five of us—Port an’ O’Flaherty and Nic’tlarn and us—were playin’ a game of Fizzbin, an’ when y’all didn’t turn up, he started panickin’. Last I saw, he was headin’ up to Med Bay to make sure you hadn’t had a relapse or somethin’.” 

Sulu bit his lip, then glanced at Slim. “I was gonna—” 

“I surrender,” Slim said promptly. He took the saber from Sulu’s hand. “Go on, go talk to ‘im. See y’all at dinner.” 

“Thanks, Slim.” Looking relieved, Sulu hurried off, his mask under his arm. 

Audra stood aside to let him go past, but she didn’t leave the room. “How was practice?” 

“I’m a little rusty,” Slim admitted as he hung up the blades. “Scored a point off him in the first match, but I think that was only ‘cause I distracted him without meaning to.” 

“Ain’t that half the point of the banter? To distract your opponent?” 

“Well, yeah, I guess…but usually not by swearing.” 

Audra stifled a laugh. “You, swearing?” 

Slim grinned ruefully. “Yeah, well…I kinda started doing it on accident after all that kerfuffle with the mirror universe. It ain’t much, just a ‘damn’ here an’ there, an’ I try not to do it in front of Addie. But still.” 

“I think I was sixteen when I started swearing, too,” Audra said. She hesitated. “Hey…Slim?” 

“Yeah?” Slim turned towards her and felt his heart skip a beat, something he _really_ wished it would stop doing. 

“After you grab your shower…would you mind comin’ up to the observation deck? I…I think we’re overdue for a chat.” 

Slim swallowed hard, his mind helpfully supplying all the negative implications of that statement, but what he managed was, “Okay. Give me ‘bout ten minutes.” 

Audra smiled slightly. “I can do that.”

Slim took one of the fastest showers he’d ever taken, and he told himself it was just because he was in a hurry that it was a cold one. He dried his hair hastily and pulled on his favorite grey sweater, then headed for the observation deck. 

Audra sat on the bench in the corner. She looked up with a smile as Slim approached. Slim smiled back, then took a seat next to her. Long moments stretched by as they sat in silence, staring out at the universe passing by. 

Finally, Slim broke the silence. “Audra, I—” 

“Slim, there’s—” Audra began at the same time. 

They looked at one another and laughed, a little nervously and awkwardly. Slim gestured for Audra to go first, since this whole conversation had been her idea. He didn’t know exactly what to say, anyway. 

Audra took a deep breath. “Port said—an’ he’s right—that I’ve been avoidin’ you, for the most part, or at least avoidin’ any situations where there ain’t anyone else to be a…a buffer. It ain’t personal. I just…I had a lot of stuff to think about, stuff I shoulda thought ‘bout sooner.” She twisted her fingers nervously. “Reckon I made a right fool of myself at your party.” 

“I didn’t think so.” The sentence slipped out before Slim could stop himself. He blushed bright red and looked down at his hands as he tried to recover. “I—I mean—you’re a great dancer, an’ even Dad was impressed…” 

“Yeah, but…” Audra swallowed. “You know, I—I was thinkin’ of askin’ for a transfer.” 

Slim’s heart plummeted into the depths of his stomach. “Oh,” he said quietly. “Okay. If that’s what you really want. But…” He looked up, fighting to keep his face straight. “But _why?”_

“I said I was _thinkin’_ about it,” Audra said, stressing the word. “’Cept I reckon I wasn’t _really_ thinkin’. I was runnin’. I sat down a couple days ago an’ used my brain, such as it is.” Slim smiled faintly. “An’ I realized…gettin’ off the ship wouldn’t solve my problem. I’m glad I ain’t said anythin’ to anyone else.” 

“What is your problem?” Slim asked, hoping he sounded casual and knowing he probably didn’t. “Maybe…I mean, we’re friends, maybe I can help?” 

Audra hesitated, then said softly, “I kinda hope you can.” 

Slim felt his heart leap from stomach to throat, with an accompanying feeling of nausea. “I’ll do my best.”

“See, the thing is…” Audra didn’t look at him as she spoke, in a slightly faraway tone. “I grew up in foster homes, you know? I never had a family, never even had many friends ‘fore I started at the Academy. I ain’t sure I ever understood what love really was. I reckon I’ve started to realize what it feels like, or what it oughta feel like. But…it’s terrifyin’, you know? It’s like goin’ on a space jump. You push off from safety and launch yourself to your goal, an’ even if you’ve got a good computer, you still ain’t guaranteed to hit your mark, an’ there’s always the risk of somethin’ happenin’ ‘fore you get there. I ain’t sure I’m brave enough to leave the airlock.” 

“Yeah, I get that.” Slim swallowed hard, thinking about how to answer without making it too obvious what he was thinking, or hoping. “I had the same problem. But bein’ with Dad an’ Pa…an’ watchin’ Sulu an’ Chekov…I’ve started to understand, a little. It ain’t supposed to be a solo jump. Sometimes, I reckon all you can do is take the leap of faith an’ hope someone else is gonna jump with you.” 

“But what if I’m wrong? What if he don’t feel the same ‘bout me that I do ‘bout him? I’m just…I reckon I’m just afraid to jump if I don’t know for sure I’ll have someone to help me land on the other end.” 

“Then again…” Slim took a deep breath. “If you spend the rest of your life waitin’ for him to jump first…maybe you’ll both be on separate ships forever.” 

“Good point.” Audra worried at her lower lip for a minute. “Slim?” 

“Yeah?” Slim looked up at her. 

Audra turned to look at him, too. “Slim, the reason I ain’t been talkin’ to you…the reason I reckoned I’d made a fool of myself…it’s because I realized, when Port started clappin’ an’ broke the spell, that I’d been hopin’—that I’d been almost _expectin’_ —that you’d kiss me.” 

Slim’s heart was now beating so fast he was sure she could hear it. “Audra?” 

“Yeah?” Audra’s green eyes filled with worry. 

“I reckon if Port hadn’t started clappin’…I might’ve.”

Audra stared at him for a moment longer. Slowly, she reached over and covered Slim’s hand with hers. He turned his hand over and laced his fingers through hers, hoping it wasn’t too forward, hoping it wasn’t the wrong thing to do. His cheeks were hot and he knew he was blushing, but he still felt a smile creep over his face. She smiled in reply, almost shyly. 

“I wasn’t…I didn’t want to say anythin’,” Audra admitted softly. “Partly I was afraid you wouldn’t feel the same, like I said—I thought you might just want to be friends. An’ partly…I mean, you’re the captain’s son. That ain’t such a big issue,” she added quickly, forestalling Slim’s interruption. “But…you know, I’m quite a bit older ‘n you are.” 

“Not any older ‘n Pa is Dad,” Slim pointed out. “Or Sulu is Chekov, or Uncle Spock is Aunt Nyota. An’ it ain’t like I’m askin’ you to marry me.” 

Audra gave a hoot of laughter. “Gods of Olympus, no. I reckon we ain’t ready for that yet, not by a long chalk.” 

Slim couldn’t help but laugh, too, only partly at her comment. “You finally read those books?” 

Audra blushed. “Um, that’s another part of the reason I’ve been avoidin’ you. I was gettin’ caught up. An’ I went on a kick—read _all_ of Riordan’s books. I understand why Port calls you Valdez now. You _are_ an awful lot like Leo.” 

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Slim said. “How ‘bout you? Who do you think is your godly parent? I can see you as a daughter of Aphrodite.” 

“Flatterer.” Audra’s blush deepened. “Actually…none of the gods felt right as my parent. I reckon maybe I’m just a regular mortal—maybe one who can see through the Mist.” 

“You are a lot like Sally Jackson,” Slim agreed. 

“Talk of compliments!” Audra laughed, then hesitated. “You know…maybe it’s just wishful thinkin’ on my part, but…the character I found myself identifyin’ with most was Calypso.” 

Slim looked up at Audra, then smiled warmly. “I can see that, too.” 

“Thanks,” Audra said, smiling. “An’ I see you’ve very neatly managed to deflect the conversation, too. Well done.” 

It was Slim’s turn to blush again. “I swear I didn’t do that on purpose. I just…I noticed an’…oh, gods.” He took a deep breath. “I like you, Auds. A lot. Reckon I have for a long time. Even Dad noticed, an’ he noticed _ages_ ago—even before I did. He thought it was just a crush, but…I reckon it’s more ‘n that. I was afraid to say anythin’, you bein’ older ‘n all, an’…I dunno. I’m ramblin’.”

“No, I reckon I understand what you’re sayin’.” Audra swallowed. “You know, you said you might’ve kissed me…was it just the clappin’ that stopped you?” 

“Well…yeah. It reminded me we had an audience. ‘Sides…I’ve never kissed anyone before.” 

“Neither have I,” Audra admitted. “I had a crush on a couple of guys while I was in foster care, but they wouldn’t have anythin’ to do with me, an’ I mostly hung out with the other female Engineering cadets while I was at the Academy. Never had any inclination to kiss one of ‘em.” 

Slim wondered if he should kiss her now, if he should ask her if he could kiss her, if _she_ was going to kiss _him._ He took a deep breath. “I—I ain’t sure this is a good time…” 

“Neither ‘m I,” Audra admitted. “But…it’s good to know the option’s there, I reckon.” 

Slim’s face hurt, he was smiling so big. “I reckon you’re right.” 

They stayed where they were for a few more minutes, holding hands. Slim could probably have done that for the rest of the week and not minded, except Audra glanced at her chrono. “’Bout time for dinner, if we’re meetin’ the others. An’ I reckon they’ll talk if we don’t show.” 

“Yeah,” Slim said reluctantly. He hesitated, the smile fading off his face. “I—maybe we shouldn’t…” 

Thank God, Audra understood what he was thinking. “Yeah. I reckon Port’s guessed, maybe your dad, but…let’s wait an’ see where this goes first?” 

“I can be patient.” 

“Me, too.” Audra stood up. “Shall we, then?” 

“Yeah, let’s,” Slim said. He, too, got to his feet, turning to Audra. For the first time, he realized with a jolt that he didn’t have to look up at her anymore, that he was even slightly taller than she was. 

Audra smiled up at him. “You’re gonna catch up to your dad ‘fore long, Valdez.” 

“Don’t let him hear you say that.” Slim laughed and nudged Audra companionably as they headed for the elevator. For the first time in a long time, he felt relaxed, comfortable around her again, maybe not in the same way as before, but in a new way that, he had to admit, felt even better. 

He just hoped it wasn’t too obvious on his face. He didn’t really want to have to explain to his dad. Not just yet.


	62. For the Last Seven Months or So

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't necessarily intend for this chapter to get so danged depressing, but it did. So be warned: This chapter features nightmares, guilt trips, bad memories, and Candy Land. (I never thought I would ever actually write the words "Stupid goddamned sugarplum.")

           Leo jerked awake with a start, Jim’s arm draped over him and his head resting against his heart. At first, he wasn’t sure what had awakened him, but then he heard it again—Addie crying over the baby monitor. 

           Jim came awake, too. “Addie,” he mumbled, throwing the covers back. 

           “Go back to sleep, Jim, it’s my turn,” Leo said, easing out from under his husband’s head. 

           “You got her up yesterday,” Jim retorted. “I’ll get her.” 

           Leo noticed the time—0231, not her usual wake-up time, not by a long chalk. “We’ll both go,” he decided. Addie was closer to three than two, but her unhappy cries were the same desperate, high-pitched ones she’d given when she was only a few months old and couldn’t communicate any other way. This was a nightmare, and from the sound of it, it was a doozy. 

           It didn’t surprise him, frankly. _He_ was still having nightmares about the mirror universe; Jim, too, was crying out in his sleep more frequently these days, and from the sounds of it his were about what had happened on Alfa 177. Neither of them talked about it, they just held each other more tightly, but both events had upset and confused Addie. Leo had been waiting for this to happen. 

           Jim was slightly ahead of him as they entered Addie’s room. She was sitting up in her bed, crying pitifully and clutching Gottlieb. Tears rolled down her face. It was heartbreaking. 

           “Addie, sweetheart, it’s okay, Daddy’s here,” Jim soothed her, reaching towards her. 

           Addie screamed. Her eyes nearly bulged out of her head, her face turned from red to white and back again, and she backed into the corner of her cot, letting out a bloodcurdling scream. Jim stopped dead, looking like he’d been slapped, his own face white as a ghost. Leo started to move forward, too, but Addie cringed away from him, too, her arms tightening around the stuffed tribble until he thought she was going to squeeze it in half.

           Slim came tumbling into the room, his hair tousled and a look of sleepy concern on his face. Seeming not to see Leo or Jim, he hurried to the side of the bed. “Addie?” 

           Addie whimpered and reached out for him. “’Lim,” she cried heartbrokenly. 

           Slim scooped Addie into his arms, rocking her back and forth as she clutched his shirt, burying her face in his shoulder, and kept crying. “Shh. Shh,” he soothed her, stroking her messy curls. “I’m here, Addie. Slim’s here. Did you have a bad dream?” 

           “Uh-huh,” Addie mumbled pitifully, her voice muffled by her brother’s shirt. “Bad Daddy. Bad Papa.” 

           “It’s okay, baby,” Slim said gently. “The bad Daddy and the bad Papa went back to where they belong. This is _our_ Daddy— _all_ of our Daddy—and _our_ Papa. It’s okay.” 

           “Bad,” Addie whimpered. Leo’s heart broke a little for her. Then he looked at Jim, and his heart broke even more. 

           Slim kissed the top of her head. “I promise, baby, it’s okay.” He gave Leo a helpless look, then said softly, “Want to come sleep in my bed for a little bit?” 

           Addie sniffed. “Uh-huh.” 

           “Okay. C’mon, sweetheart, we’ll go curl up in my bed. We can read for a little while. Would you like that?” Still talking quietly to his sister, Slim eased past Leo and Jim and headed for his own room. 

           Leo watched them go, then turned back to Jim, putting an arm around his husband’s shoulders. “C’mon, Jim,” he said quietly. “Let’s go back to bed.” 

           Jim didn’t resist, letting Leo pull him back to their room and onto their bed. The second they were lying down, however, he clung to Leo like a limpet, curling up as though he was in excruciating pain—which, Leo thought grimly, he probably was, emotionally at least. 

           “She’s afraid of me,” he whispered, sounding utterly devastated. “My baby’s afraid of me.”

           “Oh, Jim,” Leo sighed, running his hand through Jim’s hair. He didn’t point out that Addie’s terror had been at both of them—that wasn’t what Jim needed to hear right now. “Jim, she woke up from a nightmare, probably a nightmare about our—counterparts—and the first thing she saw was us, probably looking like something _from_ her nightmare. Of course she was afraid. She’s not afraid of you all the time. You watch, she’ll have forgotten all about it by morning, she’ll want you to pick her up just like always…” 

           “Bones, she was _terrified,”_ Jim said. Leo could hear the threat of tears in his voice. “I know the feeling. I’ve had those nightmares…even this little, she’s not gonna forget that in a hurry.” 

           “Addie’s smart. She knows we love her…” 

           “But she didn’t want us, Bones. She wanted Slim. She screamed when we tried to touch her…” 

           “She’s just scared tonight. Slim will get her calmed down, and in the morning, in the light, it’ll be different. I promise, Jim, it’s going to be okay.” 

           Jim curled tighter into Leo’s side. Leo could feel him shaking, trembling like a lost little boy himself, and he wrapped his arms more tightly around Jim, trying to anchor him to reality, to the here and now, to life and love and Leo. It usually calmed Jim down after one of his nightmares, but then, Leo had to admit that for the last few weeks, Jim hadn’t actually woken _up_ from his nightmares. Leo would just hold him, stroke his back, whisper soothingly into his ear, until the terrors eased and Jim fell back into a deep, relaxed sleep. When Jim actually woke up, it tended to be harder to comfort him. 

           “This is no place to raise a child,” Jim whispered brokenly. “I shouldn’t have taken Starfleet up on their offer…I should have stayed on Earth, kept her away from alternate universes and transporter accidents and doomsday devices…” 

           “Stop it,” Leo said firmly. “Jim, Addie loves you, and she loves space, almost as much as you always have. You’ve seen the wonder on her face when she stands on the observation deck. She’ll never be happy on _terra firma_ , not for very long. I don’t know how she’s going to stand four years at the Academy when she eventually goes. Disease and danger and all, she loves it.” 

           “But it’s killing her, Bones. It’s destroying her…” 

           “It is not. Stop it. You’re wallowing in self-pity.” 

           “She hates me. She’s afraid of me…”

           Leo sighed. It was going to be one of _those_ nights. When Jim got this far gone, it could be hard to bring him back from the brink, but he knew he had to try. In the back of his mind, there was always the small, secret fear that if he ignored it, Jim might go the route he’d taken as a child, and attempt suicide…and that he might actually succeed. 

           “Jim,” he said softly, stroking Jim’s hair, his cheek, his back—if he was honest, he was essentially petting his husband like a cat, but he didn’t care, because he knew Jim (usually) loved the touch, and it calmed him nine times out of ten. “Jim, listen to me. Remember the week after you got home from the hospital, when you had that nightmare that you were back on the _Vengeance_ , only it was me who was with you instead of Khan?” 

           Jim shuddered. “Yeah,” he whispered. 

           “And do you remember what happened when you woke up?” Leo continued, keeping his voice soft. “You came awake screaming, and I tried to comfort you, and you pushed me away and wouldn’t let me touch you. You were still having trouble sorting out your dream from reality, and you were afraid—you were afraid that I was going to hurt you, that I might try to kill you. And yeah, that hurt, at first, because I didn’t know what you were dreaming. You even went and slept in the living room. Remember?” 

           “I remember.” Jim’s voice was a mere thread. 

           Leo kept stroking Jim. “But in the morning—when you’d calmed down, when we were both sitting in daylight and the night was behind us—you let me hold you. You leaned on me and you told me about your nightmare, and you let me take care of you. And it was all right after that, wasn’t it?” 

           Jim was silent for a moment, but Leo could tell that he had stopped trembling, which was progress. “Yeah,” he said at last. “It was. I could…I could look at you and know that you’d never hurt me like that, you’d never let anything bad happen to me. And I could _feel_ you. I could trust you to hold me again, I…” Suddenly the tears overflowed. “Dammit, Bones, I was so scared that night. I’ve been scared that bad thousands of times, before and since…I get that scared all the time…but that was the first time, maybe the _only_ time, I’ve ever been scared of something that was just in my own head, something that hadn’t actually happened, that never would…”

           “Shh. Shh,” Leo soothed. It flashed through his mind that this was the same way Slim had soothed Addie, just moments before, but then he pushed that aside, focusing on Jim. “It’s over. It’s done. I’ve got you, darlin’. I’ve got you. I’m here. Shhh…” 

           He rubbed Jim’s back in slow, soothing circles, then leaned over and kissed him, kissed his crown, his forehead, his wet cheeks. Jim tilted his head back and captured Leo’s lips with his own, clinging to him like a drowning man to a log. Leo gathered Jim more firmly into his arms, one hand on the back of his head, the other at the small of his back, and kissed him, deeply and passionately. Usually, he would have shied away from this on a night like tonight—he tried to avoid anything too physical when it was obvious Jim was emotionally compromised—but Jim had initiated it, so he let it happen. 

           It didn’t go any further than that, fortunately. Jim at last pulled back and pressed his face into the crook of Leo’s neck. “Thank you,” he whispered. “God, Bones, I love you. Thank you so much…” 

           “Of course, darlin’.” Leo kissed the top of Jim’s head lightly. “I love you, too. You know that, right? I loved you yesterday. I love you still. I always have. I always will.” 

           It was something that had been on the wall of their apartment before they moved in. Someone had painted over it, but Jim had found the raised bumps that indicated the words, which were vinyl appliqués more or less permanently attached to the wall. They’d laughed at the cheesiness of the sentiments, but Leo, in a moment of desperation, had blurted them out a few nights later when Jim had a spurt of low self-esteem and needed reassurance that Leo would never leave him. After that, they had managed to remove the paint from the letters and arranged their pictures and other decorations around the message. 

           The words worked as well that night as they had the first time, and every time since. Jim relaxed against Leo, giving a deep sigh of contentment. Within moments, his steady, even breathing told Leo that he had fallen asleep. Leo smiled fondly at him, resting his cheek against his husband’s hair, and let his own eyes drift shut.

           True to his prediction, when Slim led Addie into the living room the next morning, she beamed at Jim. “Mor’ing, Daddy! Mor’ing, Papa!” 

           “Morning, baby girl.” Jim scooped Addie up and swung her high over his head, making her giggle and squeal. “Did you sleep better?” 

           “Uh-huh.” Addie hugged Jim before squirming to get down. 

           They went down to breakfast together, everything seemingly normal, but as they went to the food slots, Leo snagged Slim and mumbled, “You in Engineering today?” 

           “No,” Slim said, also keeping his voice down. “Need me to watch Addie?” 

           “No, but come by Med Bay around ten.” 

           Slim nodded, obviously understanding, and went back to what he was doing. 

           Around 0930 there was a small accident in one of the science labs that sent three chemists to Med Bay with minor chemical burns. Leo was just patching up the last of them when the doors opened and Slim came in. 

           “Dix, can you finish up here?” Leo asked, passing the regen over to the nurse. 

           “Sure thing, Leo.” McCall gave Slim a friendly smile as she finished working on the last scientist. 

           Leo turned to Slim. “C’mon, son, come keep me company while I do the paperwork.” 

           It was unnecessary and both of them knew it; nobody would have minded the two of them going off to talk together. But truthfully, Leo wanted to talk about things that he would rather didn’t get bandied about the ship. It wouldn’t do for the crew to know that their captain was having nightmares, or that Leo was worried about him. 

           Since Leo really did have to do paperwork, he busied himself for a minute or two pulling out the files on the three scientists. Once they were on his desk, he sat down, indicating the other chair for Slim. He watched his stepson sit down, wondering how to start the conversation. 

           At last, he decided to just plunge in headfirst. “Have you been having nightmares lately?”

           Slim shrugged. “No more than usual.” 

           “I was being serious,” Leo said with a frown. 

           “So was I. You’re asking if what’s been happening lately is disturbing my sleep, and the truth is, no. I ain’t been sleeping any worse than I was before we encountered the Halkans. Matter of fact, the last couple nights, I’ve been sleeping _better_ than I was…” 

           “Why is that?” Leo asked, confused. 

           Was it his imagination, or did Slim blush? “I—I finally had a conversation I should’ve had a while ago. I reckon it was stressin’ me out a lot, but now I feel a lot more…relaxed.” 

           There was no doubt about it—Slim _was_ blushing. Leo wondered what was going on, but decided not to ask. “Okay. I believe you. Forgive me for pushing, it’s just…” 

           “I know,” Slim said softly as his blush faded. “Addie’s havin’ nightmares. I reckon Dad is, too?” The inflection of his voice indicated that it was a question. 

           “So am I, if it comes to that,” Leo admitted. “Addie’s just had the one, and frankly, I’m surprised it’s taken her this long…” 

           Slim stared at Leo. “Didn’t Aunt Carol tell you?” 

           Leo felt something unpleasant crawl up his spine. “Tell me what?” 

           “It hasn’t just been the one nightmare. She just normally has ‘em during her afternoon nap. Not all the time, mind—the last afternoon I spent with her, she slept just fine, but then, she was curled up with me on the couch. But often enough. She had one a couple days after the incident on Alfa 177, and I said something to Aunt Carol and she said, ‘Yes, I know, she’s had them frequently since the encounter with the mirror universe.’” Slim accurately mimicked Carol Marcus’s clipped British tones. “I just assumed she’d told y’all. I’m sorry, Pa.”

           “It’s not your fault, Slim.” Leo stressed the word _your._ He’d heard Slim’s accent start to thicken, something that only happened in two situations—when he was stressed, or when he was alone with his friends. In this case, it was definitely stress, and Leo had weathered enough of Jim’s panic attacks to know how to head one off at the pass. “You couldn’t have known that we didn’t know…” 

           “But I should’ve. Dad told me, ‘fore we ever came on the ship, that takin’ care of Addie was one of my responsibilities…” 

           “Slim, no. I know he told you that, but that was before Carol volunteered to watch her during Alpha shift. And you _do_ take care of her. She adores you. You’re the one who got her calmed down this morning, remember?” Leo set aside the file he’d been altering and reached for Slim’s hand. “Neither one of us have any complaints about you. You’re keeping up with your studies, you’re doing good in Engineering, and you’re looking after your sister whenever we ask you to. You haven’t done anything wrong.” 

           Slim took a deep breath and closed his eyes, then nodded quickly in acknowledgement. Leo understood. He still had questions he wanted to ask Slim, but he knew he had to give the young man time to calm down. 

_Young man._ Leo realized with a start that he’d already stopped thinking of Slim as a boy. He was sixteen already—a year younger than Chekov had been when they boarded the _Enterprise_ for the first time. He was growing taller, broader in the shoulders, his voice had settled into a rich tenor perhaps a hair lower than his father’s, and his fingers had developed some of the same calluses that marked the fingers of the other engineers. Jim still thought of him as a boy, Leo knew. But, as he’d said the night of the party, Slim was growing up. 

           After a few moments, Slim opened his eyes and looked up at Leo seriously. “I’m all right now. Sorry.” 

           “Don’t be.” Leo smiled briefly. “I swear it’s hereditary.”

           Slim managed a smile in reply. “Anyway…no, I’m not sleeping worse than usual lately. Does that make me a bad person? That I—that it’s not affecting me as bad as it affects y’all?” 

           “Of course not,” Leo said, shocked. “No, it’s not a bad thing at all. I _wish_ I wasn’t still having nightmares. You’re just able to deal with what’s happened better than the rest of us is all. Your mind can sort it out and…cope.” 

           “Yeah…that must be it.” Slim spoke in a distant sort of fashion. 

           Leo pushed the conversation out of his mind as he went back to work and Slim left to work on his homework. But at the end of Alpha shift, once he had briefed M’Benga and clocked out, the discussion returned to his mind as he set off for Carol’s quarters. He was annoyed that she hadn’t told him that Addie was having nightmares…but then, he admitted to himself, he hadn’t asked. Usually when he picked her up, he asked if she’d behaved herself and that was it. 

           That afternoon, he knocked on the door and was greeted by a smiling Carol and an ecstatic Addie, who exclaimed “Papa!” and flung herself at his knees. 

           “Hey, baby girl,” Leo said warmly, bending down to scoop her up and rub noses with her, which made her giggle. “Did she behave today?” 

           “Perfectly well,” Carol assured him. “She’s getting quite good with that puzzle box of hers. Solved the ninety-sixth iteration this morning.” 

           Leo nodded, then took a deep breath and asked, “How was her nap?” 

           “She didn’t exactly sleep, I don’t think, but she lay quietly for the requisite ninety minutes, so I let her get up afterwards.” 

           “When were you going to tell us that she’d been having nightmares?”

           Carol suddenly looked flustered and guilty. Leo felt a little bad at having ambushed her, but he made himself stay calm. “Didn’t I say something?” 

           “Not to me. And Jim hasn’t mentioned it. I only found out from Slim because she had one last night, and he said he’d said something to you in passing and you’d told him she was having them frequently.” 

           “I could’ve sworn…Dr. McCoy, I am so terribly sorry. I thought for sure I had mentioned it…” 

           Leo wondered, for a moment, if she _had_ actually thought to mention it, or if she was just trying to cover for herself. And then he let the thought pass from his mind. Whatever her motives, whether she had kept intentionally silent or not, it was immaterial. They knew now. “It’s all right, Dr. Marcus. Now that we know, we can…do something, maybe.” He didn’t know _what_ they could do, but they could try. 

           He decided, on the balance, not to mention it to Jim. Jim seemed so cheerful that it would, Leo reflected, be a shame to spoil his mood by telling him that Addie’s nightmares had _not_ been a one-time thing. Instead, they walked together up to the Rec Room, slowing their steps to accommodate Addie’s shorter legs. 

           As they entered, there was a sudden howl of dismay. _“Noooo!”_

           Leo jumped, then noticed Slim and his friends from Engineering, sitting around a table. Evidently they were playing some sort of game, although Nic’tlarn didn’t appear to be participating. Slim’s face was one of half amusement, half sympathy. “Hard luck, Port.” 

           “Stupid goddamned sugarplum,” Simril growled, throwing a card down on the table. 

           “The snowflake is still out there,” O’Flaherty said hopefully. 

           Jim crossed over to the table, looking as though he were trying desperately not to start laughing. “Are you playing _Candy Land?”_

           Nic’tlarn about jumped out of xyr skin. O’Flaherty looked up with a sheepish expression. “I found it in the back of the games closet and I thought…you know, I thought Addie might enjoy it, sir, but Slim’s never played it before and we, you know, we wanted to just make sure we remembered how and…” 

           “It’s a lot of fun,” Slim offered. “I mean, as long as you don’t get all the way to the top and then draw the sugarplum.” 

           “Or get stuck in the Molasses Swamp,” Cayne grumbled, looking at the blue piece. 

           “The Molasses Swamp!” Leo practically shouted. “You found a vintage set?” 

           O’Flaherty showed Leo the cover, which had the word VINTAGE stamped pretty prominently. Jim chuckled. “As soon as you’re done this game, I don’t suppose you’d be willing to play with Addie?” 

           Cayne turned a smile on the little girl. “That was the idea, sir.” 

           Despite the Molasses Swamp, Cayne won with a fortuitous double purple draw. She then scooped Addie up into her lap. “Want to sit here and play, Addie?” 

           “Uh-huh.” Addie grinned up at Cayne. “How you p’ay?”

           As Cayne carefully explained the rules, Leo pulled out a couple of chairs and tugged Jim into one of them. He slid his arm around his husband’s shoulders, and Jim leaned his head on Leo, giving a small sigh of contentment, as they watched their two-year-old daughter proceed to thoroughly trounce her opponents. It was luck of the draw, and probably everyone at the table except for Addie knew that, but they all praised her skill and cheered for her when her little red gingerbread man was the first to reach Candy Castle. 

           The rest of the evening passed more or less as normal; they ate dinner, spent time as a family, read Addie a story and tucked her up with a kiss, and then Leo took a shower while Jim read with Slim. When he got out, Jim got in while Leo read a medical journal, and then they shut the lights down and curled up together. Jim was asleep within moments, curled against Leo’s side. 

           Leo couldn’t. 

           He lay in the darkness for a while, listening to Jim’s steady, even breathing, and tried every trick he could think of—even counting sheep. Finally, at about midnight, he gave up and decided to check on the kids. 

           Gently, he eased out from under Jim. Jim mumbled in his sleep and buried his face in Leo’s pillow; Leo smiled fondly, kissed his husband’s temple, and slipped out of the room. Hopefully, he thought to himself, he would be back before his side of the bed had time to cool. 

           Leo padded barefoot into Addie’s room. They had converted her crib into a toddler bed after she’d gone through a full week with a dry diaper, and the first couple of nights he and Jim had both obsessively checked to make sure she hadn’t fallen out of it, but the railings held. She did pretty well with not wetting the bed, too, and Leo had been carefully monitoring that lately. Whatever turmoil had invaded her mind, it had not conveyed itself to her bladder.

           He stood by the side of the bed, the way he’d done the first night on the _Enterprise,_ and stared down at Addie. Her hair was getting long—it reached to the middle of her back—and wavy, soft ripples of dark brown, and it spread in a halo from her head. She had her cheek pillowed on one hand; her other arm was locked around Gottlieb. Her small back rose and fell as she breathed. Every once in a while, she let out a soft murmur or squeak in her sleep. 

           The blanket had slipped down to tangle around her legs. Leo straightened it, tucking her back in, to be rewarded with a little sigh. She was breathing fine, she was obviously sleeping well. Nothing to worry about here, he thought, bending over and kissing the dark, silky head. Addie’s lips parted with a slight _pop_ as she responded with an automatic kiss before settling into deeper sleep with a smile. 

           Smiling in reply, Leo left her room and went into Slim’s. The room was just slightly larger than Addie’s, and had a closet, but the wall that separated it from Addie’s was only temporary. When they got back to Earth, one of the refits that would be made would be to remove the wall, transforming the space into one room. Neither Leo nor Jim had ever mentioned that to Slim, and Leo knew that his husband felt a little guilty that Addie would grow up in a room so much bigger than her brother’s. Leo’s reasoning in not saying anything was also motivated by guilt, but not his own—Slim’s. Slim was a lot like his father. Having known Jim Kirk for seventeen years, and loved him almost as long, Leo knew that Jim hated inconveniencing people, especially the people he loved. If Slim knew that a partition had been put up in Addie’s room to make room for him—and that was how he would see it, as _Addie’s_ room—he would immediately have offered to sleep on the couch for the duration of the mission, to give her more room. No way would Leo allow that. 

           The room was dark, but not pitch-black; Leo estimated the lights were set at somewhere between five and ten percent. Slim himself lay on his back, one arm on top of the covers, his hand resting near his midsection, with his face turned towards the door. Leo listened for a moment to make sure of his stepson’s breathing and was about to withdraw when some sixth sense made him enter all the way and take another look.

           At first glance, Slim appeared to be sleeping peacefully, but when Leo got closer, he could see that his brows were knitted, his lips pressed tightly together, and the hand on his abdomen clenched into a tight fist. He was trembling faintly all over. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. 

           Alarmed, Leo shook Slim’s shoulder. “Slim! Slim, wake up!” 

           Still seemingly asleep, Slim cringed away, flinging up his arms as if to ward off a blow. Leo’s heart plummeted, but he forced himself to shake his stepson again. _“Slim!”_

           Slim’s eyes snapped open. He looked up at Leo over his crossed arms, his eyes wide, raw, naked terror stamped on every feature. “Pa,” he gasped, dropping his arms. His head fell back against the pillow for a moment, and he closed his eyes as he caught his breath. 

 

          Leo sat gingerly on the edge of Slim’s bed and brushed his hair out of his eyes. “I thought you said you weren’t having nightmares,” he said quietly. 

           “No—if you remember, I said I wasn’t having more ‘n usual.” Slim pushed himself to a sitting position and looked up at Leo again, his expression vulnerable. “You never asked if I’d been havin’ ‘em before.” 

           Guiltily, Leo realized he hadn’t. Slim had said repeatedly that recent events hadn’t caused him to sleep _worse_ than he usually did, almost as if he were inviting Leo to ask how he usually slept. And Leo hadn’t. He’d accepted the statements at face value, jumped to the conclusion that Slim slept just fine, and moved on.

           “How often?” he asked now. 

           Slim sighed, looking down at his hands. “Averages out to ‘bout once a week.” 

           Leo put his arm around Slim’s shoulders, pulling him into a hug. Slim leaned his head on Leo’s shoulder, almost hesitantly, as though afraid to accept the comfort. “Want to talk about it?” 

           Slim was silent for so long Leo almost thought he’d fallen asleep. At last, however, he said in a low voice, “It’s almost always the same. Mostly the same, anyway. I’m back at the Dubrowskis’, sometimes the Lawtons’, but usually the Dubrowskis’. Sometimes it’s just me, but more often nowadays, someone else is there—Addie, or Audra, or Dad or you—an’ Mr. Dubrowski is comin’ after whoever it is. I—I try to protect ‘em, but—I can’t move, I can’t get…they wind up gettin’ hurt an’ all I c’n do is sit there ‘n watch…an’ then he looks at me an’ tells me it’s my fault, that if I wasn’t around he wouldn’t hurt ‘em…” 

           “Slim,” Leo murmured, wrapping his arms more tightly around his stepson. 

           “I’m sorry, Pa,” Slim whispered, and Leo could feel the tears slipping down his face now. “I’m sorry. I tried…” 

           “Shh. It’s all right. It’s just a dream…”

           “It’s _not!”_ Slim burst out. He sat up straight; Leo let him go, surprised, and looked at him as he hugged himself, as if to keep himself from flying apart. “I should’ve spotted there was somethin’ fishy ‘bout y’all’s mirror universe counterparts from the beginning, but I didn’t, I let ‘em get too close, an’ Addie had t’ watch me almost get strangled by a man who looked just like her daddy ‘fore Uncle Spock almost tore ‘im to bits. An’ I should’ve taken ‘er into my room t’ get a book, but I didn’t, an’ Dad’s bad side came in an’ scared ‘er, an’ then tried to kill me _again,_ an’ she had t’ watch _that_ , too. I didn’t pay attention an’ I let Addie get scared, get hurt. I let ‘er down, Pa. I let y’all down. I let Audra an’ Port go talk to Security on J-Twelve an’ hid in the bookstore like a coward, an’ Port got hurt…” 

           It took Leo a moment to recall the incident Slim was referring to, then sighed inwardly. Slim was off on another one of those guilt trips that the Kirks were so prone to, and it was going to take time to recall him. “Slim, I’m gonna hug you again, all right?” 

           Slim looked up in surprise, unconsciously relaxing a little bit as Leo gently pulled the young man back into his arms—more of a boy right now than a young man, but still. It wasn’t any different than when Jim had a nightmare, and in other ways it was. Jim usually didn’t want to be hugged too tightly afterwards; Leo suspected that he felt confined, that he was terrified of being trapped or restrained. But Slim, although he seemed a little unsure about it, also seemed to subconsciously _want_ the contact, wanted to accept Leo’s comfort even though he probably didn’t think he deserved it. Leo half-pulled Slim onto his lap and rocked him gently, the way he did Addie when she needed it.

           “It’s not your fault,” Leo said softly. “None of it. From what you and Spock have told me, you _did_ know there was something off about the…others…and you did your best. But if you’d run—what then? They’d have spotted Addie right off, and that would have put her in danger. You had no way of knowing what they would do. You were in our quarters when the double came in, you were supposed to be _safe,_ and there wasn’t any reason for you to suspect otherwise. Jim hadn’t even made the announcement to the ship yet, so how could you have known? And as for what happened on that space station…Slim, you were fifteen at the time. What could you have done if you’d been there?” 

           “I should’ve done something,” Slim whispered. “I should have known.” 

           “It’s easy to say that in hindsight,” Leo said. “Believe me, I know. I’m the master at looking back and thinking of all the red flags, all the things I should have seen before, the things I should have known. I still have myself convinced that there’s something I could have done to keep your father from dying. Hell, I still have myself convinced that there’s something I could have done to keep _my_ father from dying, and he’s been gone almost twenty years.” He pushed Slim’s hair back from his face. “But that’s just the guilt talking. You aren’t responsible for anything that’s happened. You’re not responsible for any of your scars, either. You’re a good kid, Slim. It’s not your fault. None of it is your fault. I _promise.”_

           “I—I believe you,” Slim said.

           Leo kept up the rocking. “I’m glad I thought to check on you. I never would have known…you don’t cry out when you’re having a nightmare.” 

           “No,” Slim murmured. “I…trained myself out of it. Mr. Dubrowski would punish us if we disturbed his sleep, so I had to be quiet…” 

           Leo’s heart broke a little, but he made himself stay calm. “You don’t have to do that anymore.” 

           “I know. Can’t seem to quit, though.” 

           Slim was slowly relaxing, his heart rate slowing down as he calmed. Leo found himself start to hum, one of the lullabies Jim was always singing to Addie. After a few moments, he started singing softly. _“Close your eyes and snuggle down, your journey’s just beginning…”_

           He had a pretty lousy singing voice, especially when compared to Jim or Slim, but Slim didn’t seem to mind. His eyelids fluttered, he sank against Leo’s chest, and within moments, he had fallen back to sleep. Leo continued to rock him for a few minutes, until he was sure the young man was sleeping soundly and not paralyzed by another dream. Gently, he lay Slim back on the bed, tucked him in, and kissed his temple. 

           “Sleep well, son,” he whispered. 

           He was starting to feel drowsy now himself. Stifling a yawn, he padded out of Slim’s room and back into his own. 

           Jim lifted his head briefly as Leo slid back under the covers. “Bones?” he mumbled blearily. “Ev’rythin’ okay?” 

           Leo pulled Jim back into his arms and kissed him lightly. “It is now,” he whispered. “Go back to sleep, darlin’.” 

           “Mmm…’kay.” Jim snuggled against Leo again. Within seconds he was asleep. 

           With a smile, Leo closed his eyes and let himself fall back under, too.


	63. The Tears Came Rolling In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a little different than most chapters. It is an away mission...but it is not a TOS episode adaptation. It is a mission entirely of my own devising.
> 
> With maybe a little bit of influence from a headcanon I saw floating around on Tumblr ages ago.

            Jim watched as the only Class M planet in the system came into view. This was going to be a routine mission, a planetary survey, similar to the one they had been assigned to do on Nibiru all those years ago. The difference, of course, was that they were older now, more experienced, and while it was entirely possible that Jim would tell Starfleet exactly where they could stick the Prime Directive, he wouldn't lie about it on his logs. The planet was unexplored by the Federation, and little was known about it. They had not yet made first contact, and it was entirely probable that they hadn't even attained space flight. There was no sure way of knowing how far technology had progressed—not until they landed.

            The planet appeared verdant and teeming with plant life. Jim decided that he would definitely let Sulu be part of the party—he would get a lot out of the experience. Come to think of it, he might even assign Sulu command of the party. He'd proven himself well on Alfa 177, keeping his head and bringing all the men back safely. The question was who else to send. It would make sense to be largely a party of science officers, with maybe a security guard or two, but for personal reasons it might be a good idea to include Chekov as well…

            "Captain," Uhura said suddenly, breaking into his thoughts. "We're receiving a distress signal."

            "What?" Jim twisted around, frowning. There were no ships on their sensors. "Where from?"

            Uhura was frowning, too. "That's the odd part. It seems to be coming from the surface of the planet."

            "Illogical," Spock said calmly. "Readings indicate that Okor V does not possess sufficiently advanced technology to make contact."

            "Try and hail them, Lieutenant," Jim told Uhura.

            "Trying now, sir."

            "Captain," Spock said, looking up from his station. "I say again, I am receiving no indications from the planet that the population has even discovered short-wave radio, let alone the ability to project distress signals into space."

            Before Jim could respond, Uhura spoke. "The distress signal is automatic. But it's faint, very faint, and it's going in and out. I can't even tell what ship it's from."

            "Ship?" Jim said sharply. "I thought you said it was coming from the planet."

            "It is, but it's a starship transmission." Uhura turned, and her expression showed her frustration. "I'm sorry, it's just not coming in clearly."

            Jim thought for a minute, revising his earlier plans. At last he said, "Are we within beaming range?"

            "Just coming into it, Captain," Sulu answered.

            "Right. Mr. Spock, you have the conn." Jim stood up. "Lieutenant Uhura, Mr. Sulu, you're with me. Let's see if we can't kill two birds with one stone—find out where that distress signal is coming from, and get a head start on the planetary survey."

            Uhura and Sulu both stood. Spock left his station, too, and came over to the chair. "Just the three of you, Captain?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

            "For now," Jim answered. "Until we know exactly what's going on, I'd rather not have too many people down there. If it proves safe, I'll call for an additional team—and if we need backup, I'll call for that, too. We'll keep you posted."

            "Acknowledged," Spock said.

            Jim nodded, then followed Sulu and Uhura off the bridge.

            Uhura and Sulu collected a tricorder each; all three of them clipped phasers to their belts. Jim led them onto the platform, then nodded silently to Kyle. Kyle nodded back, then pressed the appropriate button.

            They materialized on an outcropping of rock, just at the junction between a verdant meadow and a lush forest. A gentle breeze blew, making the leaves of the trees behind them rustle and the heads of the flowers dotting the grass bob and sway. As Jim watched, he saw clouds of white fluffy seeds, not unlike dandelions, swirl up and float away. He sneezed.

            "Bless you," Uhura said absently. She looked around. "It's…beautiful."

            Sulu had already lifted his tricorder and started scanning. "Picking up some life-form readings," he remarked. "Faintly. They're some distance away. But I'm also getting mechanical readings, pretty strongly, from over there." He pointed slightly to the left of their location.

            "Probably whatever was giving off the distress signal," Jim said. "Come on, you two, let's—" he sneezed again—"go."

            "Bless you," Uhura said again.

            Sulu set off, Jim and Uhura following him. Another breeze, another cloud of the fluffy white seeds, another sneeze from Jim, another "bless you" from Uhura. He nodded gratefully. And sneezed again.

            "I'm not blessing you again," Uhura told him, a slight twinkle in her eye. "Mama always told me that if you don't stop sneezing after three 'bless yous,' then you're possessed and there's no helping you."

            Jim laughed, sneezed twice more, and sighed. "Hold on, Sulu." Reaching into the pouch at his hip, he pulled out a hypo and jammed it into his arm. It hissed faintly as it dispensed its contents.

            "What is that?" Sulu asked, frowning slightly.

            Jim drew away the now-empty hypo and put it back into his pouch. "Antihistamine. I learned a long time ago _never_ to go on a plant-related mission without them."

            "And the rest?" Uhura asked, indicating the pouch.

            "Epinephrine, more antihistamines, and a couple painkillers I'm not allergic to. We don't have a medic on this trip, and if I have an allergic reaction to something, I need to counteract it quickly." Jim indicated for Sulu to keep moving.

            Being able to breathe without sneezing was definitely a plus. Jim knew that this wasn't Earth, and that the things around them weren't actually dandelions, but they were pretty close. As Uhura had said, it was beautiful. It was almost surreal. Jim had grown up in the country, and places like this just didn't exist on Earth anymore—not very many of them, anyway.

            Sulu voiced it as they trudged forward. "This is almost like something out of a twentieth-century Disney film."

            " _Bambi?_ " Jim suggested.

            "Or _Beauty and the Beast—_ you know, that scene after she rejects Gaston." Sulu spread out his arms and sang in a falsetto. " _I want adventure in the great wide somewheeeeere…_ "

            " _I want it more than I can teeeeeell…"_ Jim chimed in.

            Uhura looked at both of them like they'd taken leave of their senses. Jim couldn't help but laugh. "Come on, you two, let's find where this distress signal is coming from."

            Ten minutes later, Sulu looked down at his tricorder. "We're close."

            "Jim!" Uhura, who was slightly ahead of the two men, cried out.

            Since Uhura never used his first name while on duty— _ever_ —Jim bolted towards her. He pulled up short when he saw what she was pointing at. Lying on the ground was a mottled greyish object. There was scoring from what was obviously phaser fire, but other than that, it had been kept scrupulously clean, at least where it stayed above the ground. It had obviously struck the ground, hard, and parts of it were buried—but what was aboveground was, though twisted and mangled, readily identifiable.

            "I would say," he said quietly, looking at the remains of the spacegoing vessel, "that we have found the source of that distress signal."

            "Captain," Sulu said, his eyes widening. "Look…"

            He pointed. Jim followed his finger—and froze. On the metal surface, disappearing into the grass, were flaked black markings. Three letters, two numbers. NCC-17.

            After a long moment, during which they all stared, stunned, Jim flipped out his communicator. "Kirk to _Enterprise_ _._ "

            "Spock here." Spock's voice was calm and steady.

            "Spock, we've found the source of the distress signal. It's—" Jim swallowed. "It's the remains of a Federation ship."

            There was a long silence. At last, Spock spoke. "Which vessel?"

            "We can't be sure—only the first part of the registration is visible. But we'll keep you posted. Kirk out." Jim closed his communicator and turned to Sulu and Uhura. "Thoughts?"

            Uhura bit her lip, studying the debris. "It looks…familiar."

            "NCC means it's a fairly modern construct," Sulu pointed out. "It might even be from a _Constitution-_ class vessel."

            "I don't think so," Jim said slowly. "I'm pretty sure this is—or was—an escape pod. You don't find those on _Constitution-_ class ships. Last class they were on was the _Newton-_ class."

            "Can you pilot an escape pod?" Uhura asked.

            "Yes, but—" Jim and Sulu began simultaneously.

            They looked at one another, and Jim gestured for Sulu to continue. The pilot explained, "Generally speaking, escape pods have a preprogrammed destination in mind—they're set with a specific set of coordinates. Since they only have rudimentary shielding—enough to get them safely through a planet's atmosphere—and no weapons, you'd only want to pilot them if following the preprogrammed trajectory would take you through hostile space. The trouble is that there's no nav-computer. You temporarily disable the coordinates, pilot the pod to a safer area of space, and then reenable the coordinates."

            "The other thing," Jim told Uhura, "is that they're not very comfortable, or very spacious. At a guess, I'd say there were no more than three people in this thing."

            "Where are they now?" Sulu asked.

            Jim bit his lip. "A good question. First things first, though, I think we'd better find out where this came from. It looks pretty old…which is weird, since this is unexplored space. Or supposed to be."

            He moved over to the obscured numbers of the registration, bent down, and began carefully trying to clear the mud and grass away. It was difficult, as natural progression was not what had covered it, but the impact itself. He had just freed part of the first number when Sulu suddenly said, "Captain—those lifeforms—they're getting closer…"

            An excited gabble suddenly broke out. Jim rocketed to his feet, one hand going to his phaser. Before he could say anything, a group of people stepped out from behind a nearby rock. They were clad in cloth pants that came to just below the knee, and nothing else. Each held a spear in one hand. It didn't take much of a stretch of the imagination for Jim to guess what kind of society they'd come to. He was just about to try a friendly overture when the one in the lead pointed to Jim and said something to the others. The rest—there were about seven or eight, all told—started talking. Jim heard the same word repeated over and over: _eludaan._

            "Eludaan?" he murmured to Uhura and Sulu.

            Uhura looked bewildered. "I don't have a clue."

            "I thought you spoke—what was it, ninety-three percent of all the known languages in the Federation?" Sulu hissed.

            "The key words there are _ninety-three percent_ and _known,_ " Uhura snapped. "Nobody's ever explored this planet before."

            "Shut up, both of you," Jim said softly.

            The man in the lead turned to them and bowed, pressing his spear to his heart. The others did the same. It made Jim uncomfortable. The man then spoke. Jim caught the word _eludaan_ again, but nothing else made the least bit of sense.

            He shook his head, deciding to risk it. "I'm sorry, we don't understand you."

            A couple members of the crowd let out wails, and one actually dropped to his knees. The man in the lead was clearly excited. He spoke again, more slowly this time, and accompanied his statements with gestures that left no doubt in Jim's mind that they were to follow him and his men. Immediately.

            "Do we go with them?" Uhura asked.

            "I don't think we have a choice." Jim squared his shoulders and nodded to the man, who barked an order at his followers. Instantly the three of them were surrounded, and they marched off.

            Jim glanced sideways at his companions. Sulu, on his left, seemed perfectly calm; he kept glancing down at his tricorder every so often, but was obviously trying not to draw undue attention to it. Uhura, on the right, looked a little nervous. Her hand kept going to her phaser.

            "You won't need that, Lieutenant Uhura," Jim said in a low voice. "Let's try not to violate the Prime Directive any more than we already have, shall we?"

            Uhura blushed and pulled her hand away, clasping them in front of her. "Sorry, Captain. It's just—I know this is pretty routine to you, but I've never been taken prisoner before."

            Jim couldn't help the small grin that tugged at his mouth. "Then let me enlighten you. We're not prisoners."

            "But—" Uhura gestured at the spear-carrying men surrounding them, rather pointedly.

            "Notice the way they're holding those spears. If we were prisoners, they'd be held sideways at an angle, across the warriors' chests, so they'd be ready to use in an instant if any of us tried anything—like escaping," Jim explained. "But instead, they're carrying them straight up and down, laying against the shoulder. At attention, not at the ready. This is an honor guard."

            Uhura began relaxing. "You're sure?"

            "Positive." Jim patted her shoulder comfortingly. "Relax, Uhura. They're not going to hurt us." _Yet,_ he added silently, but he kept that to himself.

            They crossed the meadow and came to a path in the woods, where the branches of the trees seemed to be twined together in a natural arch. The path was well-trodden dirt, lined with stones on either side—light yellowish-brown stones with red bands in them, Jim noticed—and the sunlight filtering through the leaves cast a greenish-gold light over them.

            It crossed Jim's mind, fleetingly, that under ordinary circumstances he would have loved to have brought his family down here for a picnic.

            As they got deeper into the forest, Jim noticed white pebbles on the path, glinting in the sunlight. Sulu noticed them, too. He leaned over and said in Jim's ear, "If there's a gingerbread house at the end of this path…"

            Jim snorted. "Or a flock of winged monkeys."

            "I don't know, Captain. These guys don't look much like Winkies."

            Uhura sighed. "Sometimes I wish I knew what you two were talking about."

            "Uhura, did you have _any_ kind of a childhood at all?" Jim demanded.

            Before Uhura could answer, they rounded a bend and reached an impressive mound. It reminded Jim of an outsized fox's den. The man in the lead gestured for Jim and his companions to wait, then went inside, along with his group.

            The second they were alone, Jim pulled out his communicator. "Kirk to _Enterprise_ _._ "

            "Are we leaving?" Uhura asked, a faint note of hope in her voice.

            "No, but we've got to let the ship know what's going on. _Enterprise_ _,_ come in." Jim's face creased in frustration as the communicator remained stubbornly silent. "Kirk to _Enterprise_ _!_ Come in!"

            "I think the tree cover might be a little too heavy," Sulu volunteered.

            "Great." Jim sighed and put the communicator back on his belt. "Well, looks like we're on our own for awhile."

            Three of the men, including the man who had led the party, emerged then. Two took up positions on either side of the doorway, while the other beckoned Jim and the others to follow him. Seeing no alternative, they did so.

            The man led them into a short corridor that reminded Jim uncomfortably of the Kalandran outpost. Sulu obviously had the same thought, because he drew closer to Jim as they moved. At the end of the corridor, the leader bowed aside, ushering them through. Jim took a deep breath, and entered.

            They found themselves in a large chamber, the rock walls smooth and even, the ceiling arched high overhead. It was surprisingly light and airy. The ceiling and walls were hung with drapes of shimmering silver fabric, reaching a central point, directly over a dais. On this sat three chairs—thrones really. Cautiously, they drew closer.

            Jim was rehearsing his opening statement—albeit without much hope of being understood, since they had come down without universal translators—when the figure on the throne to their left suddenly let out a shriek, leaping upwards as though the seat had suddenly grown red-hot. " _Karu!_ "

            The woman launched herself forward, throwing her arms around Sulu's neck, who seemed frozen for a split second, then embraced her tightly. Both of them burst into tears.

            Jim barely had time to register this before the person seated on the center throne gasped out, "Nyota? Jim?"

            He whirled around, feeling the color drain from his face. It couldn't _possibly_ be who he thought.

            But it was. Standing before them, hands pressed to her mouth, was a woman with green skin, curly red hair, and warm brown eyes that were wide with shock. A face he hadn't seen in years, but one that still sometimes haunted his dreams.

            " _Gaila?"_ Jim and Uhura cried in unison.

            The Orion woman stared at them a moment longer, then looked over Jim's shoulder and fired off a few sharp, rapid syllables, accompanying them with a brief gesture that left no doubt in Jim's mind that she was telling their guide to leave. A moment later, she leaped lightly down from the dais and grabbed Uhura by the upper arms. "Nyota, my friend, it's so good to see you again!"

            "Gaila," Uhura said again, and there were tears in her eyes.

            The woman clinging to Sulu pulled back slightly, her face extremely wet. She ran a hand over Sulu's face. "I thought you were dead," she whispered.

            "I thought _you_ were dead," Sulu said.

            "I think the only person in this chamber who _isn't_ supposed to be dead is you," Gaila said, turning to look at Jim. Her eyes flashed slightly. "Since you were the only one who wasn't assigned to a ship. How did that board of inquiry turn out, by the way?"

            "I was commended for original thinking," Jim answered. "Eventually. And I wasn't assigned to a ship, but that doesn't mean I stayed behind. Bones smuggled me onto the _Enterprise_ _._ "

            Gaila let go of Uhura and stepped over to Jim. "I think there's something I owe you."

            "Think you're right," Jim agreed. Unconsciously, he shifted his stance slightly, bracing himself.

            Just in time. Gaila delivered a stinging slap to his face, the noise reverberating throughout the chamber. Jim's head snapped to one side. Sulu looked startled and alarmed as he let go of the strange woman. When Jim turned back to look at Gaila, he saw two bright spots of red in her cheeks, her eyes flashing with anger.

            "I deserved harder," he said quietly.

            Gaila's anger evaporated visibly. She took a half-step back, looking startled. "I beg your pardon?"

            "What I did was inexcusable. I shouldn't have lied to you and I certainly shouldn't have used you to hijack the program. There were other ways. I treated you awfully, and I'm sorry. I still sometimes stay awake at nights thinking about the fact that you died—" Jim swallowed—"or I thought you had—without me being able to tell you just how sorry I was. So that? Was nothing compared to what I deserved."

            Gaila stared at Jim for a minute, then embraced him tightly. "You're forgiven, Jim."

            With anyone else, Jim might have questioned that. But Gaila wore her heart on her sleeve. She didn't say she'd forgiven someone when she hadn't, or that she felt something she didn't. He hugged her back, then let her go and turned to the third person who had been in the chamber when they walked in.

            This was a man, approaching middle age, with sandy red hair, eyes the color of Gaila's skin, tattoos covering both arms and his chest, and a curving scar on his cheek. It was the scar that told Jim who this man was. "Finney? Benjamin Finney?"

            "Yeah." Finney managed a small smile. "And you're Jim Kirk."

            "That's right."

            Sulu cleared his throat—less, Jim realized, to draw attention to himself and more because he really was a little too choked-up to speak. "Uh…this is my sister, Chitose Sulu," he said softly.

            Now that he could see her clearly, Jim could see the resemblance between his helmsman and the woman. And it told him, definitely, what the remaining numbers on the wrecked pod had been. NCC-1734—the USS _Hood._ "Officer Sulu," he said with a nod.

            "Chitose. Please." Sulu's sister wiped her eyes with a fold of her gown, which looked like a bedsheet artfully draped, leaving one shoulder bare. "How did you ever find us?"

            "Your pod is still giving off a distress signal," Jim answered. "It's faint, but it's still detectable. We were in the area to do a routine planetary survey when we picked it up."

            "So…wait." Finney, who wore nothing but what looked like a yellow bedsheet tied around his waist, looked slightly confused. "How close are we to Earth? We've never been a hundred percent certain of that—but it's been fifteen years, so if we were as close as all that, surely we would've been found by now."

            "I can't be certain of the distance without checking with the _Enterprise_ _,_ and we couldn't establish communications with them when we were waiting outside," Jim said. "But it's a good distance. We're in uncharted territory here."

            "The _Enterprise_ _!_ " Chitose and Finney said in unison.

            "This is likely to be a long conversation," Gaila said suddenly. "And you look hungry." She turned slightly and clapped her hands three times.

            From a tunnel Jim hadn't noticed before, a woman emerged, dressed in a shorter, plainer version of the drape-type gowns Gaila and Chitose were both wearing. Gaila rattled off something in the strange language of the planet; the woman bowed and answered, then scurried away. Turning back to Jim and Uhura, she said, "I hope you're not too hooked on meat. Sometimes there's fish, but mostly just fruit and vegetables."

            "Gaila," Jim said slowly. His mind was starting to catch up with what was going on around him. "What does _eludaan_ mean?"

            "Oh—that's us," Gaila said lightly. A little _too_ lightly. "You pronounce that word very well, by the way. Of course," she said, turning to Chitose, "Jim was the treasurer of the Xenolinguistics Club, so he's actually got a very good—"

            "Gaila," Jim interrupted.

            "Yes, Jim?" Gaila said innocently.

            Jim crossed his arms and gave her a level stare. It was his captain's gaze, one perfected over the years, and while Gaila was pretty strong-willed, it wasn't long before she dropped her eyes, fiddling with a fold in her gown. "It, um—it means _gods,_ " she said in a low voice. "At least, that seems to be the nearest equivalent in Standard."

            "Gods," Jim said evenly. "The Okorans think that you're—that _we're_ gods."

            "Okorans?" Gaila looked confused.

            Finney supplied helpfully, "The Thũn. That's the name they go by. It means 'the people.' You know, it's amazing how many cultures over the years have referred to themselves by—"

            "Mr. Finney," Jim interrupted. Finney fell silent.

            "We didn't understand their language at first," Chitose said. "They kept saying _eludaan,_ and we thought it meant something like _stranger._ We thought they'd taken us prisoner. But then they brought us here and set up the thrones…and that's when we started realizing there was more to _eludaan_ than we thought. By the time Gaila picked up enough of the lingo to try and explain…"

            "It's difficult to explain where we came from without violating the Prime Directive," Gaila volunteered.

            "Technically, letting the culture think you're gods is a violation of the Prime Directive," Jim said. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I know you didn't have _much_ of a choice…but at the same time, _damn._ I have a feeling this is going to be a headache to sort out."

            "I don't _think_ there will be too many lasting repercussions of our being here," Finney said cautiously. "The Thũn are pretty self-reliant. From what Gaila's told us, we didn't really create new mythology so much as slot into the old. And we haven't given them any new technology or done anything to change their culture, except for them setting us up as the nominal rulers. We've even been careful not to teach them Standard."

            Jim sighed. "And that may be the only thing that saves us."

            "Us?" Gaila repeated, surprised. "You mean _us._ You aren't involved."

            "We are now."

            Before anyone else could say anything, a figure reappeared in the doorway, bowed, and said something. Gaila nodded, answering, then turned to Jim and held out her arm, elbow crooked. "You'll escort me, Jim? Dinner is served."

            Jim suppressed the urge to grin. _Same old Gaila._ He looped his arm through hers, was aware of Sulu taking his sister's arm on one side and Finney taking Uhura's arm on the other, and they followed their guide down a short, twisting corridor into—

            Uhura let out a gasp of astonishment. Silently, Jim echoed the gasp. The room they found themselves in was hollowed out of a gigantic rock, but the walls sparkled with pale purple crystals, catching and reflecting and refracting the light from a hundred flickering candles. Jim estimated that the chamber was about the size of the observation deck on the _Enterprise_ _._ Certainly it could comfortably hold the majority of the crew. The floor, instead of being swept dirt, was like a single polished sheet of the crystals covering the walls; when Jim looked down, he could actually see himself, although his reflection was heavily tinted with purples. The Okorans—the Thũn, Jim corrected himself, Federation policy was to refer to cultures by their chosen names whenever possible—were all barefoot, and their uniform shoes thankfully had pretty good traction, but from the looks of it this floor was so smooth it was practically frictionless.

            Sitting in the middle of the room was a long, low table, draped in the same silver cloth as the walls of the throne room and laden with beautifully-arranged platters of fruits and vegetables. Instead of chairs, there were cushions, weighted down at each corner with beaded tassels. The dishes—goblets, pitchers, platters—were all carved from the purple crystals.

            It was one of the most gorgeous places Jim had ever seen in his life.

            Gaila practically dragged Jim over to the table—the Orion woman had lost none of her strength—and pushed him onto a gold cushion, then rounded the table to sit opposite him. Chitose nudged Sulu to the gold cushion on Jim's left, while Uhura sat awkwardly on the red cushion to his right, tucking her legs underneath of herself to keep her skirt from riding up too high. A Thũn woman poured a rich, red liquid from one of the pitchers into each of the glasses. Gaila nodded and spoke again in the native language; the woman bowed and silently withdrew.

            Once they were alone, Finney gestured to the food. "Help yourselves."

            Sulu and Uhura both looked at Jim, who nodded. Gaila raised her eyebrows. "Come on, it's _us._ You really think we'd poison you?"

            "It's not that," Sulu said defensively, selecting something that looked like it was related to a turnip. "It's just…regulations and…"

            Chitose laughed, a happy expression on her face for the first time. "Who'd have thought you'd get bogged down in rules and regulations, little brother?"

            "Stop calling me that." Sulu stuck his tongue out at his sister. "Anyway, I'm on the command track, if I'm hoping to get my own ship someday—"

            "What do you mean, 'hoping?'" Jim said. "You'll get it."

            Sulu froze. "You really think so?"

            "Say the word, Sulu, and I'll put you in for a command position tomorrow." Jim smiled, but he felt a sharp twinge in his stomach at the idea of losing his helmsman—his _friend._ And it wouldn't be just Sulu he would lose. He had personally signed the paperwork before sending it to Starfleet Command. Regulations were explicitly clear in the matter. Wherever Sulu went, Chekov went, too. Slim would hate losing _both_ of his friends…

            Sulu smiled back at him, but there was a brief flash of panic in his eyes. "Thank you, Captain, I—I really appreciate that. But…I don't think I'm quite ready for a command of my own yet. I, uh, I still have a lot to learn."

            Jim tried not to show his relief visibly. "Well, part of my job is to help you learn what you need to know. So if I'm not doing that—"

            "No, no, you are. I just—need practice is all. You know. Still getting the hang of…" Sulu trailed off.

            "I understand." And Jim did. Hell, _he_ still sometimes experienced crippling doubts that he could really command four hundred and thirty people—to say nothing of being a father. And he'd been doing it for fifteen years. He made a mental note to make more of an effort to give Sulu leadership experience.

            "Now that _that's_ settled," Gaila said wryly, "why don't we eat? This is some of the most delicious food I've ever eaten. I highly recommend the _fundylle._ " She pointed to a neatly-arranged platter of what looked like some sort of woody vegetable, except instead of green or white it was bright blue.

            Jim hesitated, then reached into his pouch and pulled out a hypo. Turning to Uhura, he said, "You know how to use these, right?"

            "Not—exactly," Uhura said hesitantly.

            Sulu put some of the _fundylle_ on his plate. "I do."

            "Good." Jim laid the hypo on the table between himself and Sulu. "Just in case."

            Finney's eyebrows shot up. "What's that?"

            "Epinephrine."

            "It's been a while since I was at the Academy," Finney persisted, "but I don't remember it being standard for non-medical personnel to carry hypos on away missions."

            "It's not," Jim answered, beginning to serve himself. "But I have a not-insignificant list of allergies, and some of them are pretty severe. So I have a small kit that I bring with me when we aren't bringing a medical officer. Technically, Starfleet regulations state that only medical officers can bring medical supply kits with them on away missions, but this one's my personal kit, so it's okay."

            "Gotta love loopholes," Uhura said.

            Gaila laughed. "I didn't think _you_ cared all that much about regulations, Jim. Wasn't that what got you in trouble over the _Kobayashi Maru?_ "

            "Yeah," Jim answered. "It's also what almost got everyone under my command killed a year later. So…I might bend the rules until the ends touch, but I don't break 'em. Not anymore."

            Gaila's smile disappeared. "Oh. I—I'm sorry, Jim. I didn't know."

            "How could you have?" Jim said simply.

            He was glad when Chitose changed the subject. "So he's the captain. What do you do on the _Enterprise_ _,_ little brother?"

            "Stop calling me that!" Sulu fussed at her. "And I'm senior helmsman."

            Finney grinned. "Senior helmsman on a _Constitution_ -class ship. Pilot's dream, man. Or have they—it's been fifteen years, there must be newer ships…"

            "None in the _Enterprise_ _'s_ class," Sulu said, proudly. "Not yet, anyway. She's still the best ship in the fleet."

            "Who else is on your senior command?" Finney asked, turning to Jim.

            "Well, Uhura here—Lieutenant Nyota Uhura, by the way, since you weren't properly introduced and I don't know if you'd ever met her before—" Jim nodded in Uhura's direction—"is our senior communications officer, and she's damned good at it. We almost don't need the universal translator when she's around. Almost. My first officer—and the ship's senior science officer—is Commander Spock—"

            "Are you two still together?" Gaila interrupted, turning to Uhura with her usual bright smile back in place.

            Uhura smiled in reply. "Sure are."

            "Tell me—is it true what they say about Vulcans in bed?"

            "Gaila!" Uhura turned a brighter red than her uniform.

            Jim coughed pointedly. " _Anyway,_ our senior navigator is Lieutenant Pavel Chekov, and he and Sulu here make a pretty spectacular team."

            "I remember him," Finney said slowly. "The Russian whiz kid, right? Brown hair, blue eyes almost bigger 'n his head?"

            "That's him. Except he's not such a kid anymore," Jim said. "He's past thirty. Our Chief Engineer—he's the only one you guys wouldn't know, he'd been out of the Academy for twelve years when any of us even started—is Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott."

            Gaila gave a small shriek of delight. "You're kidding! He's a legend! How did you ever find him?"

            "It's a long story, and I promise I'll tell it later," Jim told her. "He'll be pretty excited to know you've heard of him, though. He's a magician with the warp core. Some of the modifications he's made…you know the top speed of a _Constitution-_ class vessel, right?"

            "Warp factor eight," Gaila replied unhesitatingly.

            "Scotty can get us up to nine. _Sustained."_

            Gaila looked suitably impressed. "Without the ship falling apart around him?"

            "Like I said, he's made a lot of modifications." Jim grinned. "In case you couldn't tell, I'm pretty proud of my crew."

            “You’re missing one,” Chitose observed. “Who’s your CMO?”

            “Dr. Leonard H. McCoy,” Jim replied unhesitatingly.

            “Naturally,” Gaila said, grinning again. Turning to Chitose, she explained, “Jim and Leonard were best friends at the Academy. Jim used to tell anyone who’d listen that when he got his own starship—not _if,_ mind you, _when—_ Leonard would be his CMO. And Leonard would roll his eyes and call him an infant, but of course there was never any question that he’d accept those orders. It’s hard to imagine one without the other—why didn’t he come with you, by the way?”

            Jim shrugged. “I was trying to minimize the number of people I brought down here—just in case there was a serious issue. After all, your pod was giving off a distress signal.”

            “If you don’t mind my asking, why did you choose these two?” Finney asked.

            “I don’t mind you asking,” Jim said, smiling. _After all, you were on the command track, too—it can’t hurt for both you and Sulu to know what logic went into my decision._ “Uhura’s the one who picked up the distress signal, so I asked her to come along in order to home in more directly on that—besides, she doesn’t get to go on away missions very often, I thought she’d welcome the opportunity.” Uhura smiled slightly. “And Sulu here, well, first of all, he may not be a science officer per se, but he knows more about xenobotany than the rest of the crew put together. We were scheduled to come here for a routine planetary survey, and considering the abundant plant life, I thought he’d be the best fit for something like that. Secondly, and more importantly, before Uhura picked up the distress signal I was planning to have him lead the away team anyway. So I wanted him along to get the lay of the land, so to speak, so that if we determined the planet was still safe for exploration after answering the distress call, he’d have that added edge when it came to directing his team.”

            Sulu blushed. Chitose’s eyebrows lifted, but she was grinning. “You seriously wanted _my_ little brother to lead an away team?”

            “ _Stop calling me that!_ ” Sulu snapped, his blush intensifying.

            Uhura chuckled. “How much older than him are you?”

            “She’s not!” Sulu protested.

            Chitose laughed. “Fifteen minutes, tops. We’re fraternal twins.”

            “Well, I sure didn’t think you were identical,” Uhura deadpanned.

            Jim joined in the laughter as he reached for something that looked like a rainbow-colored apple. Gaila blinked, then grabbed his hand. "Do my eyes deceive me?" she asked, holding it up. "James Tiberius Kirk, is this a _wedding ring?_ "

            "Sure is," Jim said, grinning broadly.

            Finney's eyebrows shot up. " _You_ actually settled down? No offense," he added hastily.

            "None taken. I know I had something of a reputation at the Academy. And yeah, I did." Jim rubbed his thumb over the blue enameled engraving. "Ten years. Actually, four months from now and it'll be our eleventh anniversary."

            "Who's the lucky lady who managed to pin _you_ down?" Gaila asked with a grin.

            "Two incorrect assumptions there," Jim said, his grin softening into a smile. "I'm the lucky one. And the person to whom I am married is no lady."

            "That's not a very nice way to talk about your wife," Chitose said, frowning slightly.

            "If I had a wife, I would agree with you," Jim told her. "My husband, however, is a gentleman, not a lady."

            Gaila clapped. "So you and Leonard finally came to your senses?"

            Jim started. "Wait. You—"

            "Jim, of _course_ I had it figured out," Gaila said impatiently. "I knew when I first _met_ you. Were you together yet when you asked me out on that date?"

            "Uh…" Jim blushed. "Yes. Technically. We, uh, we weren't officially exclusive or anything, but…we were together. Yeah."

            "That's wonderful! You should have _told_ me, the three of us could have—"

            "Gaila," Uhura interrupted, covering her eyes with one hand. "Please don't put any images in my head."

            Gaila continued on, undeterred. "You're right, you _are_ the lucky one there, Leonard is such a wonderful man. But it's been fifteen years. Why did it take you so long to get married?"

            "Allow me to point out that Spock and Uhura still aren't married," Jim said. "And…you know, Bones had already been divorced once. I wanted to ask him before we set off on the first five-year mission, but I was afraid he might be gun-shy about the idea and I didn't want to ruin everything. I finally managed to work up the courage to propose. Had this whole elaborate plan—I was gonna take him up to the observation deck…" He trailed off, realizing he was babbling.

            Gaila didn't seem to mind. "But? If you say you _were_ going to do it, that must mean you _didn't_ for some reason. So why not?"

            Jim hesitated, then decided to give the abbreviated version. "Away mission. Bones, uh, well, we almost lost him. As soon as he'd recovered, he came up on the bridge, and I was so glad to see him and so afraid of missing my chance that I just asked him then and there."

            "I've never been a fan of public proposals," Chitose said, her voice slightly disapproving. "It feels like emotional blackmail to me."

            "I forgot we were in public," Jim admitted. "So did he. I asked him again, later—realized what we'd done and told him he had the right to change his mind if he'd only said yes so I wouldn't be embarrassed in front of the crew. He told me not to be an idiot. And like I said, that was eleven years ago."

            "Where'd you get married?" Finney wanted to know.

            "Chapel on the _Enterprise_ _._ It's our home, you know? Seemed only fitting."

            Gaila smiled. "I wish I could have been there."

            Jim sighed, biting into the rainbow-colored fruit. It _tasted_ like an apple, which was reassuring. "I wish you'd been there, too."

            They ate in silence for a while. Finally, when all of them were more or less sated, Finney sat back, his expression serious. "If you don't mind, I think it's time for a few answers."

            "I agree," Jim said, equally serious. "On both sides. You want to ask the questions first?"

            Gaila leaned forward. "How did the _Enterprise_ survive? We could see out the portal…none of the ships survived intact. The ones that weren't completely obliterated—well, there wasn't much of them left."

            "Ah…" Jim hesitated. "She was a little late to the party. Because of that, Nero was able to scan her before he fired on her, and he realized Spock was onboard. Since he was planning to destroy Vulcan, he wanted Spock to witness it—"

            Gaila and Chitose both started to speak at the same time. Jim held up his hands. "Whoa, one at a time."

            Gaila nodded to Chitose, who asked, "Why were you late?"

            "Failure to clear Earth's atmosphere," Jim said, abruptly. "Gaila, you were—"

            "Wait, how'd that happen?" Finney interrupted. "You don't just—there would've had to have been something that went wrong. She was a new ship, hadn't even been christened yet. Surely there weren't any problems with her already?"

            Uhura spoke evenly. "The person assigned as senior helmsman was unable to report—he had lungworm. His replacement accidentally failed to disengage the external inertial dampener."

            There was a brief silence. Then Chitose looked at Sulu. "You forgot to take off the parking brake— _again?_ " she demanded.

            Sulu blushed crimson. "Hey, that was totally _your_ fault and you know it."

            "Just because I'd never remembered to set it before doesn't mean you shouldn't have checked!"

            Gaila ignored this exchange. "How did Nero know about Spock?"

            Jim took a deep breath. "He was from the future."

            That got Chitose's attention. In as simple terms as he could, Jim explained about Spock Prime, Nero, and the time warp. He told them about the Battle for Earth, glossing over his own contributions and praising the crew, but Sulu and Uhura interjected, telling the other three what he'd done as well.

            When they had finished, three mouths hung open. Jim resisted the urge to grab the grape-like fruits and use them for target practice.

            "That's _amazing,_ " Finney said at last, awed.

            "No _wonder_ you lot were on the _Enterprise_ _,_ " Chitose agreed.

            Gaila shook her head in amazement. "And no wonder you got the five-year…did any of the other cadets come with you?"

            Jim started. "What other cadets?"

            "The ones on—which ship was it, Benny?"

            "The _Farragut,_ " Finney supplied.

            Jim froze. In a low voice, he said, "What about the _Farragut?_ "

            Finney frowned. "You should know. A portion of the ship was undamaged. It looked like anyone who was in that section might have survived. Did any of the survivors get reassigned to the _Enterprise_ _?_ "

            Jim's breath caught in his throat. He could feel the color drain from his face. He couldn't get any words out—all he could do was stare at Finney, Gaila, and Chitose, who all looked suddenly concerned.

            After a moment, he turned to Uhura and said urgently, "Don't tell him. Don't _ever_ tell him."

            "Don't worry," Uhura said, looking as shaky as Jim felt. "You couldn't pay me enough to tell him."

            "He ought to know…" Sulu said, his voice barely audible.

            "I'll tell him myself," Jim said. "It's my job. But…" He swallowed, hard.

            "Tell who? What's wrong?" Gaila looked seriously worried.

            Slowly, Jim looked at her. In a clear, distinct voice, he said, "We did not realize that there were any intact portions of any of the ships, and at any rate, we were unable to conduct rescue operations at that time; our primary concern was stopping Vulcan from being destroyed, and when that proved impossible, we turned our minds to rescuing as many of the Vulcans as we were able to. We then went off in search of Nero. By the time—" He broke off, swallowed again, and managed, "By the time recovery vessels were sent, they reported no survivors."

            "There weren't very many bodies," Sulu said shakily. "Everyone who lost someone…there was a place you could go to inquire…but fewer than a tenth of the families had a body to bury. I never thought about _why_ there were bodies, considering the destruction…"

            Chitose covered her mouth with her hands. Gaila's eyes filled with tears. Finney swallowed, hard. Jim looked down at his hands. "God, if I'd known there might have been survivors…hell, I didn't even know what ship anyone was on. I was so focused on the fact that I _wasn't_ called that I didn't think…"

            Sulu reached over and gripped Jim's hand. Jim, looking up, saw his own guilt reflected in the helmsman's eyes. Gaila spoke. "What were you saying—about not telling someone—why?"

            Uhura spoke softly. "Gaila—do you remember Alice? Alice Johnson?"

            "Yes, of course." Gaila frowned—and then her eyes widened. "Oh, no. Her son's father was on the _Farragut,_ wasn't he? That's what it was—you don't want him to know that—"

            "No," Uhura interrupted. "His father was on the _Enterprise_ _,_ but we didn't know that at the time—we didn't know that until a couple of years ago. But Alice…Alice _was_ on the _Farragut._ "

            "No!" Gaila cried, covering her mouth with her hands. "No—Alice had a baby—she wasn't supposed to—"

            "She'd have had to leave him at some point, Gaila. She knew that and the brass knew that. He was almost two years old by then…that was plenty old enough for him to stay behind." Uhura looked down at her hands. "At least, I can only assume that was their reasoning. I always thought she was planetbound, too—it wasn't until a couple of years ago that I found out she'd died."

            Gaila sat up straight. "But you were TJ's godmother! Shouldn't you have gotten him when she—"

            "His grandparents gave him up," Uhura said bitterly, looking up. "He was in foster care."

            "But you found him." Gaila's voice was almost pleading. "Didn't you? You said you found out who his father was—how'd you find out?"

            "DNA got entered into the Federation registry when his genetically-created daughter was born," Uhura said. "That's how _he_ found out he had a son already, too."

            "He never knew?"

            "No. Alice never told him she was pregnant, let alone that it was his."

            "But—he has TJ now?"

            "Yeah. He does." Uhura looked up and actually smiled.

            Gaila looked hopeful. "Who is he?"

            Jim squared his shoulders. "Me."

            Finney and Gaila both stared at him. Jim looked back at them as evenly as he could. Finally, Finney spoke. " _You_ were the father of Alice Johnson's child."

            "I still _am_ his father," Jim pointed out. "And, again, I _swear_ to you that I didn't know. Alice and I had a one-night stand, one night when she was fighting with her boyfriend, and I never saw her again after that. When CPS contacted me two and a half years ago—" God, had it _really_ been that long?—"and told me about him, I was blindsided and so was Bones. But we took him."

            "Wait, wait, wait," Gaila said, frowning. "You said that TJ's father _had him now._ You also said that he _had a genetically-created daughter._ But you _also_ said that Leonard was your CMO. Where are your children?"

            Jim reached for his wallet. "They're on the _Enterprise_ _._ Want to see them?"

            He pulled out a holopic and handed it across the table. Gaila and Chitose bent over it and made identical squeals of delight. Jim couldn't hold back a grin. It was a picture he'd snapped in Slim's room a couple of days before. Addie wore her favorite nightdress, the pale yellow one with the white lace trim and the baby-blue rosebuds clustered at the neckline, and had her stuffed tribble clutched tightly in her arms as she leaned against Slim's chest. He was wearing a grey sweater and black slacks, sitting back against his headboard, reading to his sister from the heavy old p-book he’d inherited from his mother. She was looking up at him with an expression of utter adoration.

            "He looks just like you," Chitose said, looking from the holopic to Jim and back. "What's his name?"

            "It's Thomas, Thomas James Kirk, but we call him Slim," Jim answered.

            Gaila looked up. "Why?"

            Jim shrugged. "That's what he told me to call him, the first time I met him. Apparently it's what he's been called as long as he could remember, probably because he was so small and skinny. He's been bulking out since he hit his growth spurt, though."

            "He's, what, fifteen now?"

            "Sixteen," Uhura and Jim said simultaneously.

            "Sixteen, wow. He'll be old enough to join Starfleet in a couple of years, won't he?"

            "Yeah. He's already studying for the entrance exams."

            Gaila touched the surface of the holopic. "Your daughter is a dead ringer for Leonard."

            "'Cept her eyes," Sulu volunteered. "She has the captain's eyes."

            "And she knows how to use them, too," Uhura muttered.

            Gaila laughed. Finney leaned over to look at the holopic. "What's her name?"

            "Athena Dawn Kirk-McCoy. Everyone calls her Addie—well, everyone but Spock."

            "What does Spock call her?"

            "Athena," Uhura answered. "Just like he calls Slim Thomas. He tends to be a little more formal—addresses everyone by their rank and name rather than just their surnames and that sort of thing."

            "Are there no exceptions?" Gaila asked, smirking.

            "Not on duty."

            "Off-duty, then?" Gaila persisted. "What does he call you in the privacy of your quarters?"

            Uhura blushed. "None of your business."

            "And what does Addie call you? Or TJ—Slim, that is?" Gaila frowned. "That's going to take some getting used to."

            "They both call me Aunt Nyota," Uhura said, obviously relieved to be on safer ground. "I'm Addie's godmother, too."

            "Is Spock her godfather?" Gaila asked Jim.

            Jim nodded. "He is. He's also her favorite. She loves him to death. Incidentally, she hasn't quite gotten the hang of doubled consonants yet—she's not three yet, after all—so she usually refers to them as 'Aunt Yota' and 'Unca Pock.'"

            Gaila giggled. "I bet that's adorable."

            "It is. You should see him melt every time she does it."

            Chitose grinned at Sulu. "Do they call you 'uncle,' too?"

            "Addie does," Sulu answered. "But Slim and I are friends."

            "Addie calls _everyone_ 'aunt' and 'uncle,'" Jim said with a smile. "At least everyone she knows. Slim has Spock, Scotty, Uhura, and Carol Marcus, but everyone else he addresses like he would a superior officer—or a fellow officer. He's not technically part of Starfleet yet, like I said, but he helps out from time to time."

            "Bridge crew?" Finney asked.

            "Engineering. He's got a gift." _Literally,_ Jim added silently. "Part of it is that he can fit into smaller spaces, but he also has a really good understanding of the machinery. I mean, yeah, sometimes he runs the Engineering panel up on the bridge, but usually if he's helping out, it's in the engine room."

            "So he's nothing like his parents. Or is he planning to double in command when he gets to the Academy?"

            Sulu shook his head. "He's not interested in anything but engineering. Mr. Scott says he's the only person he's ever met who knows the _Enterprise_ as well as he does. If the man ever _does_ retire, Slim's a shoo-in to replace him."

            "You'd think the older, more established engineers would be bitter about that," Finney said.

            "Shows what you know," Gaila informed him. "Spock's three years older than Jim and has—what, six, seven years of Starfleet service on him? And Mr. Scott has to be even older. You don't put someone in charge because they've got age or experience, necessarily. You put someone in charge because they're good at what they do, be it running a starship or operating a warp core. If T—Slim can do the job, he'll get the job, simple as that."

            "Let's get this conversation back on track," Jim said quietly. "I think it's time for some answers from you three. How did you get here?"

            Chitose and Gaila looked at one another, then at Finney. "Ben, you start."

            Finney took a deep breath. "Well…the _Hood_ was towards the end of the line of ships. As soon as the captains of the vessels saw what was going on, they tried to communicate with Starfleet. When the first ship was destroyed, though, they realized communications weren't getting through. Captain Hodur saw that no ship would be fast enough to escape and ordered an escape pod to depart with a message for Starfleet Command."

            "I was second in command in Security," Chitose said, picking up the tale, "so I was sent for the pod, both as the most experienced person who could be spared from any given department and also to protect the message at all costs. I'm trained on ship's weaponry, or I was, anyway, so my job was to man the weapons in the pod if necessary. Finney was the secondary pilot, but since Emertx was in good health, Finney came with us to pilot the pod if it came down to it. Gaila was the best engineer on the ship, other than the chief, so she was sent along in case we needed repairs. How they made all these decisions in the seconds left to them I'll never know, but I found myself pushing these two into the pod. Last thing I saw was Pennskey's face, bidding us 'godspeed.'"

            "Of course, something _did_ go wrong, almost immediately," Gaila put in. "We'd barely cleared the ship when Nero blew it up. The shock wave knocked us off course and sent us tumbling end-over-end. Ben here tried to right us, but the pod was out of control. We ended up using the warp booster. It wasn't until we hit Warp Six that I realized the autopilot was fried. We figured anything was better than nothing. Then we hit Warp Nine and the pod started shaking apart. That's when we got scared."

            "Gaila held the pod together—somehow—long enough for Finney to drop us out of warp." Chitose leaned on the table. "We didn't recognize any of the stars, but we saw this planet—Class M, third rock from its sun—and assumed we were just coming into Earth at an odd angle. I tried to open a channel with Starfleet and got nothing but static. Then Finney said we couldn't control our rate of descent. We were coming in—fast.

            "I hit the automatic distress beacon and made Gaila buckle up—she'd been trying to effect emergency repairs—while Finney tried to get our spin under control. But he couldn't. When I saw our rate of speed, I knew we were going to hit and make a big ol' fireball, unless we hit the water. On Earth there would have been a high probability of that, but Finney calculated we would be hitting in the middle of the biggest land mass, directly below us. I did the only thing I could think of—I jettisoned the fuel."

            "Gaila and I both screamed at her," Finney admitted ruefully. "Hell, we were just kids—we didn't realize then that we were all the same age, we thought Chitose was older—we hadn't even graduated from the Academy yet. We didn't know what she was doing and we were scared. But there's no doubt that she saved our lives. We hit the ground hard, the pod ended up half-buried in the dirt—but it didn't blow up."

            "Chitose got knocked out, and I broke a rib or two, but we all survived the impact," Gaila said. "Obviously. Ben and I got her out somehow—the door was buried, we had to blow out a window—and she revived pretty quickly in the open air. Next thing we knew, we were surrounded. Akiila—he's the one who brought you here—led the group. He kept gabbling at us, saying _eludaan_ over and over again. I shouted back that we couldn't understand him, and he obviously didn't know what I was saying, but they led us off. We thought we were prisoners, but…well, we ended up here." She waved a hand around the cavern. "The rest you know, or can guess. We've been gods, nominal rulers, ever since."

            Jim's mind clicked into high gear. "And the crash site is a sacred place—the place where the gods came to land. That's why—Akiila, did you say?—and the others were so angry when they saw us at first. We just walked up, we didn't _appear_ there. And then I said the same thing you did when you first 'manifested'…" He looked at his companions, then at Gaila and her cohorts. "And we were dressed the same. The men in gold, the women in red. God alone knows what they would have made of Spock or Bones. Gaila, what did Akiila say when he first came after bringing us here?"

            Slowly, Gaila answered, "He said that others had come. He—the word he used was _ya'ahng._ It means 'second soul,' or at least that's the nearest I can get in Standard. They call us _yi'inn,_ the First."

            "I'm hopeless at language," Chitose confessed. "Karu here speaks Japanese and Tagalog like a native, which always made our parents proud, but I barely passed high school Spanish. Gaila's explained a lot of the culture, though, and I've come to recognize some of the words they use for us. _Eludaan_ is gods in the collective, any divine being. _Yi'inn_ is what they call all three of us, kind of like the Big Three, the Eldest Gods, in Greek mythology—Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. Specifically, they call Gaila _Mahgaya,_ I'm _Berekkstah,_ and Finney is _Effeskta'us."_

            "Mmm-hmm. And those mean?" Jim quirked an eyebrow at Gaila.

            "Well, I'm not certain of the exact translations, but when the Thũn do the rituals under the full moons—which are beautiful, by the way—our titles are 'Mother of the Grass and Life,' 'Creator of the Stars,' and 'Mighty Lord of the Flame,'" Gaila answered, pointing to herself, Chitose, and Finney in turn.

            "Gaila. They think you're an earth goddess."

            Before any of them could respond, the woman who had served them earlier came back in, half-crawling and with her eyes lowered respectfully. She said something in her native language, looking first at Jim, then at Sulu, then Uhura. Gaila looked extremely startled and evidently asked a question. The woman answered—Jim caught the word _ya'ahng_ —and Gaila responded in the same tongue. Whatever she said, the woman kowtowed—there was no other word for it—and withdrew.

            "Okay. Who or what are we?" Jim knew the woman had given them names and titles out of her tribe's mythology. "Apart from extremely fucking dead when Starfleet gets ahold of us?"

            Gaila didn't even respond to the latter part. "Uh—she called Nyota _Th'orre,_ and addressed her as 'Lady of the Storm.' Hikaru here was _Erieze,_ 'Mighty Artist of Victory.' And—you were called _Ra'apolho,_ 'Father of Light and Life.'"

            "Of course," Jim murmured. "And when you asked how she knew our names, she told you that it was because we were your _ya'ahng_ —your 'second souls'—your complements. Night and Victory—because darkness covers advances and retreats, the stars give light and foretell winning battles. Fire and Storms—bringers of death and destruction. And Earth and Sun—creators of life."

            “As long as they’re not expecting a big wedding ceremony,” Sulu quipped, but there was a flash of concern in his eyes. “What do we do now, Captain?”

            “We get out of here, fast,” Jim said firmly. “We’ve already stayed too long. We can’t risk further contaminating this culture, and we also can’t risk getting stuck here.” He turned to the other three, his expression serious. “I take it you three are coming with us?”

            “You wouldn’t leave us here, would you?” Gaila looked panicky.

            “Of course not. In the first place, Starfleet directives—and, for that matter, Federation directives—forbid it. In the second place, you’re our friends and we’re not leaving you behind.” Jim stood up. “Now that that’s settled, if you’re all finished, we need to get out of this forest. I can’t get a clear signal to the _Enterprise_ from here. We also need to make sure we stay clear of the Thũn, so they don’t see us beam up.”

            “Even if they did, they’d probably just assume we were using our godly powers to return from whence we came,” Finney pointed out.

            “The fact that the natives could come up with a plausible explanation within their mythology for our disappearance doesn’t mean we can violate the Prime Directive at will, Mr. Finney,” Jim informed him. “Is there a shorter way to the meadow than the way we came in?”

            “No,” Chitose answered, getting to her feet. “One way in, one way out. The other doors lead to the Thũn villages.”

            “Lead on.” Jim gestured.

            The other four scrambled to their feet. Finney looked down at himself and sighed. “My kingdom for a Starfleet uniform,” he mumbled.

            “Is about the trade you’re making, actually.” Jim winked. “We’ll outfit you from ship’s stores once we get back to the _Enterprise_ _._ Meanwhile, come on.”

            “Is he always in this much of a hurry?” Chitose asked Sulu.

            “When it’s urgent,” Sulu answered with a nod.

            They were halfway across the throne room when hurried footsteps sounded behind them. A minute later, the man called Akiila came in, hastily bowing. Behind him was a woman Jim had never seen before, with long, heavy, shining hair, twined through with purple crystals. She looked anxious as she spoke to Gaila. Gaila held up both hands, smiling reassuringly as she spoke rapidly. Akiila then asked a question. Gaila hesitated and looked at Jim.

            “What?” he asked, keeping his voice as low as possible.

            Taking her cue from him and barely moving her lips, Gaila murmured, “They want to know where we’re going. Maybe I should have told you before…none of us have left the cavern system since we were brought here.”

            Jim bit back a groan. “Yeah, that—that would have been good to know. Gaila, tell them that we came to collect you and that it’s time to return to where you came from. That’s the honest truth and won’t violate the Prime Directive.” _I hope,_ he added silently.

            Gaila turned back to Akiila and, presumably, translated Jim’s remarks. A look of understanding came over Akiila’s face. He said something, gesturing at them. Gaila looked startled, then laughed and shook her head before answering with a toss of her curls.

            “What is it now?” Uhura sounded uneasy.

            “Oh, he thought our clothes might be too heavy to take with us. I assured him that we have powers he knows not of, which is true enough, and that there will be no problem.”

            Akiila bowed and spoke again; Jim noticed he had tears in his eyes. The woman next to him also bowed and spoke. Gaila said something, insistently, and Akiila and the woman both looked relieved, but Akiila’s next words sounded remarkably similar to his previous ones.

            Jim felt uneasy. “Gaila?”

            “It’s not a problem,” Gaila said, turning to him with a smile. “Akiila and Malia—she’s his wife, by the way—were just worried that we’d been trapped here all these years because they had failed us in some way by tethering us with these clothes. I assured them they weren’t at fault. Akiila is still talking about our clothes being too heavy, though.”

            “Are you _absolutely certain_ the word he’s using is ‘clothes?’” Jim pressed.

            Gaila paused. “What else would he be saying?”

            Akiila spoke up from where he stood. Gaila’s eyes, as she regarded him, were now slightly uneasy. “Akiila says that the men of the tribe will be happy to escort us to the meadow, where they will gladly free us from our…clothes…so that we can return home,” she said slowly.

            “Captain?” Sulu said uneasily.

            Jim took a half-step closer to the helmsman. “Gaila, thank Akiila kindly but tell him that we will be taking our—clothes—with us. He and his men may remain here.”

            Gaila relayed this. Akiila shook his head and answered. “He says he understands that we wish for a souvenir, but surely they will be useless in the—where we’re going. They can do more good if we leave them behind…Jim, if they really want our clothes, why don’t they just ask us to strip here?”

            “Caught up, have you?” Jim said grimly, his eyes fixed on Akiila. “Everyone, when I count to three, run. Run as fast as you can and don’t stop for anything.”

            “I’m not sure how fast I can run in this thing,” Finney said uneasily.

            “Drop it if you have to. But we’re only going to get one shot at this and I’m not leaving anyone behind. Gaila, let’s try this one last time—tell Akiila that we still have need of all we currently possess, and that we will leave nothing behind. Try not to stammer when you do it.”

            Gaila swallowed, then held her head high and spoke to Akiila. He turned to look at his wife, whose eyes were narrowed. In a flash, Jim thought of Tyree and Nona, of a private little war on a planet whose peace had been disturbed by Klingon interference. He realized that here, too, was a woman who did not quite believe in gods, influencing a man who did. She spoke humbly enough, however, as she bowed to Gaila.

            Jim didn’t wait for Gaila to translate her remarks. “One…two…THREE!” he shouted.

            Chitose took off immediately, Sulu on her heels. Uhura grabbed Gaila’s hand and pulled her after them. Jim waited for Finney to take off before he followed. Shouts immediately issued from behind them, but Jim ignored them, concentrating on heading down the path.

            In the time they had been in the cavern, the sun had begun to set. Their shadows stretched out in front of them, disappearing into the gathering gloom. Fortunately, the trees were still fairly obvious, and the gold in the pebbles caught the remains of the light, so they didn’t stray from the path. Jim heard the sounds of feet pounding in the dirt, and at first, that was all he heard. They hadn’t gone far, however, before he started hearing the sounds of heavy breathing and cursed inwardly. Gaila had told him that they hadn’t left the caverns in fifteen years—of course, how had he not guessed? They were all out of shape. They’d start dropping behind soon if he didn’t motivate them somehow.

            Jim felt something whiz past his ear. He didn’t pause or turn, but Finney looked over his shoulder. Of course that made him stumble, nearly falling. Jim caught him by the arm as he passed and practically dragged him along. “On your feet, Ensign!” he snapped.

            Finney staggered, managing with difficulty to get his feet under him as he looked up at Jim. “The whole tribe’s after us!” he cried.

            “Are you really surprised? Get running!” Ahead of him, Jim saw Sulu grab his sister’s hand and pull her after him. He could hear the shouting behind them now, faint but present, and a rattling noise that probably indicated some sort of weaponry.

            “Sir—I can’t—keep up!” Finney gasped out.

            “Drop the toga and run!” Jim shouted.

            Finney tugged at the knot at his waist as he ran. Jim didn’t let go of his arm until the yellow sheet fell away, dropping to the path behind them. Finney lengthened his stride, and Jim felt confident enough to loosen his grip and pick up the pace himself. He dodged to one side as something flew at him. This time he was able to register that it was a spear. An arrow shot past them, narrowly missing Sulu’s head and embedding itself in a tree. Jim blessed the coming darkness; it may have made it more difficult for them to see, but it also made it more difficult for their pursuers to see _them._

            “They’re trying to kill us!” Gaila yelled, sounding half bewildered and half angry. She ducked as something—a spear, a stone, he wasn’t sure what—flew past her. “They’re trying to kill us, Jim!”

            Despite the seriousness of the situation, Jim fought a wild urge to laugh; it was exactly what Bones had yelled at him, all those years before, running through the woods on Nibiru. He responded exactly the same way he had back then. “I know they’re trying to kill us!”

            “Why are—they trying—to kill us?” Chitose panted, stumbling along in her brother’s wake.

            “I’ll explain later! Just move!”

            “How—can you run—in those things?” Finney asked.

            Jim assumed he was talking to Chitose and Gaila, who were managing just fine despite their garments, but it was Uhura who answered. “You don’t think they train us how to run in a skirt and heels at the Academy?”

            “Less talking! More running!” Jim could see a change in the texture of the shadows ahead of them and guessed they were almost out of the woods—literally rather than figuratively.

            Sure enough, moments later, they burst out onto the edge of the meadow. There was enough light from the setting sun to show their path. Jim turned towards the rough location where they had beamed down and kicked up the speed a notch. He fumbled for his communicator and flipped it open. “Kirk to _Enterprise_ _!_ ”

            There was no response. Jim twisted it and tried again. “Kirk to _Enterprise_ , come in, _Enterprise_ _!_ ” After a few seconds, he swore and snapped the device closed. “Let’s move it, people! If we can get back to the crash site…”

            He sensed rather than heard the others step up the pace. He’d gotten ahead of them somehow. On the one hand, that was good, because he was the leader; on the other hand, he would never know if someone fell behind, and Jim Kirk didn’t leave anyone behind. Still, there wasn’t much of a choice.

            The _Enterprise_ crew may have been in good shape, but there was no denying that they weren’t used to prolonged running, not at these speeds. Jim’s lungs were beginning to burn—and, what was worse, he could feel his eyes starting to itch. The antihistamine was wearing off. Any minute now, he was going to drop behind. Well, at least that would solve _one_ problem, he thought, hearing the soft _thuds_ as various missiles buried themselves in the ground behind them. So far, the gathering dusk and the fact that they were moving were the only things preventing them from becoming human (or Orion, in the case of Gaila) shish kebabs.

            His communicator chirped, with a clarity that surprised him. Jim snatched it off his belt again and flipped it open. “Kirk here!” he gasped out.

            “Captain, are you all right?” Spock’s voice was calm and unflappable. “We have not heard from you for some time—”

            Jim cut his first officer off sharply. “Spock, six to beam up!”

            There was a pause, and when Spock spoke again, his voice cut in and out. “Captain—did not—all of—please repeat—?”

            “There!” Uhura shouted. Jim, twisting his head sharply, saw the glint of light off an object just ahead—the remains of the pod.

            “Stand by, _Enterprise_ _!_ ” Jim shouted into the communicator. He angled towards the object and ran for his life. Once he reached it, they could stop and he could order the beam-up. That way the ship could fix on their location more easily, too.

            He skidded to a stop and glanced over his shoulder. Finney had dropped behind; Sulu, noticing, had pushed Chitose ahead and run back for the other man. Uhura grabbed Chitose’s arm in passing and dragged her along, too, helping both the other women to power towards Jim.

            Behind them was a massive, shadowy shape, yelling and shouting, that could only be the Thũn. And they were getting closer.

            Jim flipped out his communicator again. “Kirk to _Enterprise_ _!_ ”

            “Spock here” came the instant reply. Spock’s voice was much clearer this time.

            “Can you get a fix on our location?”

            “Yes, Captain.”

            “Then six to—”

            “Captain, look out!”

            Jim looked up to see something hurtling towards him. The next instant he was pushed aside, dropping his communicator as he fell. From beside him he heard a high scream of pain.

            He hit the dirt, rolled, and sat up quickly. Instantly he took the situation in. Sulu had pushed him out of the path of a spear—and taken it in the side. It had either just glanced off of him or passed through, but over his ribcage was a rapidly spreading stain, dark in the moonlight. He lay on the ground a short distance away, face contorted in pain.

            “Sulu!” Jim shouted, scrambling over to the helmsman’s side.

            Sulu looked up at him, his face white, eyes round. “Captain,” he gasped out.

            Jim drew his phaser. “Officer Sulu!” he shouted.

            Chitose, who had been starting towards them, stopped. Jim tossed her the phaser; she caught it relatively easily. “Heavy stun—shoot only if necessary!” he snapped. He tugged Sulu’s phaser free of his belt and tossed it to Gaila, who fumbled but caught it. Finney, who was completely naked, crouched down behind them as the three women armed themselves.

            Sulu gripped at Jim’s arm. “Captain—spear—poisoned,” he said through tightly clenched teeth. “Burning—”

            “Hang on, Sulu.” Jim reached for his communicator. Finney saw him reaching and scuttled over, crab-like. He swept up the communicator and pushed it into Jim’s hand. Jim flipped the device open. “Kirk to _Enterprise_ _!”_

            “Captain, we lost communication with you, is everything all right?”

            “Six to beam up, Mr. Spock,” Jim barked out, his eyes fixed on the advancing horde. They seemed to have slowed, now that they realized the six of them weren’t running anymore—but they were also spreading out, curving in an arc. In a minute they’d be surrounded.

            “Six, Captain?” Spock sounded startled. “Is there some issue with—”

            “Survivors of the crash! Spock, we don’t have time to argue,” Jim snapped. “Beam us aboard! Now now now now now!”

            “One moment, Captain.”

            The full moon crested over the horizon behind them, bathing them in silvery light. Jim could see, very clearly, Akiila at the head of his men, raising his spear for a throw. Gaila, Uhura, and Chitose raised their weapons. Finney curled up to minimize the target, but Jim could tell that Akiila was aiming at him. He drew his arm back and threw the spear, as hard as he could. Jim instinctively threw up a hand and turned his head aside slightly, bracing himself against the anticipated blow, knowing it would do no good but unable to do anything else—

            And then the sparkle of the transporter beam surrounded them, and the planet disappeared.


	64. And As They Pulled Into the Drive

           Slim bit his lip, watching the beams materialize. Scotty put a hand on his shoulder, watching also. “Ye’re sure it’s in good condition?” he asked. 

           “Positive,” Slim answered. He had asked, just to be sure, but really he’d known all along. 

           The beams coalesced, revealing, as Jim had said, six figures—three males and three females. Uhura stood in an open stance, phaser at the ready; the other two women, one with green skin and red hair and the other seeming to be a human of Asian descent, also held phasers. They were dressed in colorful outfits that suggested ancient Greek chitons. A strange man, also appearing fully human, crouched behind them; Slim thought he might be naked. 

           Jim knelt on the ground. He had one arm outstretched, his face averted, as if to ward off an anticipated blow. With his other arm, he cradled Sulu. The helmsman clutched feebly at his side, but even from the other side of the transporter room, Slim could see that his shirt was soaked with blood. 

           After a second, Jim dropped his arm, gasping as if he’d forgotten to draw breath until that moment. He looked down at Sulu, then up, his blue eyes wide. Behind him, the three women exhaled, dropping their phasers almost in unison. 

           The sound seemed to recall Jim to himself. He grabbed Sulu under his arms and hauled him to his feet, staggering slightly. “Slim, give me a hand, we’ve got to get him to Med Bay, _now._ Scotty, let Spock know where we’re going and tell him to get us out of this system.” Looking over his shoulder, he added, “Uhura, bridge. You three, with us.”

           Slim bounded around the console and slung Sulu’s free arm over his shoulder, wrapping his own arm around the man’s waist and grabbing his belt, in the carry called the “human crutch.” Sulu’s head lolled towards Jim; he was obviously lapsing into semiconsciousness. Jim checked to make sure the others were following, then hurried off through the corridors. 

           “Bones!” Jim shouted as he burst through the door of Med Bay. He half-dragged Sulu over to an exam table and laid him on it as gently as possible. 

           Leo ran to meet them. “Jim, what the hell?” he exclaimed. 

           “Poisoned spear,” Jim said shortly. “He knocked me out of the way…” 

           “Damn!” Leo grabbed a tricorder. “Help me get his shirt off.” 

           As Slim hastened to comply, Jim said, “Bones, get someone to look these three over, would you? Full scans.” 

           “Dix!” Leo didn’t even look up. Nurse McCall hurried to his side. “Get Williams and DeSoto to help you run full scans. Stanley, Gage, I need you!” 

           As the nurse and the orderly joined Leo, Slim asked softly, “He’s gonna be okay, right?” 

           Leo looked up, his eyes sympathetic. “I’ll do everything I can.” 

           Slim understood the second meaning and stepped back, letting the professionals wheel Sulu into surgery. He watched them move back, then turned to where the three strangers sat on the exam tables. Jim, too, crossed over to their side. Slim noticed that someone had given the man a thin sheet to drape over his lap.

           “Why do you insist on full scans?” the green-skinned woman asked, looking a little accusingly at Jim. “We’re perfectly healthy.” 

           “You could have something latent in your systems, something that you’ve built up a gradual immunity to,” Jim pointed out. “We’ve already had one pandemic on this voyage. I’m not risking another. I’m sorry. Full scans.” 

           The door of Med Bay slid open and Spock strode in, focusing on Jim. “Captain, are you all right?” he asked. 

           “I’m fine,” Jim assured him. “Sulu took a spear to the side. I’m hoping it’s better than it looks, but before he passed out, he said he thought it was poisoned.” 

           “We were concerned when we—” Spock began, then stopped, noticing the three figures on the tables for the first time. “Captain, are these the survivors of the vessel that impacted Okor V?” 

           “They are.” Jim rubbed his forehead tiredly. “Permit me to introduce Officer Chitose Sulu, Ensign Benjamin Finney, and Ensign Gaila, formerly of the U.S.S. _Hood.”_

           Slim’s eyes widened. He stared at the Asian woman, who did bear a marked resemblance to his friend. Jim put a hand on Slim’s shoulder and added, “My first officer, Mr. Spock. And this is my son Slim.” 

           The green-skinned woman, presumably Gaila, beamed at Slim. “I’d have known you anywhere—of course you’re Jim’s son! You look just like him!” 

           Spock ignored her. He looked at Jim with a carefully blank expression. “Captain,” he said slowly, “the _Hood_ was destroyed during the Battle of Vulcan.” 

           “I am aware, Mr. Spock. But it had time to jettison an escape pod, with the intention of sending a message to Starfleet.” Jim gestured to the three on the table. “These three were aboard. Officer Sulu, please tell Mr. Spock what you told me on the planet.”

           Slim listened, eyes wide, as Chitose summarized what had happened. He couldn’t imagine doing half the things they had done. When she reached the end of her story—or at least a stopping point—Spock lifted an eyebrow marginally. “Fascinating. Tell me, Officer Sulu, how did you survive fifteen years on Okor V without understanding the language?” 

           “Gaila figured it out after a while, sir,” Chitose answered with a glance at the green-skinned woman. 

           “Permit me to rephrase. How did you manage to survive long enough to understand the language? Without a common language, you must have had difficulties in conveying friendly intentions.” 

           Chitose bit her lip, looking slightly helpless. Gaila spoke up boldly. “The Thũn mistook us for some of their gods. We didn’t realize that until we were able to understand them, of course, and by then it was a little too late to explain.” 

           “Gods,” Spock repeated evenly. He turned to look at Jim. 

           “Oh, don’t blame him, it’s not his fault,” Gaila said. “He wasn’t even—” 

           “Gaila,” Jim interrupted. Gaila fell silent. 

           “How extensive would you say the cultural damage was?” Spock asked quietly. 

           Jim hesitated. “Hard to say,” he answered at last, folding his arms over his chest. “I don’t know what the culture was like before the crash. But from the fact that we were never asked for our names, but addressed by the names of pre-existing gods, I doubt it’s _too_ extensive. Then, too, they very obviously had stories of gods who came to live among them, and returned to their own lands.” He looked back towards where Leo and his team had taken Sulu. “We _might_ have disappeared in a manner inconsistent with those legends, however.” 

_“Might_ have?” Spock repeated with a raised eyebrow. 

           “Difficult for me to be sure without speaking the language or having been given the opportunity to study the culture. But the leader of the tribe said that our…” Jim cast an eye over Gaila. “Well, the word was translated to me as ‘clothes’, but I’m pretty sure it was more than likely ‘shells’ or ‘vessels.’ At any rate, they thought they would be ‘too heavy’ to take with us and offered to help us leave them behind.” 

           Slim froze. He, too, turned to look towards where Sulu was being treated, then turned back to Jim. “‘You understand,’” he quoted softly. “‘I can’t take this body with me. It’s too heavy.’” 

           Jim nodded. “That was my thought, too.” 

           Spock’s eyebrow lifted even higher. “I beg your pardon?”

           “It’s a book,” Slim explained, looking up at his godfather. “Twentieth century Earth. _The Little Prince_ , by Antoine de Saint-Exûpery. The main character lives on an asteroid, a very small one, and visits the Earth. When, at the end of the story, he finally returns to his home planet…that’s what he tells the narrator, about how he’s going to get back. A little yellow snake bites him.” 

           Jim nodded, turning so that he was focusing on both Slim and Spock. “From the way Akiila and his tribesmen were chasing us down, I suspect that was their intention—to free our ‘godly essences’ from the mortal forms. I’m not sure if that was a pre-existing legend or if his wife encouraged him to start that one…she reminded me of Nona.” 

           “Nona?” Slim repeated. He didn’t think he knew who that was. 

           “A woman we met on a planet called Neural, about six years back,” Jim said. “I’ll…tell you more about that some other time.” 

           Spock’s lips thinned slightly, but he only said, “I trust, Captain, that you did your best to minimize your interference.” 

           “Naturally. I had no desire to repeat Nibiru.” Jim smiled faintly. “I took every precaution I could. Any violation of the Prime Directive was beyond my control.” 

           “That should, I think, satisfy Starfleet Command.” 

           “It better,” Slim muttered. He figured it would be fine, as long as they didn’t get Nylund again.

           McCall stepped up. “Excuse me, Captain. All three check out just fine.” 

           “Thank you, Nurse McCall.” Jim glanced at the three, then raised an eyebrow at Spock. “Mr. Spock, I need your advice on a matter of Starfleet protocol.” 

           Spock looked startled. “I shall endeavor to answer.” 

           “Ensign Gaila and Ensign Finney did not, technically, complete their final year at Starfleet Academy; however, they, along with the remainder of our class, were awarded their commissions posthumously. Since they are not dead, do their commissions still stand?” 

           “I would presume so, Captain,” Spock replied. “Assuming Ensigns Gaila and Finney can remember what they learned at the Academy, they would be able to take up their positions on a ship or a starbase.” 

           “Then Officer Sulu could resume her position as well?” 

           “Certainly.” 

           Slim smiled slightly as Jim turned to the other three. “If you would care to join the crew of the _Enterprise_ , we’ll add you to the duty rota. If, on the other hand, you would prefer a different assignment, I can put in the paperwork for that. It might be a month or two before we get to a point where you can be transferred, but…” 

           Finney straightened slightly. “With all due respect, Captain, I think it would be best if I accepted a different assignment.” 

           “I understand, Mr. Finney,” Jim said with a slight nod. “I wish you the best of luck, wherever the stars take you.” 

           Chitose hesitated, looking back towards where Leo had taken her brother, then turned back to Jim. “I—Captain Kirk, would you be willing to give me a few days to make a decision?” 

           “Certainly. I understand that this is a difficult decision.” Jim looked towards the surgery as well and swallowed. Slim understood; Chitose wouldn’t make any decision until she knew how Sulu was. 

           Jim pulled himself together visibly and turned to the remaining woman. “Ensign?” 

           Gaila’s eyes had a look of worry in them. Her lips parted slightly, she looked from Jim to Finney to Chitose. “But—you _can’t_ split us up,” she protested. “We’ve been together for fifteen years—we work so _well_ together.” 

           “We’re not even in the same _departments,_ Gaila,” Finney pointed out. 

           “But—” Gaila looked absolutely helpless. 

           “You don’t have to make a decision right now, Gaila,” Jim assured her. He turned to the orderly standing nearby. “Mr. DeSoto, please take Ensign Gaila, Ensign Finney, and Officer Sulu to ship’s stores and get them outfitted.”

           “Aye, sir.” DeSoto gestured for the other three to follow him. Gaila and Chitose got up immediately; Finney was a little more hesitant. 

           Unexpectedly, a smile tugged at Jim’s lips. “Mr. Finney, you can take the sheet with you.” 

           “Thank you, Captain,” Finney said gratefully. He stood up, tugging the sheet around his waist, then followed DeSoto out of the door. 

           Slim watched them go. “Dad, I know Chi—Officer Sulu is in Security, but what do the other two do?” 

           “Finney is a pilot,” Jim answered, looking down at his son. “Gaila works in engineering.” 

           Slim’s eyebrows shot up. “I hope she remembers how to do her job,” he blurted. Scotty got impatient enough when people didn’t know what they were doing. 

           “May I suggest they take reassessment tests, Captain?” 

           “Good idea, Mr. Spock. I’ll have them do that once they’ve settled in.” Jim rubbed the back of his neck. “I suppose I should—” 

           Before he could say anything, however, Leo came out of the back room. Slim saw Leo’s face and tensed. “Pa?” he asked, his voice cracking slightly. 

           “He was right,” Leo said quietly, joining them. “The spear was poisoned.” 

           “How bad is it?” Jim gripped the exam table next to him tightly. 

           “Bad,” Leo admitted. “The poison literally dissolved the flesh on his side…and it’s still there, Jim. Or was. We’re trying to clean it out, but it’s stubborn. I’ve got something counteracting it, but…it might be twenty-four hours before it’s out of his system. And I can’t run the regen until it is.” He ran a hand through his hair, looking tired. “He should pull through, but…” 

           Slim bit his lip hard, tasting blood. “It ain’t fair,” he said softly. 

           Jim put an arm around Slim’s shoulders. Leo shook his head. “Jim, who were the other people you brought up? Were they natives?” 

           “I’m not _that_ stupid, Bones,” Jim said, raising an eyebrow. “No, two were human and one was an Orion. They crash-landed on the planet fifteen years ago.” He bit his lip, then said softly, “They were on the _Hood.”_

           Leo froze. _“What?”_ he said at last, his voice a harsh whisper. “The _Hood?_ But…” 

           “Escape pod. Attempt to send a message. They were the only—” Jim stopped momentarily, then rallied himself. “They were the only three survivors of the battle who weren’t aboard the _Enterprise.”_

           “Sulu’s sister was on the _Hood,”_ Leo said slowly. 

           “And now she’s on the _Enterprise,”_ Jim confirmed. 

           “Did we know the other two?” 

           “Yeah. Remember Ben Finney?” 

           Leo’s eyes darkened slightly. “Yeah. I do.” 

           “He’s one,” Jim said. “The other is Gaila.” 

_“Gaila?”_ Leo threw up his hands. “Good God, Jim, do you have any _other_ bombshells you want to drop on me?” 

           Jim hesitated, looking down at Slim for a moment before looking back up. Quietly, he said, “Spock, find quarters for our three new guests, however long they’re going to be staying. Bones, if you think Sulu can have visitors, I suggest you send someone to get Chekov.” He looked down at Slim and added, “Come with me, son.”

           Slightly bewildered, Slim followed his father. They left Med Bay and headed up to the observation deck. Jim led him over to the bench in the corner where Slim usually sat with his friends. 

           “Slim, I—I need to tell you something,” Jim said quietly, sinking down onto the bench. 

           Slim joined him. “What is it, Dad?” 

           Jim looked down at his hands. He obviously didn’t want to answer. Slim bit his lip, then slid off the bench to the ground and folded his arms on Jim’s leg, resting his chin on them and looking up. Maybe it would help if he led the conversation there, bit by bit. “How come Pa doesn’t like Finney?” 

           “Finney and I served as midshipmen together at the Academy—an internship program, if you will.” Jim spoke slowly, almost absently. “He screwed up big time—switched the leads on a loader by mistake—and I caught it. I reported it to our lieutenant and Finney was sent back to the Academy. I’m probably the reason he wasn’t considered good enough to assign to the _Enterprise_ …anyway, when I got back to the Academy, spring semester, Finney jumped me in a bar. He had a knife. I gave him that scar on his cheek trying to defend myself…he cut me pretty badly. Bones patched me up afterwards, and the only reason Finney didn’t get in more trouble is that I was always getting in bar fights, so they figured it was my fault, and I didn’t bother correcting them. He and I talked it over later and forgave each other, but…Bones never did.” 

           Slim didn’t comment on that. He’d noticed that Leo tended to hold grudges, but not against people who had wronged him—against people who had wronged Jim. Instead he asked, “And…who’s Gaila? I mean, other than the obvious?” 

           “She was Uhura’s roommate at the Academy. I, uh, I sort of went out with her a couple of times. With ulterior motives. I…I used her to hack the _Kobayashi Maru.”_

           “Pa told me about that,” Slim said, hoping to spare his father having to bring that up again. “But she isn’t mad at you, is she? She forgave you?” 

           Jim smiled briefly, distantly. “Yeah, she did. She slapped me, I apologized—and I meant it—and she forgave me. She’s got a good heart.”

           They lapsed back into silence. Slim knew there was nothing Jim could tell him about Chitose that he didn’t already know—in fact, he was willing to wager that he knew more about her than Jim did, since she hadn’t gone to the Academy. He wondered if he should let his dad cast about for another random subject, or just call him on his waffling and get to the point. 

           Finally, he said softly, “Dad…what was it you wanted to talk to me about?” 

           Jim ran a hand over his face, pinched the bridge of his nose, and took a deep breath. Slim watched him anxiously, knowing that whatever it was, it was probably bad. He was kind of starting to regret asking, but he knew he had to know. He couldn’t spend the rest of his life not knowing. 

           “When the _Narada_ attacked…” Jim began, and then stopped, as if unsure of how to continue. He wrapped his arms around himself and scooted a little ways away from Slim. It seemed like an unconscious maneuver, but it alarmed Slim nevertheless. If his dad didn’t want to be touching him, it must be _really_ serious, and probably something he thought Slim would be mad about. But what could Slim possibly be mad about over the _Narada?_ He’d only been two when it had attacked, for pity’s sake. 

           “Dad?” he prompted, a little uncertainly. 

           Jim took another deep breath, closing his eyes. “The _Farragut_ …your mom’s ship…apparently part of it survived. Part of the ship was intact, which meant that the people inside that portion…they were still alive when we got there. But…the life support systems were damaged. They didn’t have very long, they’d have needed almost immediate rescue. And…we didn’t know, Slim. We didn’t know, we were in such a hurry to go after Nero and rescue Vulcan and…oh, God.” He choked slightly, doubling over. “By the time we got there, everyone was dead…but we had a chance to save some of them and we _didn’t know…”_

           “Dad…” Slim swallowed hard, feeling tears prick his eyes. 

           “I’m sorry,” Jim whispered. “I’m so sorry, Slim. I—I could’ve saved your mom…”

           “Dad,” Slim said again, reaching over and gripping Jim’s arm tightly. “Dad, it ain’t your fault. Mom an’ the others—they knew the risks. An’ you weren’t even the captain—it wasn’t your decision, not really. You couldn’t have saved ‘em on your own.” 

           “But I—I didn’t even _know…”_

           Slim realized he wasn’t getting anywhere. He sighed and slid his arm around his dad’s waist, putting his head on Jim’s shoulder. “How does Pa manage to make it sound so reasonable?” he mumbled, mostly to himself. 

           Jim actually laughed, a wet, feeble laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. “He’s had a lot more practice at it than we have, I guess.” He wrapped his arm around Slim and hugged him tightly. “God, Slim…it’s just…I was only able to make it through the first few weeks after the _Narada_ by telling myself that I’d done everything I could. To find out that I didn’t…that I could have done more…” 

           “You couldn’t have,” Slim said softly, snuggling into his father’s side and feeling like a little kid, glad for the comfort even though Jim obviously needed it, too. “Dad, you were…you did everything you could. Even the old comic book superheroes couldn’t save _everybody_ , an’ you’re a real person. It ain’t your fault, any more ‘n it’s my fault.” 

_“Your_ fault? You were _two._ How could it _possibly_ have been your fault?” 

           “Give me ten minutes, I’ll come up with something.” 

           Jim laughed. Slim couldn’t help but laugh, too—while he did have a good capacity for self-blame, he had mostly intended to make his father laugh. Both of them needed it. 

           “Seriously, Dad,” he said softly, once he had stopped laughing. “I don’t blame you. Mom wouldn’t, either.”

           Jim was quiet for a moment. Finally, he said, “I’ll have to take your word for it. I only met her that one night—you _knew_ her, even though you were an infant. If you say she wouldn’t have blamed me…I’ll believe you.” He sighed. “Bet your grandfather would have, though.” 

           At first, Slim thought Jim was talking about _his_ father, the famous George Kirk. It took him a second to remember the grouchy old man who had shown up at one of his foster homes. “I reckon he blames you for everything, including the Great Fire of London in 1666.” 

           “You’re probably right.” Jim sighed again and rested his cheek on the top of Slim’s head. 

           The silence this time was more comfortable, less strained. Slim probably would have been completely relaxed if it wasn’t for the nagging memory of Sulu, bleeding out in Jim’s arms…the knowledge that his friend was up in Med Bay fighting for his life. 

           “Dad,” he said, looking up at his father, “you mind if I go up to Medical and see how Sulu’s doing?” 

           “I’ll come with you,” Jim said quietly, getting to his feet. “And then…well, I have a report I need to file.” 

           Slim nodded. Even though he was sixteen—and only about half a head shorter than his father—he found himself taking Jim’s hand, the way Addie would have, as they walked up to Med Bay. Jim squeezed it tightly, but neither of them said a word.

           When they entered Med Bay, Leo was talking to M’Benga. He looked up at the sound of their approach, and Slim felt horror squeeze his heart. The last time he’d seen Leo looking so tired and ashen, they had been in the middle of an epidemic that had cost three lives and nearly cost thirty more, including Jim’s, Addie’s, and Chekov’s. 

           Jim went pale. “Bones?” 

           “I’m going to stay on duty tonight, Jim,” Leo said quietly. 

           Slim closed his eyes briefly in horror. “It’s that bad?” 

           Leo hesitated, but all he said was, “Chekov’s in there with him now. I—I expect he could do with the company.” His voice broke at that, and he put a hand over his eyes. 

           Jim went straight for Leo, wrapping his arms around his husband, and Slim took the opportunity to slip through the privacy curtains surrounding the bed in the back corner. 

           Chekov sat in a chair next to the bed, one of Sulu’s hands held in both of his. He looked up expectantly as Slim joined him, then his face fell slightly. “I—I hoped you were ze doctor,” he mumbled hoarsely, looking back at Sulu. 

           “No, but he said you might could use some company.” Slim took the seat opposite Chekov and looked down at the prone body of the helmsman. Sulu looked awful. His face was deathly gray, with dark hollows under his eyes, and his breathing was fitful and shallow. The readings on the monitor were far from promising. There was a line attached to his arm that snaked up to a bottle, filled with a dark red fluid. 

           “Blood,” Chekov said softly, following Slim’s gaze. “He’s lost so much…zey can’t stop it.” 

           “I know,” Slim said, remembering what Leo had said. “A poisoned spear…”

           “Whatever zey put in it, to clean out ze poison…I think all it did was stop it from getting worse. For now.” Chekov freed one of his hands and gently stroked Sulu’s cheek. “Why did zey do zis? Why would zey…” He choked, biting his lips hard. 

           Slim bit his own lip. “The Thũn took them for gods. They were tryin’ to destroy their mortal forms and free their godly essences.” 

           “Gods? _Why?_ Because zey appeared out of nowhere?” 

           “They didn’t see them arrive, from what Dad said. No, it’s…that distress signal? It was comin’ off an escape pod from the _Hood.”_

           Chekov started. “Ze _Hood?_ But…” A faint glimmer of hope, mingled with dread, rose in his eyes. “How many people were on ze pod?” 

           “Three,” Slim replied. “They all survived, an’ they’re all here now. An’ yeah, one of ‘em is Chitose. DeSoto took her an’ the other two to get outfitted an’ find a place to stay. But I reckon she’ll be back.” 

           “Who are ze other two?” Chekov spoke absently, as though he wasn’t particularly interested. 

           “Uh, one’s an Orion named Gaila, an’ the other’s name is Ben Finney.” 

           At that, however, Chekov’s head shot up, his face going, if possible, even paler. _“Finney?_ He was in Starfleet?” 

           Slim’s eyebrows knotted in confusion. “Yeah. He was in your cadet class…if you didn’t know he was in Starfleet, how’d you know him?” 

           “I—I met him at a party once,” Chekov stuttered, looking down at Sulu again. “He—it’s a long story. But if he is on ze ship…” He trailed off. One hand unconsciously drifted towards his hip. 

           “He won’t be staying long,” Slim said. Something unpleasant was nagging at the back of his mind, but he decided not to ask for details, not right then. “Dad offered all three of ‘em a choice of stayin’ on the _Enterprise_ or gettin’ a transfer, an’ Finney said right off he’d rather go elsewhere.” 

           Chekov relaxed—only a fraction, but with the sense that at least one of his worries was off his mind. “What about ze other two?” 

           “They ain’t decided yet. I think Chitose is waitin’ to see how…” Slim trailed off, looking down at Sulu. There was a stain slowly beginning to seep through the blanket. “Damn. That ain’t good…” 

           Chekov followed his gaze, and his eyes widened with fear. _“Bozhe moy!”_

           “Hang on.” Slim got to his feet and hurried out into the main part of Med Bay. “Pa!”

           Leo was still holding onto Jim, but he instantly straightened and moved forward at Slim’s call. “What’s wrong? I didn’t hear any alerts—” 

           “I—I think—there’s a stain on the cover—” 

           “Dammit!” Leo lunged for a cart of supplies. 

           “Chen, Lockhart, help him out,” M’Benga said quickly. Three nurses lunged forward, but M’Benga snapped out, _“Not you.”_

           The third nurse recoiled as if she had been slapped. It took Slim a moment to place her as Christine Chapel, the nurse who’d come aboard at the same time as O’Flaherty and Nic’tlarn, before he was hurrying after Leo and the other two nurses, Jim at his side. 

           Leo ripped the curtains around Sulu’s bed aside. Chekov jumped to his feet immediately, his light blue eyes full of worry. Jim put a comforting arm around his shoulder and drew him back as Leo threw off the covers and began tersely rapping out orders. As an afterthought, it seemed, Jim put his other arm around Slim. 

           They stood back, awkward and anxious, as Leo undid the bandages, which were dark and sodden with blood. One of the indicators on the bioscreen shot upwards, and Sulu, still unconscious, groaned. Chekov let out a small, pained whimper, and Jim’s arm tightened around his shoulders. 

           For ten minutes, Leo and the two nurses worked feverishly with bandages and salves. At last, Leo stepped back, his face white and his hands and shirt streaked with blood. 

           “If this doesn’t work…” he half-whispered.

           Chekov swayed and clutched at Jim. Slim’s stomach plummeted. Partly to reassure Chekov, but partly to reassure himself, he asked, “But…it _will_ work, won’t it, Pa?” 

           Leo didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. The very fact of his not answering was an answer in and of itself. He could have shouted at the top of his lungs and it wouldn’t have conveyed the answer as clearly as his silence and the way his eyes didn’t slide away from them but stayed fixed on Jim’s. 

           There was absolutely no guarantee it, whatever _it_ was, would work. 

           Gently, Jim guided Chekov back to the chair at Sulu’s side, helped him to sit down. Turning to Slim, he said quietly, “Go get Addie and go have something to eat, son. I’ll join you as soon as I can, but…I need to do that report first.” 

           Slim swallowed and nodded. “Okay, Dad.” 

           Carol didn’t seem to notice his preoccupied manner, and neither did Addie, who chattered nonsense the entire way up to the cafeteria. Slim smiled and made vague comments at appropriate intervals, but truthfully, his heart wasn’t in it. He got plates for both of them and headed over to the usual table with Addie obediently gripping his pants.

           Audra, Porter, O’Flaherty, and Nic’tlarn were already there, talking as they ate. Audra looked up with a smile at their approach, which froze. She dropped her fork and stood up quickly. “Slim, what’s wrong? What happened?” 

           Slim didn’t answer for a moment, focusing on getting Addie situated. Once she was happily engrossed in her macaroni and cheese, and seemingly not paying attention, he leaned towards the four engineers and said in a low voice, “It’s Sulu. He took a spear to the side down on that planet, an’ it was poisoned. It…it ain’t good.” 

           There was a stunned silence for a good minute. Then Nic’tlarn laid down xyr fork and folded xyr hands, which were trembling faintly. “Is—is Chekov with him?” 

           “Yeah. I’d’ve stayed, too, but…” Slim gestured vaguely at Addie. 

           O’Flaherty tried to laugh. It didn’t exactly work. “Are all away missions this dangerous?” 

           Slim glanced at Audra, who was technically the senior Starfleet officer at the table, but then became aware that everybody was looking at _him._ “What?” he asked, a little startled. 

           “You’ve been down to a planet during what is, technically, an away mission on two separate occasions,” Porter pointed out. “By my reckoning, that’s twice as often as any of the rest of us. And your dad’s the captain. So. Are _all_ away missions this dangerous?” 

           Slim thought back over the last thirty months. There had been a total of—he counted in his head—fifteen away missions. There had been the war by computer, the loss of the Gemini, the encounter with the Melkots that had _technically_ been reversed, Miri’s planet and the grup virus, the incident with the Capellans on Addie’s first birthday, the Kalandran outpost, the _Constellation_ and the doomsday machine, Flint’s jealousy over Reyna and threatening the destruction of the _Enterprise_ , that weird bonding agent that came up from La Pig, Jim getting lost on Gideon, that race that had expected Jim and Spock to teach them about good and evil, the Tholians, the mirror universe, Alfa 177, and now this… 

           “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I reckon they are.”

           Audra bit her lip hard. Nic’tlarn twisted xyr fingers. “What happened on that planet?” xe mumbled.

           Slim checked to make sure that Addie wasn’t paying attention, then lowered his voice again and began to explain what he knew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, I am so sorry this took so long to post. The internet at my house got shut off...and I just started a new job! Which is great news, but is seriously cutting into my writing time (I work 8-5, with an hour's lunch break). And, like I said, no internet at home. Theoretically, I'm gonna be taking care of the bill and it should get turned back on soon, but the trouble is that I haven't gotten my first paycheck yet and don't have a bank account, so I have to wait until that comes. Hopefully it'll be sometime this week, which means that HOPEFULLY I can get back online at home shortly. Meanwhile, however...this is the last chapter I have finished. And while I'm working on the next one, I'm doing it on my laptop...which doesn't have internet access. I may be able to finagle something, but...basically, I can pretty much guarantee I won't be updating this Wednesday, and I can't even be sure I'll be updating within the next week. (If I do, it'll be on Friday evening.) I ask for your patience, and don't worry--I haven't forgotten about this story and have no intention of abandoning it.
> 
> Thank you so much for all your love and support, guys. It's meant a lot to me in the last year.


	65. And He Said

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!** And if you don't celebrate Christmas, happy Wednesday!
> 
> I'm so freaking sorry it's taken me so long to get this chapter up, guys. If you didn't see my comments on the last chapter, we got the internet shut off at our house for a while, and besides that, I finally got a new job after more than a year of unemployment--and it's full time. Which is awesome, but at the same time means I have less time to write. (Which actually means I get more writing done, but that's another story.) But we have internet once more, and I've finally settled into my job...and now that Christmas is actually here, I don't have quite as much crap going on, so I'll be able to get back into writing and actually start posting regularly again. I don't have a buffer of chapters, but again, now I have time to write more.
> 
> That being said...I've kept you guys hanging long enough. Let's check in with poor Sulu.

            Leo was running on caffeine and adrenaline. He had no idea what Chekov was running on, but the poor kid hadn’t slept since Sulu had been brought in, either. Nor had he left Sulu’s side.

            It was bad enough when Chekov was sick or hurt, but then, Leo thought, they almost _expected_ it at this point. He hadn’t wanted to start expecting Sulu to get hurt, but so far, out of four away missions he’d gone on during this expedition, he’d gotten hurt on three of them. Not to mention when he’d been infected by the binding agent after La Pig…

             Sulu had been unconscious for twenty-three hours. In that time Leo had changed the bandages six times, tried four different methods of counteracting the poison, and kept almost a constant supply of blood going into the man’s veins. It was like pouring water into a bucket with a hole in the bottom. All it was doing was keeping Sulu alive. Barely. And all he’d managed to do with the antitoxins was to stop the poison from spreading. He couldn’t seem to get it out of the wound itself.

            All he could think of was that the bandages were trapping the poison inside Sulu’s body. The trouble was, he couldn’t leave them off. It was hard enough keeping Sulu from bleeding to death with them _on…_

            Slim had come by that morning with breakfast for both Leo and Chekov and a PADD tucked under his arm with a few books on it. He’d stayed for three hours, and whenever Leo came over to check on Sulu, Slim had been reading aloud. Leo wasn’t sure Chekov was listening, and he was pretty sure Sulu couldn’t hear, but he understood what Slim was doing just the same. The quiet words, the cadence of his voice, the simple fact of his presence had had _some_ effect. He could have been reading the San Francisco comm directory and it would have calmed Chekov, at least a little.

            Now it was nearing the end of Alpha shift. Leo’s hair stood on end from all the times he’d run his hands through it in frustration, there were dark circles under his eyes, but he couldn’t stop, he couldn’t let himself sleep. He didn’t want something to happen while he was passed out, something he could have prevented if he’d been conscious.

            Then again, if he was so tired he started getting sloppy and hallucinating, what good would that do to Sulu?

            Leo rubbed his forehead wearily as he turned to McCall and said in a low voice, “I’m out of ideas here, Dix. None of the usual antitoxins are working in getting this poison out. And the samples we drew are no help in identifying it. If I had the spear, _that_ might help, but as it stands now…”

            “Could you develop an antitoxin from the toxin you _do_ have?” McCall asked tentatively.

            “Dammit, Dix, there’s no _time._ Even if I could, it’d take me at least twenty-four hours, under normal circumstances. He won’t make it that long if he’s still bleeding out.”

            Gage draped himself over the counter in the casual way he had that made DeSoto roll his eyes behind his back. “Have you tried plain old soap and water? Maybe it just needs to be flushed out.”

            Leo stared at the orderly. “Gage, I take back—” he hesitated—“at least forty percent of everything I’ve ever said to you.”

            Gage looked slightly offended, while DeSoto tried hastily to cover up his laugh with a cough. “What do you need, Doc?”

            “Not soap. We don’t have anything mild enough and I’m not about to introduce it _inside_ his body, for God’s sake. Get me a waterproof sheet and a bottle of the purest water you can find. And, Gage, go get what’s left of the O-negative blood supply. I have a feeling this is going to be messy.”

            As the two orderlies scuttled off in different directions, McCall glanced over at the curtains a touch apprehensively. “And what are you going to do with Chekov?”

            Leo took a deep breath. “I’m going to try to explain.”

            He crossed the room and tugged the curtains aside. Chekov looked up, his face hardly less deathlike than Sulu’s. “Doctor?”

            “Chekov,” Leo said gently. He sat down next to the young man—it was hard not to think of him as such, even though he was thirty-one years old—and looked down at Sulu. The bandages were beginning to soak through again, he could see the beginnings of a spot on the covers, and he fervently prayed he wouldn’t have to change them again. “Chekov, we think we might have an idea. I don’t know why I didn’t think of using plain old water to clean out the wound before now.”

            A glimmer of hope appeared in Chekov’s eyes. “And zen you can use ze regen?”

            “If this works.” Leo didn’t mention that if it didn’t, then he was officially out of options and Sulu would die. “But this will…probably be unpleasant to watch. Why don’t you—”

            “No,” Chekov interrupted immediately, his voice soft but firm. “I’m sorry, Doctor, but…no. I have to stay with him. I promised.”

            In almost any other circumstance, Leo would probably have argued. Of the four hundred and thirty personnel on board the ship, one hundred and fifteen were in committed relationships with one another (there was at least one polyamorous relationship that he knew of, but it worked for them), and that was only counting the ones who had officially declared. With one hundred and eleven of them, he would have stayed firm, and in two more staying firm would have been M’Benga’s responsibility. But Leo would never have argued with Spock, knowing that the logical half-Vulcan would not refute an order to leave while Leo treated Uhura unless he had a very good reason. And looking at Chekov’s fragile expression, Leo knew that he hadn’t the heart to send him away. He understood that promise. How many times had he sworn to Jim that he would never leave him, that he would be right there? Even when he wasn’t allowed, for one reason or another, to treat his husband, he stayed in the room during procedures, holding his hand and talking to him even when he couldn’t hear him. This was one of those situations where it would be okay, where it wouldn’t cause any trouble to have him there.

            “All right, kid,” Leo said, just as softly. “Let me go get everything together and then we’ll be back to get started.”

            He ducked out around the curtains and saw Gage talking to McCall. Their faces led him to hurry over, anxious already. “What? What is it?”

            Gage looked up at him, his face full of worry. Softly, he said, “Doc…there’s no O-negative left. _None._ ”

            Leo’s heart dropped into his shoes. O-negative blood was known as the “universal donor,” in that it could be given to anyone in a pinch, but the trouble was that that meant someone who had it could only _take_ O-negative blood. And it was fairly rare. Only seven percent of humans had it, which meant that, statistically, that only twenty-eight out of the four hundred human crew members aboard were likely to have it.

            “I’m going to check records,” he said hoarsely. “We can’t…I need to be able to replenish his blood after we’ve cleaned out the wound and run the regen.”

            _And he’ll need at least six pints,_ Leo thought as he hurried to his office, _maybe nine, at the rate he’s bleeding out. Normal blood drives only take a pint per person. I can do a direct transfusion, but it’s only completely safe to do up to three pints, so I’d need at least two willing donors._

            “Computer,” he barked, not even waiting for the door to shut behind him, “give me a list of all crew members with type O-negative blood, _fast._ ”

            The computer beeped, then presented him with a list of twenty-six names. So much for statistics. One of them, of course, was Sulu himself, leaving him twenty-five potential donors. Quickly, Leo called up the records and began flicking through them.

            “Damn, damn, _damn,_ ” he muttered. Direct transfusions were tricky, and the potential donors had to be healthy. Of the twenty-five people on his list, twenty-two had been in Med Bay for treatment for various ailments in the last forty-eight hours, and therefore couldn’t donate. That left him three, which should be enough. Even two of them ought to do it. Just…

            He fingered the intercom button for a moment, then pressed it. “McCoy to Kirk.”

            “Kirk here.” Jim’s voice was immediate and reassuring.

            “Jim, I need you to send Audra Cayne, Jerry Carter, and—crap.” Leo’s eyes fell on a notation in the third file. Kevin Riley was O-negative, but there was something Leo hadn’t noticed before—the man had been on Tarsus IV, where he’d picked up something chronic, not contagious, but something that could be transferred in a blood transfusion. “Never mind. I need Cayne and Carter in Med Bay. Quickly.”

            Thank God, Jim didn’t ask questions. “I’ll send them right there. Kirk out.”

            Leo snapped off his comm and strode back into the main Med Bay, and over to where McCall still stood with Gage and DeSoto. “We’ve only got two potential donors,” he said grimly, keeping his voice low. “They’re on their way in, but the problem is that they _both_ have to be able to give for Sulu to have much of a chance. And even then, it’s only _just_ enough of a chance.”

            “Which two, Doc?” Gage asked, his face unusually serious.

            “Audra Cayne and Jerry Carter.”

            “Carter won’t give,” DeSoto said, shaking his head. “He’s got a needle phobia.”

            Leo felt the color drain from his face. “I sure as hell hope we can talk him around, because if we can’t…”

            “Even if we can,” McCall said quietly, “we can’t do it if he passes out.”

            “Dammit, Dix, don’t you think I know that?” Leo snapped.

            The doors to Med Bay slid open just then. In the lead was a muscular man in a gold shirt, bald as a boiled egg, looking tough and intimidating. Cayne was right behind him, a smudge of grease on her cheek and a couple of tears in her shirt. The man strode up to Leo and said in a deep voice, “You sent for me, Dr. McCoy?”

            Jerry Carter wasn’t one of Leo’s patients, but it didn’t take much to guess that this was he. Leo came directly to the point. “We’ve got a very sick man over there. He’s bleeding out. I need at least six pints of O-negative blood in order to save him, and you two are the only eligible donors on this ship.”

            Carter instantly turned white, almost green. “You can take it all from one person—right?”

            “No, there’s a limit to how much I can do from one person, so I’d have to do half from each of you,” Leo said, looking Carter square in the eye. “I know you have a phobia, Carter, but what I’m asking you to do is save Lieutenant Sulu’s life.”

            Cayne was already rolling up her sleeve. Carter was still pale, but he swallowed twice, hard. “I—I’ll do my best.”

            “Dix,” Leo said, whirling to his nurse. McCall was already on the move. They’d worked together since their Academy days; she knew his mind almost as well as Jim did, and in some ways better. Carter let out an audible gulp when she returned with the apparatus.

            “We’ll do you first,” Leo told him, picking up the apparatus. “Roll up your sleeve so I can find a vein.”

            At the word _vein,_ Carter let out a strangled, high-pitched squeak Suddenly, his eyes rolled back in his head and he sank to the ground, unconscious.

            Leo swore, loudly and violently. Gage and DeSoto grabbed the fallen man and deposited him unceremoniously on a nearby bed. McCall shook her head. “He’ll live…what now?”

            “I might be able to get four pints of blood from you,” Leo growled at Cayne, not angry at her but incredibly stressed out, “but I don’t know that that’ll be enough. And, frankly, I’m not happy about the idea of incapacitating you for at least two days if it’s not going to help Sulu.”

            Cayne met his gaze unflinchingly. “You’re _sure_ we’re the only two people on the ship who are eligible?”

            “Are you suggesting I don’t know my job, Ensign?” Now Leo _was_ starting to get angry at Cayne. “That I don’t know how to read medical records?”

            “No, sir, I’m just hopin’ you missed someone,” Cayne said. Her accent, like Slim’s, was thickening. “His sister ain’t even O-negative?”

            Leo stared at Cayne. “Dammit! I never even thought—I checked the crew records, but I don’t have theirs.” He lunged towards the comm again, barking over his shoulder, “DeSoto, get the typer! If they don’t know—”

            “Got it.” DeSoto instantly ran for the equipment closet.

            Leo was about to press the button when the door slid open and Jim came in, accompanied by Slim. Behind them, thank God, was Chitose Sulu. Jim opened his mouth to speak, but Leo got in first, snapping out a question. “Officer Sulu, do you know your blood type?”

            Chitose looked startled. “No, sir, why do you ask?”

            “Your brother needs a transfusion,” Leo said grimly. “I’ve got _one_ eligible donor on the crew, and I need at least two. And I don’t have any of his blood type left in reserve. I’ve used it all.”

            Chitose turned pale as a sheet. “How can I—”

            DeSoto ran over with the small adapter for the medical tricorder. Leo grabbed it and snapped it in place, then pressed it to Chitose’s shoulder. She flinched, but kept mostly still. A moment later, the tricorder beeped. McCall looked at the display. “B-positive.”

            Leo swore. Jim looked anxious. “What’s Sulu’s blood type?”

            “O _-_ negative.” Leo dropped the tricorder onto a biobed. “Jim, I need—”

            Jim had already started for the comm. He pressed a button and barked into it, “Ensign Finney, report to Med Bay, on the double!”

            From the corner of his eye, Leo saw Chekov’s head jerk up, his eyes wide and round with horror. He hurried over to his side and said quietly, “Don’t panic, kid, we’re doing every thing we can for Sulu.”

            “Zat isn’t—” Chekov began, then broke off, biting his lower lip hard, and looked down at Sulu. Leo saw that he was trembling. Gently, he put a hand on the younger man’s shoulder.

            “He’s gonna be okay, Chekov,” he said, softly but fiercely. “I swear it.”

            Before Chekov could say anything, the doors slid open again. Leo whirled away from the young man and hurried back to the group as Finney came in, looking slightly uncomfortable in his gold shirt and pants. “You asked to see me—Captain?”

            Jim pointed to Leo, who swallowed his dislike of the man. If he was compatible, he would forgive just about anything right then. “Do you know your blood type?”

            “O-negative,” Finney replied promptly.

            Jim exhaled, closing his eyes in evident relief. Leo couldn’t let himself relax just yet. “Ensign Finney, are you willing to help provide Lieutenant Sulu with a blood transfusion?”

            “Uh—” Finney suddenly looked uncomfortable again. “Can I do that? I’ve—well—” He pulled aside his shirt collar, exposing the edge of a tattoo.

            “Tattoos don’t bar you from donating,” Leo said. “As long as you’ve had it for more than a year, and you got it in a licensed parlor—”

            “Uh—about that. I sort of did them myself. Well, some of them…” Finney trailed off.

            Leo closed his eyes and sagged against the nearest biobed. “That’s it,” he mumbled, more to himself than to anyone else. “There goes our last chance. I can’t take enough blood from Cayne to be sure and I can’t risk doing this with less.”

            There was a moment of silence. Leo was steeling himself to go over and break the news to Chekov—break the promise he had literally _just_ made—when a voice spoke. Slim’s. “Dad—what’s your blood type?”

            “I’m not compatible, Slim,” Jim said softly.

            “No, I know that, Pa would’ve—what _is_ your blood type?”

            “A-negative,” Jim told him.

            “So there’s a chance—” Slim broke off, then touched Leo’s arm. “Pa—I don’t reckon I’ve ever had my blood tested.”

            Leo looked up sharply. “No. Slim—”

            “Pa, you said yourself, you can’t take enough from Audra to help,” Slim said urgently. “I’m the only one you ain’t tested or looked up. If I’m O-negative—”

            “Bones,” Jim said quietly. “He’s right. I donated when I was sixteen—he’s old enough, with parental permission. And if he’s compatible, you can damn well bet I’ll grant that.”

            Leo was about to argue, was about to point out that three pints from a sixteen-year-old could be dangerous, but then he glanced back at the biobed, thought of Chekov’s tears and his terror, and took a deep breath. “Hold still.”

            Obediently, Slim held perfectly still as Leo pressed the blood typer to his shoulder. The miniscule wait for the tricorder’s results seemed a million years, but as soon as the machine beeped, McCall was looking at the readout, then up at Leo. “He’s a match.”

            Slim rolled up his sleeve. “What do you want me to do?”

            “Uh—do you need me anymore?” Finney asked uncomfortably.

            “Go,” Leo said abruptly. “Slim, Cayne, come over here—Dix, Gage, DeSoto—”

            The nurse and the two orderlies grabbed up the equipment and hurried over to Sulu’s bedside. Chekov glanced up, a flash of terror in his eyes that was instantly replaced with a look of relief. Leo filed that look away for later as he said, “You can hold his hand, kid, but you might not want to look. This is going to be messy.”

            Chekov took Sulu’s hand in both of his, saying nothing. Chitose hovered awkwardly at Chekov’s shoulder, looking down at her brother’s face. Jim put a steadying, supportive hand on Chekov’s back. “Bones—” he began.

            “You can stay, Jim,” Leo interrupted. “You, too, Officer Sulu, but if you feel like you’re going to faint, go to the other end of the room.”

            Chitose swallowed, but nodded wordlessly. Leo turned to where Gage and DeSoto were setting out the things he would need. “Lay out the sheet.” Turning to Slim and Cayne, who were both sitting on gurneys that could be quickly switched out, he added, “Ensign Cayne, we’re going to do you first.”

            “I’m ready, sir,” Cayne said.

            “All right.” Leo took a deep breath. “Dix, start the line.”

            He was right—it _was_ messy, extremely messy. Chitose turned green when the bandages came off, pressed a hand to her mouth, and ran to the other side of the room. Chekov didn’t flinch, didn’t even look, just kept his eyes fixed on Sulu’s face with an expression Leo knew well. Jim, with the stoicism that came from all the medical procedures he himself had endured, watched the entire process.

            Cayne’s first two pints kept the blood flowing through Sulu’s body while Leo, with DeSoto’s assistance, flushed the wound with purified water. When Gage reported that they were starting the third pint, Leo ran the medical tricorder carefully over the wound, holding his breath.

            A moment later, he looked at the results, looked again, and then said in a voice he couldn’t keep the relief out of, “DeSoto, go prep the regen.”

            Jim closed his eyes and exhaled again. Chekov’s face lit up as DeSoto rushed to the surgery area. The handheld regen would take too long on a wound this size; they would have to put Sulu inside the larger unit. Leo covered the wound with clean gauze while they waited, to keep from wasting Cayne’s blood.

            “It’s ready, Doc,” DeSoto called.

            “Three pints,” Gage said at the same instant.

            “Dix, unhook Cayne,” Leo ordered. “Slim, we’ll hook you in once Sulu’s in the regen.”

            Slim nodded. Cayne lay back on her own gurney, obviously exhausted but relieved, as DeSoto wheeled the regen over. He and Gage helped Leo install the unit properly, then Leo set up the transfusion line from Slim to Sulu.

            Half an hour later, Leo exhaled as he studied the readout above the biobed. “He’s stabilizing.”

            “So he—” Chekov’s voice cracked with emotion.

            “He’s gonna make it, kid,” Leo said softly.

            Chekov didn’t say anything, but he bowed his head, and Leo could see the glint of tears in his eyes. Chitose came over hesitantly. “Will he—be waking up soon?”

            “Not for a while,” Leo told her. “Could be up to twenty-four hours. His body’s got a lot of healing to do and he’ll need rest to do it.” Turning to Slim and Cayne, he added, “And you two are staying at _least_ overnight. You’re going to be feeling some weakness while your bodies replenish your blood supply, and I want you to stay here and be monitored.”

            “Yes, sir,” Slim said with a feeble salute.

            Chitose looked down at her brother. “Can I…stay with him for a while?”

            “For a while,” Leo agreed.

            Chitose sat down at the chair next to the biobed, opposite where Chekov sat. The navigator didn’t say a word, but his eyes, which seemed too large in his head, spoke volumes. Jim shook his head slightly as he took a seat between Slim and Sulu, but a little closer to his son.

            The shift was just beginning to change. Gage and DeSoto were chatting with Kelly and Lopez; McCall was briefing Chen and Lockhart, and presumably Chapel, who stood slightly off to one side but near enough that she could hear. M’Benga paused near them, then came over to Leo’s side.

            “He’s going to pull through?” he asked quietly.

            Leo nodded. “Slim and Cayne were both compatible matches. They’re resting overnight—I’ll check them over in the morning and see if they’re ready to be discharged. Sulu will be ready to come out of the regen in another hour, I think.”

            “I’ll take care of that, Leo,” M’Benga said. “You’ve been on shift for the last thirty-two hours. Now that the crisis is past, I think you can take yourself off-duty at least overnight.”

            “Thanks, Geoff.” Leo smiled wanly. Truthfully, a bowl of tomato soup and a good night’s sleep was starting to sound good.

            Then he looked at Chekov. The young man was less used to pulling all-nighters than Leo was, but he’d been awake since Sulu had beamed aboard with his injuries, and it was likely he’d sit there awake until Sulu regained consciousness unless someone intervened.

            “Why don’t you go get some rest, Chekov?” he said gently.

            “Why don’t you _both_ get some rest?” Jim suggested. “I know you, Bones. You’ve been up all night, too. Go grab something to eat and go to bed. I’m gonna sit here for a little while, then I’ll go collect Addie. We’ll be quiet when we come in.”

            Ordinarily, Leo would have argued, but he realized it might be the only way to get Chekov out. “All right, Jim. I’ll see you back in quarters.” He leaned over and kissed Jim, then touched Chekov’s shoulder. “C’mon, kid.”

            Chekov looked up, a stubborn set to his mouth. Suddenly, he glanced over Leo’s shoulder and turned white. Dropping his gaze, he nodded and got to his feet.

            Leo didn’t question it, not there. He put an arm around Chekov’s shoulders and started for the door, only to come face-to-face with Gaila and Finney.

            Finney looked a little sheepish, as well he might, but on the Orion woman’s face was a look of more anxiety than Leo could ever remember seeing on her face. “Ben told me—how’s Hikaru?”

            “Recovering,” Leo assured her. “Unconscious still, but recovering. He’ll be just fine. You can visit him for a little while if you like. Chitose is there.”

            “Thank you.” Gaila planted a kiss on Leo’s cheek, then grabbed Finney by the wrist and dragged him along.

            Leo bit his tongue to keep from spewing venom about Finney. He could feel Chekov trembling and swallowed a curse; the kid probably had low blood sugar. “C’mon,” he muttered.

            Chekov followed him into the corridor docilely enough. Leo avoided the more crowded lounges and cafeterias. Instead, he took Chekov to the private room where the senior officers had important meetings. The food slots were more basic than elsewhere, sticking to soup and sandwiches, but it was nourishing nevertheless. Leo made Chekov sit down at the table, then got them each a bowl of tomato soup, a grilled cheese sandwich, and a glass of chocolate milk.

            “Good, solid comfort food,” he said a little gruffly, setting the plate down in front of Chekov. “It’ll get your blood sugar back to normal, too. Stop that shaking.”

            “Zat’s not why—” Chekov broke off and picked at the crust of his sandwich.

            Leo stared at Chekov. Several little things about the past twenty-four hours were starting to add up into a very confusing picture. Softly, he said, “Chekov, I know I’m not Jim, but…you can always talk to me, too. What’s the matter, kid?”

            Tears flooded Chekov’s eyes as he looked up at Leo. “Finney,” he whispered. “He terrifies me.”

            “Why?” Leo asked gently.

            “I—I didn’t know he was Starfleet. I thought he was just…a guy.”

            “When was this?” Leo asked anxiously. “When he came aboard the ship?”

            “No, when—” Chekov stopped, squeezing his eyes shut, and bit his lower lip. One hand strayed absently towards his hip.

            Cold fear gripped Leo’s heart. He knew what was on Chekov’s hip—the kid had told him, and the rest of the senior command, about it seven years previously, and he’d seen it a couple of times during medical exams since—a tattoo of a crescent moon and a small cluster of stars. That wasn’t so bad, in and of itself; the problem lay in the _way_ Chekov had obtained the tattoo. Because he’d gotten it in a stranger’s bedroom, slightly drunk—probably more drunk than he’d let on when he told the story—when a man at a Christmas party had invited him up to see his tattoos, then given him one of his own. Even that might not have been a problem, except that the reason Chekov had told the story was because they were discussing losing their virginity.

            And Chekov hadn’t quite been fifteen at the time.

            _I sort of did them myself. Well, some of them…_ Finney’s voice echoed in Leo’s head. He hadn’t paid the refugees from the _Hood_ much attention the day before, being too concerned with Sulu, but certain things stuck out in the mind, and one of them was that Finney had, at the very least, two full sleeves and his entire front covered in ink. Chekov’s nerves, the way he’d started whenever Finney’s name was mentioned, the way he’d been trembling…how had he not put it together before?

            “He’s the one—?” he began, then stopped, not trusting his voice.

            Chekov nodded slightly, opening his eyes but keeping them fixed on the table in front of him. “He didn’t live in a dorm,” he said softly, his voice shaking madly. “He had an apartment off-site. I—I should have known he was in Starfleet, one of ze cadets was throwing ze party, but…” He swallowed. “He—when he offered to give me ze tattoo in ze first place, I told him zat I couldn’t afford one. He said zat…we would work something out. Zen when he was done, he told me to l-lie down on my stomach and…”

            “Oh, God,” Leo murmured. He was out of his seat in an instant, his arms wrapping around Chekov, and Chekov responded immediately, pressing his face into Leo’s shoulder and clutching the front of his shirt tightly. Leo felt hot tears soaking into the fabric and didn’t care, because there were tears in his eyes as well.

            “I’m sorry,” Chekov whispered. “I’m so sorry…”

            “No, shh, no, it’s not your fault,” Leo said. Something inside him broke at the voice. “You were _fifteen,_ kid, you weren’t _even_ fifteen, and he had to know that. It’s not your fault. He took advantage of you and…shh. It’s not your fault.”

            He didn’t bother to say _it’s okay,_ because it so obviously wasn’t. He let the food grow cold as Chekov cried himself out. Finally, the younger man sagged against Leo, obviously spent.

            Leo ran his hand over Chekov’s hair, the way he would with Slim or even Jim when they were upset like this. “Kid, why didn’t you say something right away?” he asked. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he knew how stupid it was. Chekov hadn’t said anything because he’d been terrified for Sulu.

            “I—I didn’t want to make trouble,” Chekov said. “Zat was—it was a long time ago. I don’t think he even remembers me. And Slim said he wasn’t staying on ze ship, so…”

            “He’s not, Chekov, but it’s going to be a month or two before we’re going to be in a position to transfer him,” Leo said gently. He didn’t want to upset Chekov, but he needed to know, needed to be prepared.

            Chekov looked up at him, his face bone white. He swallowed hard. “Do—do you think he’ll—?” He broke off, obviously unable to articulate the question.

            Leo sighed. “Truthfully, I’m not the best person to ask. I had a pretty low opinion of him even _before_ you told me what he did to you, and now it’s even lower. But I can tell you this—while either Sulu or I can draw breath, he’s not gonna lay a hand on you again.”

            It had been a poor choice of words, and he knew it as soon as Chekov pulled away, going, if possible, even paler. “He _is_ going to be all right—isn’t he?”

            “Absolutely,” Leo said firmly. “He’s on the mend now. And if you’re not hungry—which I’m guessing you’re not—I’m walking you back to your quarters so you can get some rest, and be fresh for when he wakes up, because he’ll want to see you.”

            “I—I want to be zere when he—” Chekov began, starting to rise.

            “And you will be. Like I told you, he’s not going to be conscious until mid-shift at the earliest.” Leo got to his feet, too, clearing away the uneaten food—he wasn’t really hungry, either, especially not now. He dumped it down the nearest waste disposal unit, then put his arm around Chekov’s shoulders. “I’ll walk you to your quarters now. In the morning, Jim and Addie and I will stop by to get you. We’ll all have breakfast, and then you and I will go up to Med Bay together. Okay?”

            Chekov bit his lower lip, which was trembling, but he obviously knew better than to argue. He nodded, but he looked absolutely miserable.

            Leo hesitated. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Chekov; he did, and he knew the navigator would stay in his quarters until Leo fetched him the next morning. But he also knew that Chekov would probably spend the whole night sitting in his living room _waiting_ for the morning.

            “On second thought,” he said quietly, “I have a better idea. You don’t need to be alone tonight. Why don’t you come with me? You can sleep on our couch, if you want.”

            Chekov looked up quickly, studying Leo’s face. Slowly, he nodded again. “Okay,” he whispered.

            They stopped by Chekov’s quarters so he could grab a set of pajamas. Leo was startled, at first, when he came out carrying something else as well, something bright yellow, but after a moment he recognized the teddy bear Jim had crocheted for Chekov one year on the made-up holiday they called “Enterprise Day,” which was little more than an excuse for gift-giving. Obviously the younger man needed the extra comfort that night. Leo chose not to say anything, instead leading Chekov on to their quarters.

            Jim was sitting on the sofa, reading a PADD. He looked up with a relieved smile, which turned to puzzlement when he saw Chekov. “Chekov? You okay?”

            Chekov bit his lip and looked up at Leo, who said gently, “He doesn’t need to be alone tonight, Jim. I told him he could stay here—the couch isn’t too uncomfortable.”

            “I have a better idea,” Jim said, getting to his feet and putting an arm around Chekov’s shoulders. “Slim’s bed is probably a lot more comfortable. I don’t think he’d mind you taking it for the night.”

            “I—” Chekov began, looking from Jim to Leo and back.

            “It’s okay, kid,” Jim said softly. “We’ll be just in the other room.”

            Slowly, Chekov nodded, then slipped off towards the bathroom to change.

            Jim didn’t say anything—not until he and Leo were in their own bed, stripped to the waist and curled up in one another’s arms. They lay together in the darkness for awhile, and Leo was beginning to think Jim had fallen asleep when he spoke in a quiet but serious voice. “What happened, Bones? I know you’re not just suggesting he sleep here so he doesn’t have to sleep in his bed without Sulu. I can see that something upset him, and I think I’m right in saying that it’s more than just what happened yesterday.”

            “You’re right,” Leo said, tangling his fingers in Jim’s hair. “He’s scared. Not just of what could’ve happened to Sulu, but…he’s scared of Finney.”

            “Finney?” Jim frowned. “I know the guy’s got a lot of tattoos, but I didn’t think that was the sort of thing to scare Chekov. I mean, he doesn’t usually take fright at appearances.”

            “It’s not about what he looks like, it’s about who he is.” Leo hesitated, remembering what Chekov had said about not wanting to make trouble.

            As if he sensed Leo’s thoughts, Jim said firmly, “Bones, I’m the captain. If there’s a problem between personnel, I need to know about it. Especially if it involves a senior officer.” His voice softened. “And _especially_ if it involves Chekov. The poor kid’s been through enough over the years.”

            Leo sighed. “Yeah, well…Finney’s part of that. Remember, right before our second five-year, when we were drinking and got to talking about our…first times?”

            “Yeah. I remember.” Jim’s voice was tight with anger. “Chekov got taken advantage of by an asshole at a Christmas party with—” He stopped abruptly, his eyes widening. He sat upright, staring at Leo in shock. “Shit. _Shit._ Bones, don’t tell me…”

            Leo sat up, too. “I didn’t know it either, before tonight. Chekov didn’t know he was part of Starfleet, but…yeah. It was Finney.”

            “Oh, God.” Jim looked stricken as he turned in the direction of Slim’s room. “God, Bones…why didn’t he _say_ anything?”

            “He didn’t want to make trouble,” Leo said bitterly.

            “Dammit, Bones, couldn’t you explain to him that his safety is important, too?”

            “I couldn’t last time.”

            The sentence slipped out before Leo could stop it. He winced and closed his eyes in the silence, knowing what Jim was going to say and just wondering how he was going to say it.

            It was almost a full minute before Jim spoke, and when he did, it was in a careful voice, as though he had been taking lessons from his first officer in removing all traces of emotion. “What do you mean, ‘last time’?”

            “Jim…” Leo began.

            “No, Bones, _tell me._ Has someone else—” Jim choked, then took a deep breath before continuing in a low voice, “Did someone else hurt him?”

            Leo looked away. “He wouldn’t let me tell you. Said he didn’t want to cause trouble…”

            “When? _Who?_ ”

            Technically, Leo should have claimed doctor-patient confidentiality. He had promised not to tell, and ethics bound him to silence…and it had been so long, there wasn’t anything that could be done about it. All the arguments—very valid ones—ran through Leo’s head. He rallied and made one last attempt to diffuse the situation.

            “It’s been years, Jim,” he said. “He’s not even on the _Enterprise_ anymore, and the statute of limitations—”

            “Then it won’t get anyone else in trouble,” Jim interrupted. “Bones, _please._ ”

            Leo might have tried to protest further. But the image of Chekov’s face, his pale eyes round and huge with pain as he lay in the private room and suffered in silence, the desperation and the fear, floated before him as tangibly as though he was back in Med Bay.

            “His twenty-first birthday…he overdid it a touch on the vodka,” he said slowly. “From what he’s told me—and I have no reason to doubt him—he got so drunk he doesn’t actually remember what he did. But he woke up the next morning on the floor of a strange room, naked, bruised, and bloody.”

            “Did he tell you who it was?” Jim asked, and now his voice was a low growl, a dangerous one.

            “No. I _swear,_ Jim, he never told me. I think it was someone in Engineering—that was mostly who was left after Sulu had his episode—but I don’t know for sure. That’s one of the reasons I didn’t go to you then, confidentiality be damned.”

            “And the others?”

            Leo bit his lip. “The others have to do with the fact that two days later, I did the ship-wide physicals.”

            That stopped Jim. His eyes widened again as he remembered what Leo had discovered during the physicals. “Oh, shit,” he whispered. “I forgot that happened so close to—” He broke off again, and this time he wrapped his arms around Leo, pulling him close. “Oh, God, Bones, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I…”

            “Shh,” Leo soothed him, his arms going around Jim automatically. “It’s all right, Jim. It’s not your fault. Look, I’m here. I’m fine. You’re fine. We’re both fine. And Chekov’s—he’s all right, Jim. He’s alive and he’s safe and he didn’t end up with any scarring, even. And he’s got Sulu. Sulu won’t ever let anything happen to him again.”

            “Bones,” Jim whispered brokenly.

            Leo kissed the top of Jim’s head. “And you’ve got me,” he murmured. “You’ve got me and I’ve got you. I won’t let anything happen to you, either. I swear it.”

            “I love you, Bones.”

            “I love you, too, Jim.”

            They held each other until Jim finally dropped off to sleep. Leo lay in the darkness for a while, stroking Jim’s back, then gently eased out of bed and tiptoed out of the room.

            Addie was sleeping like an angel. She lay on her back, arms spread, fingers of one hand curled around her stuffed tribble. Someone had managed to braid her dark hair; it was so neat and tidy, he suspected it was Uhura. Her breathing was even and regular, and the monitor was clearly on and ready to register even the slightest change. Leo smiled fondly at her, bent over, and kissed her forehead. She gave a soft sigh, smiled, and snuggled under the covers without opening her eyes.

            Leaving her room, Leo hesitated a moment before entering Slim’s.

            Chekov had fallen into an uneasy slumber; it was obvious he was, if not having an actual nightmare, at least facing disturbing thoughts and images. He was curled on his side, clutching the teddy bear tightly to his chest with one arm. The other arm reached desperately across the bed, pathetically seeking the comfort and warmth of a body that wasn’t there. In his sleep, he looked at least ten years younger…and more than that, he looked lost.

            Part of Leo wanted to wake him up, part of him wanted to comfort the man the way he would Jim or Slim. He did neither of those things. Chekov needed his sleep; if Leo woke him up to get him out of the nightmares, he’d never go back to sleep. And, truthfully, he felt a bit awkward about comforting Chekov. Jim could have done it. He and the navigator had an almost brotherly relationship, much easier with one another than Leo could be with the younger man.

            Instead, he did what he did with Addie when she wasn’t sleeping well. He adjusted the blanket around Chekov, tucking him in gently. After a moment’s hesitation, he bent over and pressed a soft, fatherly kiss to Chekov’s temple. The younger man curled a bit tighter into himself, then seemed to relax a fraction as he passed into deeper sleep. Leo decided not to question it…yet. He was feeling pretty tired himself. Stifling a yawn, he backed out of the room and returned to his own bed.

            Jim was still sound asleep, but when Leo crawled under the covers, he rolled over and clung to Leo like a limpet. Leo put his arms around Jim and kissed his lips lightly.

            “G’night, darlin’,” he murmured, an instant before sleep claimed him.


	66. A Man Was Waiting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I'm so sorry this took me so long. I really meant to have it done by Wednesday, but what with the holidays, everything's been crazy. And then I've had a friend visiting...it's just been weird.
> 
> But I have a laptop of my own now! And now that we're past the new year, I should be able to get back on track. (I know, I know, that's what I said last week.) Anyway, I hope this chapter was worth the wait...

 Jim was mildly surprised that Slim, who was only sixteen and had given blood for the first time, was the first to be released. But he seemed to have a remarkably strong constitution, and after a good night’s sleep, Bones cleared him to leave near the beginning of Alpha shift. Cayne was a little weaker; the message Bones sent to the bridge indicated that she would probably be spending a second night.

Despite his impatience and anxiety, Jim remained on the bridge for the duration of Alpha. He didn’t think there would be any new complications with either Cayne or Sulu, but they were part of his crew and therefore his responsibility. He worried about both of them and wanted to make sure they were okay.

And he was worried about Chekov. Having—there was no other word for it—your rapist loose on the same vessel as you, even one as big as the _Enterprise_ , had to be a terrifying experience. Hell, Jim had sometimes had trouble handling the knowledge that he’d been on the same campus as the cadets who’d raped him, and that was a situation that he could escape, in theory, whenever he wanted; he couldn’t imagine if they’d been assigned to his ship. More than that, until Sulu woke up, Chekov was alone.

It was an odd thing to think, but it was true. Jim vividly remembered the terrifying days when Bones had been lost on Taurus II. While he’d had Sulu, Chekov, and Uhura to rally around him—and Slim—he’d never felt more alone. Like Bones to Jim, Sulu was Chekov’s anchor; without him, he was just drifting.

And to be alone when you were that vulnerable…

Five minutes before the end of Alpha shift, Jim heard the swoosh of the doors opening. Before he could turn around, he heard a whisper. “Remember what to say?”

“’Mission to come on b’idge!”

Jim couldn’t keep the grin off his face as he looked over his shoulder. “Permission granted.”

Addie was beaming ear to ear, her chest puffed out with importance. Slim smiled, too, as he held her hand, leading her onto the bridge. “She wanted to come see you,” he explained. “Since we’ve been workin’ on gettin’ her to ask permission, I figured I’d teach her that.”

“I have no objections.”

Jim hoisted Addie onto his lap. She smiled up at him, then looked around. Her eyes fell on the helm, where Leslie and Riley sat, and a puzzled frown creased her brow. “Where Unca ‘Kawu an’ Unca Pavel?”

“Uh—” Jim tried to keep his expression neutral, aware of the looks both Spock and Uhura were shooting him. “Uncle Hikaru’s not feeling well today, sweetie. Uncle Pavel’s taking care of him.” It was close enough to the truth that he didn’t feel too guilty about lying to her.

“Addie visit?”

Slim spoke up before Jim could. “Maybe when he’s feeling better.”

“’Kay.” Addie looked momentarily disappointed, but didn’t argue, for which Jim was grateful.

When shift finally ended, Uhura came over to them. “Slim, Addie, why don’t you come down to the tertiary gym with me? We can do another dancing lesson. I want to work with you on some Latin.”

“All right,” Slim agreed. “How ‘bout it, Addie?”

“Daddy, you come too?” Addie asked, looking up at Jim.

Jim tugged her braid lightly—he wished he knew who kept doing that for her. “Papa and I will meet you down there, okay, baby girl? I’m gonna go see how Uncle Hikaru’s feeling first.”

Slim looked up at Jim. He didn’t have very far to look. “Would you let Audra know I’ll come up an’ visit later? If that’s okay,” he added quickly.

“That’s fine, Slim,” Jim said. “I’ll tell her.”

They headed down in the lift together. Jim got off first, waving cheerfully over his shoulder to Addie, then strode down the corridor, unconsciously walking a little faster than normal, hoping everything was still all right.

Bones was talking to M’Benga and McCall. He looked up as Jim approached. “Hey, Jim.”

“Hey.” Jim kissed Bones on the temple lightly. “How are your patients, Doctor?”

“Cayne’s just fine. A little tired, but fine. She’ll be ready to leave tomorrow morning.” Bones nodded in the direction of the smaller room. “Sulu’s still asleep, but all his vitals are…as normal as can be expected.”

“As normal as can be expected?” Jim echoed, a twinge of worry in his gut.

“Jim, the man’s recovering from some serious trauma. He’s not gonna be completely back to normal. But his signs are all within normal range for somebody with an injury of this kind. He’s not fine, but he’s going to be.”

Jim made himself relax. “I’ll stay and visit for a little while, if that’s okay. And I told Slim it would be okay for him to come up later and visit Cayne?” He raised the inflection of his voice at the end of the sentence, indicating a question.

Bones nodded. “That’s fine. She’ll probably like that. And by the time he gets up here, Sulu will probably be awake, too.” He gave Jim a swift kiss. “I’m gonna go get changed…where are Slim and Addie now?”

“Tertiary gym. Dancing lesson with Uhura.”

McCall smiled. “I’d pay to see that.”

“Don’t have to, Dix, it’s a free show,” Bones said. “I’ll go down and watch for a while…see you later, Jim.” With a quick squeeze of Jim’s hand, he was gone.

Jim nodded to M’Benga, then drifted over to the private beds. Sulu’s breathing was light and even; Chekov held his hand in both of his, staring lovingly into his face. Cayne, on the bed opposite, had a PADD on her lap. She looked up at the sound of Jim’s approach. “Oh—Captain, I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there,” she said, setting aside the PADD. “Is somethin’ the matter?”

“No, no,” Jim reassured her. “I just thought I’d come visit with the two of you for a while. Slim’s at his dancing lesson now, but he asked me to tell you that he’ll be by to see you later.”

“I’d like that.” Cayne’s voice was so soft he almost missed hearing it.

Jim’s conscience smote him. “Have you had visitors, Ensign?”

“Yes, sir,” Cayne assured him. “Last night.”

“I meant today.”

“Well, no—but Slim was with Addie today, an’ Port an’ Kels an’ Nico are all on Alpha shift, so I didn’t expect ‘em.”

It took Jim a second to recall Simril and O’Flaherty’s first names. “All right, I won’t go off on a guilt trip then. How are you feeling?”

Cayne looked surprised that he would ask. “Just fine, thank you. I ain’t half so tired as I was this mornin’.”

Chekov spoke up in a soft, trembling voice, startling both of them. “I was surprised Slim got to leave first.”

“Me, too,” Jim admitted.

“He’s a little bigger ‘n I am,” Cayne said with a shrug. “Reckon his body could spare three pints a little better.”

“Zat’s true,” Chekov allowed.

Jim studied his chief navigator thoughtfully. “How are _you_ holding up, Mr. Chekov?”

Chekov’s expression, as he looked down at Sulu, was a mixture of tenderness and worry. Jim knew that look well. “Fine, Keptin. I just…”

“I know.” Chekov, like Jim, had slept fitfully, and he’d only choked down a few bites of breakfast because Bones had nagged at them. “Has—anyone else been by?”

“I think Officer Sulu an’ the other two were scheduled to take their reassessment tests this shift,” Cayne said softly. “They ain’t been by since last night. An’ Finney spent most of the time he was here chattin’ up that nurse on Beta, what’s-her-name, Chapel.”

“Zey deserve each ozzer,” Chekov muttered.

Jim stared at Chekov in surprise. It was the first time he’d ever heard that much fear and dislike in the man’s voice…well, no, he remembered suddenly, that wasn’t quite true. A question he’d been sort of avoiding asking rose into his mind. He was actually opening his mouth when Sulu moaned.

Chekov leaned forward anxiously, and then Sulu’s long, dark eyelashes fluttered open. He blinked blearily up at Chekov. “Mmm…Pasha?” he murmured.

“Hikaru,” Chekov whispered, tears flooding his eyes. “Thank goodness.”

Sulu managed a faint smile. “It wasn’t… _that_ bad, was it?”

Chekov looked helplessly at Jim, who said quietly, “Yes. It was. You bled out for almost thirty hours before Dr. McCoy could get it under control. And you were out for another—” he glanced at the chronometer—“twenty-two hours after that.”

Sulu stopped smiling. Anxious dark eyes looked up at Chekov. “You haven’t been sitting here that whole time, have you?”

A laugh that was more than half-sob bubbled up on Chekov’s lips. “No. Dr. McCoy made me eat something and get some sleep last night.”

“Good. That’s good.” Sulu relaxed. “You’ve…gotta take care of yourself.”

Chekov rubbed the back of Sulu’s hand with his thumb. “Right now, I’m taking care of you,” he said gently. “You must get better.”

“I will, koibito,” Sulu said with a faint smile. “I promise.”

Before Chekov could reply, Jim heard the staccato of heels clicking against the floor and looked up. He had to fight to keep his expression neutral at the sight of Chapel coming towards them.

_She’s a nurse,_ he reminded himself. _This is her job. It’s not her fault that she believed the rumors about your reputation at the Academy. She’s good at what she does or she wouldn’t have been on the_ Enterprise.

Chekov and Cayne both looked up and saw her at the same instant. Jim wasn’t sure if either of them even made an effort to conceal their feelings about her, but it surprised him, just a little, the intensity of their obvious dislike. Sulu looked puzzled for a moment, then tilted his head forward. When he saw Chapel, he dropped it back to the pillow with a sound somewhere between a grunt and a groan.

Chapel stopped and winced, as if the crew members’ distaste was a physical wall, then turned around and hurried towards the front part of the room, calling, “Dr. M’Benga!”

Jim sighed, wondering if this was something that had been going on for a while and why Bones hadn’t told him. “Guys…we’re all part of the same crew. You don’t have to interact with one another off-duty, but let’s try to be civil, yeah?”

Chekov blushed and looked down. “Sorry, Keptin.”

“It’s all right,” Jim said gently. “I understand, trust me. Just…try not to make it so obvious, okay?”

M’Benga came over then, effectively cutting off the conversation. He gave Sulu a friendly smile. “How are you feeling, Mr. Sulu?”

Sulu considered the question. “Sore,” he said at last. “Tired. Stiff.” He paused. “Did I mention tired?”

“You might’ve.” M’Benga checked Sulu over while Chekov, Jim, and even Cayne watched. At last, he stepped back and nodded. “You’re healing nicely. I’d wager you’ll be out of here within a week or two.”

“Yay.” Sulu smiled faintly.

M’Benga winked at Jim, then headed off. As soon as he was gone, Sulu turned his head slowly to look at Jim. “Captain…I didn’t imagine the planet, did I? We—we really did find Chitose and Gaila?”

“No, Sulu, you didn’t imagine that,” Jim assured him. “Your sister’s aboard the ship. I’m sure she’ll be by to see you later.”

Sulu turned to Chekov. “I want you to meet her,” he said softly. “She’ll like you.”

Chekov smiled faintly. “I’m sure I’ll like her, too.”

Looking over at Cayne with difficulty, Sulu asked, “You met Gaila yet? She’s an engineer, too.”

“I saw her, yesterday, when she came to visit you with your sister an’ Finney,” Cayne said. “But I ain’t had a chance to talk to her yet.”

Chekov flinched slightly at the mention of Finney’s name. Sulu looked up at him with concern. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“N-nothing,” Chekov said unconvincingly.

It was obvious to Jim that Sulu was about to start grilling Chekov, but M’Benga reappeared. “You have a visitor,” he announced, stepping aside to reveal Chitose Sulu.

“Karu!” she gasped, rushing to his side and clasping his free hand. “Are you all right? How are you feeling?”

“Tired and sore, but I’m fine,” Sulu said. He squeezed Chekov’s hand, smiling up at him. “Pasha…this is my sister, Chitose. Chitose…this is Pavel Chekov. My boyfriend.”

Chekov blushed a furious red. Jim guessed it was the first time either of them had said that word out loud. To his mild surprise, Chitose’s smile looked a little strained. “Pleasure.”

“L-likewise.” Chekov looked up at Jim, then stammered out, “I—I’ll let you two visit. I need to eat something…”

“I’ll go with you,” Jim said, catching on quickly.

Sulu looked confused. Cayne didn’t. She nodded to Jim and picked up her PADD again as he got to his feet. Chekov got up, hesitated, then tugged the privacy curtains around the Sulu twins before heading quickly for the door.

Gaila and Finney were right outside. Chekov turned white as a sheet and shrank back behind Jim, who really hated that he couldn’t, in good conscience, just walk past them without saying anything. He slowed his steps and looked at Gaila. “Took your reassessment tests?”

Gaila nodded. “Who _designed_ those tests, Jim? They were _awful_. Made the _Kobayashi Maru_ look like a cakewalk.”

“If they don’t prove whether or not you can do your jobs, there’s no point to them,” Jim said. It came out harsher than he meant to, and he instantly held up his hands apologetically. “I’m sorry, Ensign. As soon as I know what your results were—”

“Mr. Spock knows, he says,” Finney interrupted. He wasn’t really looking at Jim, though; he was frowning slightly at Chekov. Jim resisted the urge to shift in front of him. “But he wouldn’t tell us.”

“I’ll go speak to him now,” Jim said. “Carry on, then.”

He nodded to both ensigns, then headed off down the corridor, Chekov hurrying to stay with him.

As soon as they were in the lift, Jim put an arm around the navigator’s shoulders. “It’ll be all right, kid,” he said softly. “Hopefully we’ll get to a starbase soon and we can get Finney off this ship.”

Chekov looked up at Jim, his pale blue eyes wide with fear. “D-Dr. McCoy told you—?” He broke off, biting his lower lip.

“He told me,” Jim said gently. “I’m sorry, Chekov. If I’d known…”

“You couldn’t have left him on zat planet,” Chekov said quickly. “Zat—zat wouldn’t have been right. It’s something ze dou—ze impostor would have done, not you.”

Jim gazed levelly at Chekov. “That’s something I wanted to ask you about.”

“Ze impostor?”

“Yeah. When we were on the bridge…when he was trying to convince everyone that I was the impostor, you stood up and very calmly informed him that you knew _he_ was the impostor.” Jim knew that a lot hung on the answer to the question he was about to ask. “How did you know?”

Chekov’s eyes filled with tears. He looked down at his feet. “Because he told us zat we were leaving orbit,” he half-whispered. “He said zat…zat ze four people on ze planet were dead. I _know_ you, Keptin. Even if you had given up hope—even if zere was no way of saving zem—you would never have left zem. You would have stayed as long as possible, to give zem every chance, and—and you would have at least brought ze bodies back on board. You would—” He choked. “You would have brought Hikaru back to me…”

“Oh, Chekov,” Jim murmured. He wrapped his arms around the younger man, pulling him into a tight hug. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I never—”

“It’s not your fault, Keptin,” Chekov said firmly. “Zis job…zis life…it’s dangerous. We know zat. We have to—to accept ze risks. And I know—we _both_ know—zat you’ll do everything you can to make sure nothing happens. If it does… _when_ it does…it isn’t your fault.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t feel guilty. But…thank you.” Jim pulled back and looked down at Chekov. “Speaking of the ‘impostor’…you know, don’t you.” It wasn’t a question. And he knew he didn’t need to specify.

To his credit, Chekov didn’t pretend not to understand. He simply nodded slowly. “I—I guessed. He was part of you, wasn’t he? You were…split in two. Light and dark.”

“Something like that,” Jim agreed. “I’ve heard of confronting your inner demons, but I’ve never seen it…quite that literally before.”

That got a smile, albeit a small one, out of Chekov. The lift doors slid open and they stepped out into the corridor together.

Halfway down, Chekov stopped. “Keptin? Where are we going?”

Jim stopped, too, then laughed slightly. “Sorry. I was going to talk with Spock about those results. Want to come with me? And then we can grab something to eat.”

“Thank you, Keptin,” Chekov said.

Setting off in the same direction, Jim wasn’t surprised to find Spock standing outside the door to the tertiary gym, talking with Bones. They broke off their conversation when they saw Jim and Chekov coming towards them. Bones relaxed a fraction. “Everything all right?”

Jim nodded. “Sulu woke up a few minutes ago. Seems all right. Chitose showed up for a visit, so we thought we’d leave them to it for a little while.” Turning to Spock, he added, “We passed Gaila and Finney, and they mentioned you had the results of their reassessment tests. How’d they do?”

“Surprisingly, Gaila did adequately well,” Spock said calmly. “She has managed to retain a fair amount of engineering knowledge, at least as much as an enlisted personnel would be expected to know. It is, of course, slightly out of date, but it is sufficient to enable her to work aboard a _Constitution_ -class vessel or earlier, and she could easily be trained ‘on the job,’ as it were. Officer Sulu failed her tests by a narrow margin. She would need to take a remedial training course. As for Ensign Finney…” He hesitated.

“Go on, Spock,” Jim prompted him.

“He passed the competency portion of the tests, by an even narrower margin than Officer Sulu failed hers. However, his personality assessment indicates that he is not a good candidate for Starfleet. Were he applying for a spot at the Academy, or even to be an enlisted crewman, he would in all likelihood be rejected.”

Jim let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. That drastically reduced the risk that Chekov would ever see him again, once they got him off the ship. “How do you suggest I explain that to him?”

“I suggest you delegate responsibility to me, Captain. He already seems to dislike me.” Spock hesitated. “I must admit that the feeling is…somewhat mutual. There is something about him that I find…reprehensible, although I cannot explain what it is.” He actually looked marginally embarrassed.

Bones and Jim exchanged glances, and then involuntarily looked at Chekov, who was pale. He bit his lower lip and shook his head slightly, imploring with his eyes.

Jim understood. Chekov hadn’t even told Sulu about Finney yet. Until he did, he wouldn’t want it bandied about all over the ship, even to the first officer. Jim and Bones knew. That was enough for now. They would protect him from Finney, should the man actually consider doing anything.

“Frankly, Mr. Spock, I never liked him, either,” Jim admitted. “We came to an accord, of sorts, after our fight, but I’m not sure he ever forgave me for turning him in while we were serving our semester as midshipmen.”

Spock stilled. “I recall that incident, Captain. I had forgotten that Benjamin Finney was the cadet in question.”

Abruptly, Bones changed the subject. “How long do you think it’ll be before we reach a starbase, Jim?”

“I don’t know, honestly,” Jim said. “We may have passengers for longer than I’d really like. Hopefully not more than a month, though. Or if we can get to a planet that does a lot of interplanetary trade, we can send them back that way.” He suppressed a sigh. “I have to put in the paperwork for their assignments, too, so there’s that.”

Bones’ eyes darkened. “Great.”

“It may not be entirely a negative situation,” Spock pointed out. “Officer Sulu will need time to adjust to the knowledge that she no longer has a choice about whether or not to stay. And Ensign Gaila will need time to make a decision.”

Jim bit back a curse. He’d forgotten about the fact that Gaila was the only one of the three who could actually stay on the Enterprise if she wanted to. And he knew it wouldn’t be an easy decision for her. Bones tilted his head to one side. “Wonder what Sulu’s gonna think about that? The fact that his sister can’t stay, I mean.”

“I—I don’t think he’ll mind,” Chekov said softly. “He told me once…zey never wanted to be assigned to ze same ship.”

“That may have changed in fifteen years,” Spock said.

“And then again, it may not have,” Jim said. “No sense borrowing trouble. Anyway, that’s the other thing. Much as I hate to say it, I couldn’t in good conscience ask Chitose to leave before Sulu is up and about again. And I can’t exactly let her stay longer than Finney, in the spirit of fairness.” _Much as I wish I could shove him out the nearest airlock_ , he added silently.

“How long will zat be?” Chekov asked, looking at Bones.

“Before Sulu’s on his feet again?” Bones rubbed his chin. “I’ll check him over in the morning, but my guess would be that he’ll be able to leave Med Bay in about a week or so, and I’ll be able to clear him for light duty within a month—six weeks at the most. I wouldn’t send him on any away missions for a while if I were you, Jim, but…”

“No worries,” Jim said. Chekov looked relieved at that.

The door to the tertiary gym opened then. Addie came barreling out and flung herself at Jim’s legs. “Daddy!”

“Hey, princess,” Jim said warmly, keeping to his feet with difficulty. He swept the little girl up and perched her on his shoulder. “Wanna go get some dinner?”

“Yeah!” Addie said enthusiastically.

Slim and Uhura came out, both looking flushed but smiling, McCall right behind them. Jim turned to them. “Dinner, you three?”

“That sounds fabulous,” Uhura said.

“If you’re sure you don’t mind me coming,” McCall said, looking pleased to be included.

Slim nodded, then glanced at Chekov. “How’s Sulu?”

“Awake and recovering,” Chekov said. “I’ll go back up after we eat.”

“I’ll go with you, if you don’t mind. Promised Audra I’d visit her.” Slim spoke in a normal tone of voice, but was it Jim’s imagination, or was there a faint pink tinge to his cheeks?

He put the thought out of his mind for the moment. That was something to grill his son about later. “Visits can wait. For now, let’s go get something to eat.”

Slim smiled and took Addie from Jim’s shoulder. “Sounds great to me.”


	67. The Doorbell Rings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eep, guys, I'm so sorry this took me so long. The words just wouldn't flow...
> 
> Hopefully I've broken through the writer's block, though. I've got one more chapter to completely start from scratch, and then I know where the next couple chapters after that are going. I SHOULD be updating on time from now on. Stay tuned...

 Slim chattered easily with his friends over breakfast. He was glad they’d finally gotten over the awkward silence that had ensued during the first, critical days of Sulu’s injury. Chekov looked a lot better now that Sulu was on the mend, able to joke with the ensigns again before taking his station, even if he was still eating like a bird.

It was one of Slim’s days in Engineering, so he was wearing the mock-uniform shirt. He’d finally had to move into the biggest size he had, and it worried him a little.

“I don’t know _why_ you’re worried,” Porter said when Slim let this slip. “It’s not like you’re just gaining weight or whatever. You’re still growing.”

“Yeah, but…it means I don’t fit in the smaller spaces anymore,” Slim said, a little lamely.

“So?” Kelly—Slim had finally gotten used to calling O’Flaherty by first name when off-duty—shrugged. “Nico and I do.”

“Yeah, I know, but…” Slim trailed off, not sure how to explain it.

Chekov raised his eyes from his toast and coffee. Quietly, he asked, “When was ze last time ze Keptin said anything about you helping in Engineering?”

Slim actually had to think about that. “It’s been a while. Not since—” He paused. “Actually, not since before the RFMs blew. And that’s been—what, three months now?”

“Somethin’ like that,” Audra agreed.

“Zen I don’t think you have to worry about why you get to work zere. I think you can just work zere.”

Slim smiled. “Good point.”

Audra bumped him companionably. “Anyone ever tell you you worry too much?”

“’Bout once a week,” Slim said, making everyone laugh.

“Hey, can I sit with you guys?”

Slim looked up to see Gaila, smiling broadly and holding a tray. She was in uniform, but for some reason, she had opted for the mini-dress uniform, which not many on-duty engineers did. Even Kelly, when she felt female—like that day—tended to wear the pants uniform. It just made things easier.

“Uh—sure,” Audra said, scooting over to give Gaila room between herself and Kelly. “Y’all don’t mind, do you?”

To a chorus of reassurance, Gaila took the proffered seat. “Thanks. It’s funny how few people I actually _know_ on this ship. There’s Pavel here, although we didn’t really know each other _well_ , just in passing…and Jim and Leonard and Nyota, of course. Spock was one of my teachers, and I used to see Hikaru puttering around in the gardens at the Academy. And naturally I know Ben and Chitose, after all these years.”

Slim noticed Chekov flinch, just slightly, as Gaila prattled on. “But that’s just about it. I missed out on most of your life, T—Slim, so I’d like to get to know you better, if that’s okay. And I’d like to get to know you guys, too, if I’m going to be working with you. I’m on the schedule in Engineering today, finally.” She turned to Kelly with a friendly smile. “I’m Gaila.”

“Uh—I’m Kelly O’Flaherty. Ensign Kelly O’Flaherty.” Kelly smiled back.

“We’re all ensigns,” Audra put in. “I’m Audra Cayne.”

“Porter Simril,” Porter offered.

Nic’tlarn managed a nervous smile. “Nic’tlarn.”

“You’re Zathros, aren’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Goodness, you don’t need to ma’am me, we’re the same rank.” Gaila laughed. “How long have you all been on the _Enterprise_?”

“It’s our first tour,” Porter said. “Audra’s been on longest—since the start of the mission. I came on about a year and a half ago. Kelly and Nico joined us about four months ago.”

“Five,” Kelly corrected him.

Gaila bit into a piece of fruit. “And Jim mentioned that he only just found out about you a couple of years ago?”

“Yeah, after Addie was born,” Slim answered. “Since my mother never told anyone who my dad was, there wasn’t anythin’ for CPS to go on, I reckon.”

“Oh, Alice used to talk just like that,” Gaila said chirpily. “All sorts of ‘reckons’ and ‘y’alls’ and that sort of thing.”

“Part of the world we’re from.” Audra shrugged. “Lots of folks talk like that in Oklahoma—leastaways, our part of it.”

“You’re from Oklahoma, too?”

Audra nodded. “Slim and I found out after we started talkin’ a bit that we were actually in one of the same foster families—just not at the same time.”

Porter glanced at the chrono on the wall. “C’mon, gang, time to lock and load. Shift starts in ten.”

They all gathered their things, even Gaila, and dropped them in the disposal unit. As they headed into the corridor, Kelly asked Chekov, “Any word on how long before Sulu gets sprung?”

“At least another week,” Chekov answered softly. “Maybe more. He lost a lot of blood, and even zough ze poison seems to be gone, Dr. McCoy wants to make sure.”

“Oh, I’m sure it won’t take _that_ long,” Gaila said cheerfully. “He’s already been there for a week. Surely—”

“We have a rule on the _Enterprise_ ,” Porter interrupted, smiling pleasantly but with a flash in his eyes. “We don’t question Dr. McCoy’s diagnoses or prognoses, and he doesn’t question what we have to say about the warp core. If he says it’ll be another week, then he’s probably right.”

Gaila looked taken aback. “Of course, I wasn’t questioning him. I was—just saying.” She looked over Slim’s shoulder and beamed. “Ben!”

Slim turned to see Finney coming down the corridor towards them. He was dressed in civilian clothes—a skin-tight black A-shirt that didn’t quite meet the tops of his low-slung black jeans, also very tight. His arms were covered in brightly-colored tattoos, which extended to his torso and were just visible above the neck of the shirt, although they stopped just above the collarbone. The scar on his cheek stood out in raw contrast to the careful inking.

“Hey, Gaila,” he said. “Working today? Lucky you.”

He wasn’t really looking at Gaila, though. His eyes kept flicking back and forth from Slim to Chekov and back. It made Slim feel distinctly uncomfortable. Gaila didn’t seem to notice. “Ben, I don’t think anyone’s introduced you properly, except to T—to Slim here. This is Porter, Cayne, O’Flaherty, and Nic’tlarn. And this is Chekov.”

“We’ve met.” A lazy smile curled Finney’s mouth. “We’ll have to get together some time and catch off, when you’re off duty.” Turning to Slim, he added, “And I’d like to get to know you a little better. I’ve heard so much about you.”

Slim wondered who would have talked about him—maybe Jim, down on Okor V, when he was technically talking to Chitose and Gaila. Somehow, despite what Jim had said about having forgiven Finney for the fight, he didn’t think they were especially close.

Suddenly, Porter took a step over to stand in front of Slim and Chekov. He didn’t say a word—and Slim couldn’t see his face—but he folded his arms over his chest and stood perfectly still. Slim was reminded of the way he’d stood guard over the Transporter Room while Slim, Audra, and Kelly tried to help Scotty repair the damaged equipment to rescue the stranded crew members, including Nic’tlarn and Sulu. Finney’s eyebrows lifted briefly, then drew together in a scowl. All of them stood in frozen tableau for a few moments.

Finney broke first. He dropped his gaze, then stepped to one side. Porter must have glanced at Audra, because she suddenly unfroze and tugged Slim’s sleeve. Porter stayed where he was standing as all of them—even Gaila—slid past Finney. Only when they had safely reached the corner did he follow them.

“What was _that_ all about?” Kelly blurted once they were well away from the mess hall.

Porter’s eyes had a dark look Slim didn’t think he’d ever seen before. “I don’t know. Something about him—” He broke off, shaking his head.

“Ben’s perfectly friendly,” Gaila said defensively. “Maybe he’s a little upset because Spock told him he’s not allowed to be in Starfleet anymore, but you’ll like him, once you get to know him.”

Slim glanced up at Chekov, took in the man’s pallor and expression, and said, “Would y’all let Mr. Scott know I’ll be a little late?”

Gaila looked surprised, but Porter nodded silently.

When they reached the lifts, they separated, Slim and Chekov getting into the one that led directly to the bridge and the others heading down to Engineering. After the doors slid shut behind them, Slim asked Chekov quietly, “You okay?”

“No.” The response was swift and low and immediate. Chekov wrapped his arms around his midsection and visibly tried to keep himself from shaking. It didn’t work.

Slim swallowed, twice, before he could speak. “He ain’t in uniform, so he can’t get on the bridge, not easily. An’ Dad won’t let him get to you.”

“I know. He still scares me.” Chekov glanced at Slim, his eyes round with terror. “You won’t try to—‘get to know him better’, will you?”

“No way,” Slim said promptly. “I ain’t sure what he meant by that, but I don’t want anythin’ to do with him.”

“Good,” Chekov said fervently.

They rose the rest of the way in silence, and Chekov was mostly calm when they reached the bridge—mostly. Jim stood talking with Spock, but he broke off when he saw Chekov, striding over to them. “Mr. Chekov? Are you okay?”

Chekov nodded quickly. “Yes, Keptin. Just…an encounter that shook me a little.”

Jim’s eyes darkened briefly. He turned to Slim, who preempted his question. “I just wanted to make sure he got up here okay—he was pretty shaken up. I’m down in Engineering today. Reckon I oughta be there—Ensign Gaila is shadowin’ someone this shift.”

“If you’re on schedule, you should be there,” Jim said. He nudged Chekov towards the navigation console, then gave Slim a hug. “Have a good day, son. We’ll talk after shift.”

Slim returned the hug. “You, too, Dad.”

Finney was not in evidence on Slim’s solitary journey to the upper decks of Engineering. Neither was anyone else; Alpha shift had technically already begun, Beta shift had not yet woken up, and Gamma shift had already cleared their stations and were eating, sleeping, or showering. A delay of five minutes was excusable—once—but Slim hoped that, since he’d been giving assistance to another crew member, a senior officer, that he would be forgiven if he was a little later than that…

He caught himself abruptly. While he, Jim, and Scotty all used the term “on shift” to describe Slim helping out in Engineering, he wasn’t officially listed on the rota. He wasn’t a crew member, and therefore he couldn’t earn either a reprimand or a commendation. Technically.

Still, he hurried down the corridor as quickly as he could, locating Scotty immediately and saluting. “Sorry I’m late, Mr. Scott,” he gasped out.

Scotty glanced at the chronometer. “Not by five minutes yet. Far as I can recall, it’s the first time, too. I’ll check your—” He caught himself, shaking his head. “Anyway, Simril told me why, so there’s no penalty.” He looked around, then sighed. “I’m sorry to do this to ye, laddie, but I’d like ye to show Gaila around today.”

“Aye, sir,” Slim said, nodding in understanding. He knew his way around at least as well as anyone else did, and he could be spared a little easier than some. If there was a crisis, of course, he’d chip in just like everyone else, but for basic everyday tasks, he wasn’t necessarily needed.

Dropping his voice, Scotty said, “She’s a bit of a flibbertigibbet, if ye know what I mean, but she passed all the tests. Do what ye can.” He turned and called, “Ensign Gaila!”

Despite Scotty’s worries—and, it had to be confessed, Slim’s as well—Gaila on duty was nothing like the Gaila he had spoken to in the mess earlier. Despite the skirt and heeled boots, she was sensible and competent as she maneuvered around the equipment. She listened seriously and intently to everything Slim said, and the questions she asked weren’t that far off the ones he himself had asked when he’d first been introduced to Scotty.

“This isn’t a standard _Constitution_ -class, is it?” she asked as they skirted a crewman in a red jumpsuit who was taking down readings off the warp core. “It’s been a few years since I read the specs, and of course they were new then, so maybe there have been tweaks to the design…”

“Not many,” Slim told her. “And the _Enterprise_ has some modifications most ships in her class don’t have. Mr. Scott’s done a lot of alterations. Makes her go a little faster, turn a little tighter, shoot a hair faster, that sort of thing. And some of the circuits have been tightened, so they can be run with fewer people if necessary. There are ‘bout a hundred engineers on staff, thirty to Alpha and Beta, twenty to Gamma, and twenty who cover days off. In a crisis, we usually double to sixty people on shift to make sure everything is handled, but honestly, the way Mr. Scott’s rigged her, she can theoretically be run with no more than ten engineers.”

Gaila looked all around her. “In something this big?”

Slim nodded. “If everything is running optimally. Which, honestly, is usually the case. I’ve only seen two or three crises since I’ve been here, and all of them could be fixed in the span of a single shift.”

“How long have you been helping out?”

“Mm, a year, year and a half? Something like that. It started off by accident, but…y’know, on my fifteenth birthday D—the captain and Mr. Scott put me on the rota, officially, just for the day. Since then I’ve been sort of unofficially working.”

“Every day?” Gaila asked.

Slim shook his head. “There’s an unspoken understanding that I ain’t—I’m not allowed to be down here more’n one day in a row, unless there’s an emergency.”

“Which has only happened a couple of times.”

“Exactly.”

“What were the emergencies?”

“Most of the cooling towers went down, all at once—that was the first time I helped out, Aud—Ensign Cayne and I did all the work on one of the towers. And a few months ago, the RFMs overloaded, both the primary and the auxiliary.”

“That must’ve been scary. How long did it take to fix?”

Slim hiked a thumb over his shoulder. “The five of us fixed the aux in three hours. Everyone else fixed the prime in six.”

Gaila looked impressed. “You five must be pretty good with mechanics. Your dad—uh, Captain Kirk mentioned that you had a gift.”

“Yeah.” Slim chose not to elaborate. It wasn’t something he really wanted bandied about.

There was a clatter and a curse from just over Slim’s shoulder, and then a voice yelled, “Slim, did you see where that spanner landed?”

Slim turned in the direction of the noise, saw the glint of silver, and called up, “Smack dab in the middle, just like last time.”

Audra’s head popped over the side of the cooling tower, a rueful grin on her face. “Don’t suppose you can squeeze under there and get it.”

“Don’t suppose so,” Slim agreed, eyeballing the space. “Well, I could get under there, maybe. Getting out…”

“I’ve got it.” Gaila dropped to her knees, then to her belly, and wriggled under the coils of the tower. A moment later, she was back, dragging herself with her forearms, the spanner clutched tightly in her fist. She climbed nimbly halfway up the tower and held it up to Audra.

“Thanks,” Audra said, taking it. “There wasn’t anything else down there, was there? Fragments of trans-alum, broken pieces of tubing, suspicious metal bits…”

“No, just the spanner. I managed to sort of get a look up the tower, and it didn’t look like anything was dislodged.”

“Perfect, thanks.” Audra’s head withdrew.

Gaila rejoined Slim. “I take it that you found those things when the cooling towers went down last time?”

Slim smiled and shook his head. “Yeah. Pin fell out of the temp regulator, which made the reservoir overheat and blow out a section of trans-alum. We’re still not sure what happened to the tubing, exactly, but it was torn on both ends.”

“Well, I didn’t see anything like that down there.”

“Good.” Slim continued taking Gaila on her tour of the department.

When the signal for the end of Alpha rang out, Gaila beamed at Slim. “Thanks so much for showing me around, Slim. I was going to find Chitose and Ben and grab something to eat. Want to come with me?”

Slim kept a smile on his face. “We’ve already got plans, but thanks. Maybe some other time.”

“Sure,” Gaila agreed. She gave Slim a kiss on the cheek and traipsed off. Slim tried as unobtrusively as possible to wipe his face.

Scotty appeared at his side then. “Well?”

“I think she’ll do all right, actually,” Slim said, turning to Scotty with a surprised smile. “Whatever she’s like off the clock, when she’s on duty, she’s real serious. She was professional and respectful of the equipment—and when we passed by the cooling tower just as Aud—uh, Cayne dropped a spanner, she jumped right in to get it and made sure to check to make sure nothing was damaged. Once she gets the hang of the way it works, she’ll be just fine.”

“If she decides to stay,” Scotty said, nodding slowly. “She may leave when the other two do. All the same, I think I’ll put her on Beta or Gamma for a while. Thanks, laddie.”

Slim nodded and joined the throng heading out the door.

His friends were waiting for him. Porter gave him a smile. “Gaila came by and said you were coming, so we thought we’d hang out and wait for you…we were thinking of going up to see Sulu, if you think Dr. McCoy will be okay with him having more than one or two visitors at once.”

“The only reason there ain’t been that many people at once is because Chekov usually makes himself scarce when the three off the Hood show up,” Slim told him.

Nic’tlarn rubbed xyr arms as they entered an empty lift. “I don’t blame him,” xe said softly.

“Me, neither,” Porter agreed.

Slim and Audra exchanged glances, but neither of them said anything.

Leo was just leaving Med Bay when the engineers arrived. He gave them a crooked grin. “Sulu’s awake. I’m sure he and Chekov wouldn’t mind the company.”

“Thanks, Pa,” Slim said, giving his stepfather a quick hug. “Tell Dad I’ll meet y’all for dinner.”

“Will do.” Leo ruffled Slim’s hair before heading off.

Sulu was more or less sitting up, with the assistance of the bed, holding Chekov’s hand and talking to him. Both of them looked up and smiled when they saw Slim and his friends, but Slim didn’t miss the flash of panic, immediately replaced with relief, in Chekov’s.

“Hey,” Sulu said warmly. “Everything okay belowdecks?”

“Smooth sailing, so to speak,” Kelly said with a nod.

Slim moved closer. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” Sulu said. “Not ready for a fencing lesson just yet, but…”

Nic’tlarn produced a pack of cards from somewhere. “Ready for a game of Fizzbin, perhaps?”

Sulu’s grin was almost brighter than the lights of Med Bay. “Pull up some seats.”

Chekov ended up perching on the edge of Sulu’s biobed to give them all more room. To an outsider, the game was still pretty ridiculous and more or less nonsensical, but they’d actually come up with a fairly consistent set of rules, so any arguments were good-natured and lighthearted.

M’Benga came over to them just as Chekov lay down a hand triumphantly. “A royal fizzbin!”

“Do you know what the odds of that are?” Sulu said incredulously.

“I’ve never worked it out.”

“Is this a real game?” M’Benga asked.

Sulu laughed, looking up at the doctor. “We play it all the time. And we all know the rules. Maybe it’s not a widespread game, but…yes, it’s real.”

M’Benga shook his head, also laughing. “Well, if you want to show anyone else how to play it, your sister and her friends are here to visit.”

Chekov’s smile disappeared instantly. Glancing at the chronometer on the screen over Sulu’s head, he blurted, “Is zat ze time? I should go get something to eat.”

“We all probably should,” Porter said quickly, gathering up the cards and handing the deck back to Nic’tlarn. “See you around, Sulu.”

“Uh—yeah,” Sulu said, looking bewildered. “See you.” He looked up at Chekov. “You’ll be back tonight, right, Pasha?”

Chekov bent over and kissed Sulu’s forehead. “Of course,” he promised. “Enjoy your visit.”

Gaila, Chitose, and Finney passed the group as they headed out. Slim returned Gaila’s cheerful smile and nod, but he found he couldn’t respond to Finney’s smile and wink—even if Porter hadn’t deliberately placed himself between Finney and the others.

Halfway down the corridor to the mess, Kelly rounded on Porter. “All right, what gives? Every time you see Finney, you act like you want to punch his lights out.”

“I do,” Porter said.

“Yeah, but _why_? He hasn’t said but ten words to any of us.”

“Maybe not, but the words he _did_ say…” Porter shook his head. “I can’t explain it. Something about him sets off warning bells in my head.”

“Good,” Chekov said softly.

Slim frowned a little at Chekov. It was the second time he had mentioned dislike for Finney, however obliquely, and it was a little worrying. But Chekov had set off down the corridor again, so Slim decided to take his cue from the older man and keep his mouth shut, at least for the time being.


	68. That This Was

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really did plan to have this done by Wednesday, but I was sick all day Tuesday...so I planned to have it done Thursday after work, but I had to take my cat to the vet. :/ Anyway, I hope this was worth the wait!
> 
> The next chapter is an episode adaptation, and I have the next few after that planned out, so hopefully I can get back on a schedule of some sort here...

Leo woke slowly, then hummed in contentment as he turned his head and blinked blearily at the chronometer. 0727—their alarm would be going off in about three minutes, unless he turned it off. Smiling, he turned his attentions back to Jim. His husband’s head rested on his bicep, one arm draped loosely across Leo’s chest, a soft smile on his face. It was a beautiful sight, and Leo thanked his lucky stars for every day he was able to wake up to see it.

He shifted himself and kissed Jim’s forehead. “Mornin’, darlin’,” he whispered in Jim’s ear.

“Hmm…” Jim scrunched his face up briefly, stretched, and fluttered his eyes open, smiling up at Leo. “Mornin’, Bones. What time is it?”

“’Bout half-past. Did you sleep okay?”

“All the better for getting to be next to you.” Jim pulled Leo’s head down for a kiss. “You?”

“Just fine.” Leo stretched. “So, should we get dressed and go get something to eat, or should we just stay like this all day?”

“Mmm…tempting as that thought may be, I seem to recall that we’re both on Alpha this morning. Besides, I’m pretty sure I burned off every calorie I’ve consumed in the past week last night, so we should probably eat something.”

Leo considered pushing one of Jim’s buttons, but he decided against it. It wasn’t fair to Jim, and the man probably really _was_ hungry but wouldn’t admit it. Slim had offered to get Addie up in the morning, to give them a little extra time to sleep, and they’d taken advantage of the extra fifteen minutes to sleep in by indulging in some unusually vigorous sex the night before. He threw back the covers. “All right, darlin’.”

They arrived at the mess hall in time to find Slim, Chekov, Addie, and Carol eating breakfast together. Addie spotted them first. She beamed. “Daddy! Papa!”

“Hey, baby girl,” Leo said warmly, bending over to plant a kiss on her head. “Can we eat with you?”

“Uh-huh.”

While Jim went to get their breakfasts, Leo slid into one of the available seats. “Thanks for letting us sleep in today, son.”

“No problem.” Slim hesitated, glancing at Carol. “I’m not in Engineering today, if you want me to take Addie for the rest of the day.”

“Yes!” Addie said enthusiastically. “Addie go ‘Lim!”

Carol glanced at Leo. “I have some technical journals to get caught up on before my shift. I was going to do that while Addie rested, but…”

Leo shook his head. “You’re a science officer, Dr. Marcus, not a babysitter. We’d appreciate you taking Addie, Slim.”

Jim returned and gave Leo his eggs, toast, and coffee before sitting down with his own meal. Leo’s eyes widened at the sight. “Jesus, Jim!”

“I told you I was feeling underfed.” Jim blushed.

A nagging suspicion started tugging at Leo as he studied the spread, which would have done credit to a twentieth-century long-haul trucker. “You _did_ eat dinner yesterday, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did,” Jim said indignantly, but he didn’t look Leo in the eye as he said it.

Leo wasn’t having any of that. “Jim.”

Addie grinned impishly at him. “Addie eat.”

“I know you did, baby, but I was asking if Daddy ate,” Leo said absently.

“No,” Addie said, shaking her head, still grinning. “Addie eat Daddy dinner.”

Leo stared at Addie, then at Jim, who blushed harder. “She kept stealing things off my plate, and I figured…well, she’s a growing girl and…”

“And you need to eat, too.” Leo raised a stern finger in Addie’s direction. “Addie, you can _share_ with Daddy, but you can’t take _all_ his food. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Papa,” Addie said dutifully.

Carol polished off her tea. “I should get going, then.”

Jim paused, looking up, his face inscrutable. “By the way, Dr. Marcus…I haven’t had a chance to process your paperwork, but I’ll do that today.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Carol said softly. With that, she made her escape.

Leo looked at Jim uneasily. “What paperwork?”

Jim applied himself to his ham and eggs without answering. Leo decided not to press it and went back to his own breakfast.

Chekov seemed uneasy, fiddling with his coffee cup. Leo glanced at him, then said softly, “Mr. Chekov, make sure you come by Med Bay after shift.”

Chekov’s head shot up, the color draining from his face. “Why?”

“Because I’m pretty sure I’ll be clearing Sulu to leave today, and I’m equally sure he’ll want your help getting back to his quarters.”

Leo couldn’t help but smile at the light that came into Chekov’s eyes. “You—you mean it? I’ll be there, Doctor, I promise.”

“Addie go too?” Addie asked, looking up from the spoon she was licking.

“No, Addie,” Slim said. “We’ll go see Uncle Hikaru later, when he’s had time to rest, but not today.”

“T’day,” Addie insisted.

“Addie, I said no,” Slim said, gently but firmly.

Addie’s lower lip stuck out. Leo recognized all the signs of a temper tantrum in the making and intervened. “Tell you what, baby girl. If you don’t argue with Slim about it, and if you’re good all day, we’ll have a special treat tonight at dinner. Deal?”

The look on Addie’s face was one Leo knew well—it was the look Jim got when he wanted to argue, but was more excited about what he could get out of behaving, the look that said he was going to give in but didn’t want to make it too obvious. She studied her spoon, then nodded. “’Kay.”

Chekov smiled. “If Addie becomes a diplomat someday, do you think zat will be how she responds to negotiations?”

Jim laughed. “If Addie becomes a diplomat someday, heaven help the Klingons or the Romulans if she’s involved in getting any concessions out of them.”

Addie tugged Slim’s sleeve. “’Lim, what a dip’omap?”

“I’ll explain later, baby,” Slim promised.

Leo glanced at the chronometer. “Better get going, folks. Shift starts in seven.”

“I’ll take care of the dishes for you,” Slim offered.

“Thanks, Slim.” Jim ruffled his son’s hair as he stood. “We’ll see you after shift.”

“Don’t forget to eat today.”

“Yes, _mother._ ”

Leo slipped his arm around Jim’s waist as they left the mess hall. “He’s got a point, Jim. I know you usually don’t take your forty-five, but if you’re gonna be letting Addie eat half your dinner—”

“I think that breakfast filled me up,” Jim said.

“Jim, I know you. You can always eat.”

“Holdover from my younger years.” Jim’s voice was so soft as to be almost inaudible.

Leo kissed Jim gently. “Mr. Chekov, the captain is your care this morning. Make sure he takes his break. Matter of fact, if the bridge can spare both of you at the same time, go together, okay? Just to make sure he eats something.”

The two pairs of blue eyes that gazed at him levelly left him in no doubt that both officers knew exactly what he was doing, but he honestly didn’t care, as long as it worked. Chekov nodded. “Aye, sir.”

“Good.” Leo swatted Chekov playfully on his rear and gave Jim another light kiss. “Have a good day. See you after shift.”

Weaver, leaning heavily against her crutch, was talking to Stanley, Williams, and McCall; all four of them looked up at him and smiled when he came in. “Morning, Leo.”

“Morning, Kerry.” Leo returned the smile, then acknowledged the three nurses. “Any surprises?”

Weaver shook her head. “Situation normal.”

“Sulu’s sister came to visit this morning,” Williams said in his quiet, even voice. “I’m not sure what happened, but she didn’t stay long.”

Leo frowned slightly. “Was Sulu awake?”

“He was, Dr. McCoy, but he hasn’t said anything since.”

“I’ll check on him,” Leo said. “Thanks, Rory…Dix, anything lined up for today?”

“Nope. Barring any unforeseen accidents, should be a quiet shift.”

Leo snorted. “This is the _Enterprise,_ Nurse McCall. Unforeseen accidents are par for the course.”

Weaver limped away to clock out, Williams right behind her. Stanley and McCall headed off to do their usual tasks. Leo checked briefly to make sure that Gage and DeSoto were also properly occupied, then headed over to Sulu’s bedside.

The helmsman lay on his back, his hands clasped over his abdomen, staring blankly ahead of him. His brows were drawn together, and he didn’t seem aware of Leo’s approach.

“Sulu?” Leo said quietly.

Sulu started, then focused on Leo. “Dr. McCoy, I—I didn’t hear you.”

Leo checked Sulu’s vital statistics on the screen above the biobed. His earlier assessment had been correct; Sulu would be able to leave by the end of shift. Actually, he could probably leave right then, but Leo had already told Chekov he could walk Sulu out when he was cleared. Besides, he wasn’t going to let Sulu go when he was visibly upset.

“Sulu,” he said, sitting down next to the man’s bed, “are you all right?”

“Fine,” Sulu said, completely unconvincingly.

Leo raised an eyebrow. “I don’t put up with that crap from my husband or my children. I’m certainly not going to take it from you.”

Sulu was silent for a minute. Leo thought he was going to have to keep pushing, but finally he said in a low voice, “It’s—it’s Chitose.”

“I figured,” Leo said. “Williams told me she’d been by…what about her?”

“It’s just—” Sulu sighed. “Maybe I was looking at the past through rose-tinted glasses. And maybe the first couple of days we were…maybe we were acting a little different because we hadn’t seen each other in so long, and because we were scared I was going to die. But she’s—I think there was more than one reason we didn’t want to be assigned to the same ship.”

“She failed the reassessment tests anyway,” Leo pointed out. “She won’t be staying.”

“She doesn’t like Pasha.” Sulu’s voice was so faint as to be almost inaudible.

Leo stared at Sulu, then blurted out the first thought that came into his head. “How could anyone not like Chekov?”

“I don’t know.” Sulu didn’t even smile a little bit, which was a sign of just how seriously he was taking the whole matter. “But she didn’t look too happy when I introduced them, and she was really pissed when I told her we were together.”

“That I don’t understand. Is it just because she doesn’t think anyone’s good enough for her brother?”

“No—I don’t know. I thought maybe it’s just that she’s spent the last fifteen years on a planet where people are overwhelmingly…you know, maybe she’s just gotten used to that being the norm when it, well, isn’t anymore.”

Leo was about to point out that Sulu had left what was probably a crucial word out of the sentence when he connected the dots. “You think she’s heteronormative?”

“I _thought_ so. But…well, it’s not that. She specifically doesn’t like Pasha. Which I can’t handle.” Tears filled Sulu’s eyes; he looked away. “Somewhere along the line, he became the most important person in the universe to me. I’d give up anything for him. But…she’s my _sister._ ”

“If she cares about you, she won’t ask you to give up the love of your life for her,” Leo said firmly. “And if she did ask you that, she’s not worth hanging on to.”

“Intellectually, I know that.” Sulu wiped his eyes. “The trouble is that I don’t know _why_ she doesn’t like him, exactly. Or, for that matter, what Finney’s problem with him is.”

Leo looked at Sulu sharply. “What do you mean? Has he said—?”

Sulu shook his head. “ _He_ hasn’t. But this morning, Chitose said that Finney had some issues with him. I think her exact words were, ‘If you knew half the things Ben’s told me about him, you wouldn’t—’”

“Wouldn’t what?” Leo prompted when Sulu stopped.

“I don’t know. I cut her off and told her she’d better go.” Sulu looked up at Leo. “Do you think something happened at the Academy?”

It suddenly dawned on Leo that Chekov hadn’t told Sulu about Finney. There was no other explanation. Hesitantly, he said, “I—I think you’d better talk to Chekov about that.”

“What? What is it?” Anxiety suddenly sharpened Sulu’s voice. “Do you know something I don’t?”

“Yes,” Leo said honestly. “But I meant what I said. You need to ask Chekov. I know he wants to tell you himself.”

Sulu bit his lip worriedly. “He always gets so jumpy whenever they come by…”

“Sulu, if you’re trying to get me to tell you, it won’t work. Chekov will be by after shift. I’m clearing you to leave today and I told him he could walk you back to quarters. You can ask him then—you _should_ ask him then—but for God’s sake, don’t ask me. It’s not my place to tell you.”

Sulu took a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Okay,” he said, only half-aloud. “It’s just a few more hours. I can handle it.” He looked up worriedly. “Just tell me one thing, Doctor. Was Finney telling the truth?”

“Probably not,” Leo said quietly. “I don’t know exactly what he said to Chitose…but the impression I’m getting is that it was a load of crap, from beginning to end. Chekov’s not to blame.”

“Okay.” Sulu exhaled and relaxed against his pillow, then said again, softly, “Okay.”

Leo watched him for a moment, then stood. “Do you know Chinese checkers?”

Sulu looked up, obviously startled by the abrupt change of subject. “I’m rusty, but yes.”

“Good. I don’t play chess, but let me do my rounds and records and then we’ll play a game or two.”

“Okay,” Sulu said with a faint smile.

Unlike Jim or Chekov, Sulu didn’t seem to have figured out what he was up to, but that was okay. In this case, it wouldn’t have worked if he had. Leo’s plan, quite simply, was to distract Sulu—to make him forget his worry over Chekov, as well as any lingering pain.

As promised, he returned twenty minutes later with the game under his arm. Sulu had fallen into a contemplative reverie, but he sat up as Leo began setting up the board. “Are we playing one, two, or three colors?”

“How ‘bout three? Just for a challenge.”

“You’re on.”

They ended up playing for most of the shift. Gage came over and kibbitzed until Leo, with malice aforethought, invited him to sit down and play. DeSoto and McCall drifted over as soon as they realized what was going on, and Leo had the satisfaction of watching both of them try valiantly (and, ultimately, in vain) to stifle their giggles as Sulu and Leo ran circles around Gage.

“How do you _do_ this?” Gage cried, frustrated, as Sulu at last managed to get the last of his second color into its home spot. Had Leo been permitted one more move, he’d have been able to get his last piece into place, too; Gage had only gotten three or four of either color into position. “Every time I had a clear path, it disappeared!”

“That’s how you play the game, Gage,” Leo said with a smirk.

“It’s not fair!”

“Johnny, you’re thirty years old,” DeSoto said, obviously amused. “When has life _ever_ been fair?”

“Yeah, but why’s it always unfair to _me?_ ” Gage whined.

McCall swatted him lightly. “Come on, Jinx, back to work.”

Leo and Sulu were pretty evenly matched. Discounting the game with Gage, they had both won four games each and were halfway through a ninth game when Chekov came over, looking worried. “Is everything all right?”

“Hmm?” Leo looked up, then did a double take. “Christ, is Alpha over already?”

Chekov nodded. Sulu made his move and smiled up at Chekov. “Hey,” he said warmly. “Have a good shift?”

“Yeah.” Chekov smiled back. “I heard you’re ready to leave.”

“Let me finish trouncing the good doctor here and I’m all yours,” Sulu promised. Chekov flushed pink at the phrasing.

In fact, it was Leo who squeaked by with a win ten minutes later. He quickly swung the tray out of the way. “You’re good to go, Sulu. I’ll clean up. Remember, take it easy for a day or two. I ought to be able to clear you for light duty by next week, but for now, just go slow, okay?”

“Yes, sir.” Sulu got to his feet and looked at Leo with genuine gratitude. “Thank you for everything.”

“Any time, Sulu.” Leo smiled faintly. “Play nice, you two. Maybe I’ll see you at dinner later.”

“Maybe,” Sulu and Chekov said in unison.

Leo’s smile faded as he watched them go, their arms around one another’s waists, Chekov still needing to half-support Sulu despite his clean bill of health. He doubted he would see either of them again, at least until it was time for Alpha the next morning. For one thing, they hadn’t had any really private time together since Sulu’s initial injury; for another, they had a lot to talk about. He seriously hoped that Sulu wouldn’t completely freak out when Chekov told him why he was so jumpy around Finney. The helmsman had always been extremely defensive where the navigator was concerned, and since they had officially become a couple, it had gotten a lot more intense.

Actually, Leo could understand that. If he ever got the names of _any_ of the people who had raped Jim, he wouldn’t be responsible for his actions.

Sighing, he packed up the game and took it to the cupboard, where he kept a couple of other simple games to keep patients from getting, well, impatient. He was just sliding it into place when a shrill voice behind him exclaimed, “Where’s my brother?”

Leo straightened up too fast and banged his head painfully on the top of the cupboard door. Unable to hold back the string of curse words that tumbled from his mouth, he withdrew a little more slowly, rubbing at the top of his head, and turned to scowl at Chitose Sulu with rather less friendliness or professionalism than he would have preferred. “He got released about five minutes ago,” he snapped. “He and Lieutenant Chekov left together, presumably to go back to their quarters.”

Chitose’s eyes narrowed slightly. “ _Their_ quarters?” she repeated. “You mean they’re actually _living_ together?”

“Well, it’s not official or anything, but they usually spend their nights in the same bed,” Leo said irritably. “What does it matter to you? It’s not hurting you.”

“I wonder, Dr. McCoy, if you have the slightest idea what kind of person _Mr. Chekov_ actually is,” Chitose said icily, practically spitting out the navigator’s name.

Pain, combined with hunger—he’d skipped his own lunch, so intent had he been on the game—and his already fervent dislike of Finney, made Leo reply sharply. “I know _exactly_ what kind of a man he is. I also know what Ben Finney is like, probably better than you do for all you’ve been living with him for fifteen years, and I wouldn’t believe him if he told me Vulcans had pointed ears. You’d do well not to ruin your brother’s happiness on the say-so of the scum of the galaxy.”

“Ben’s a good man! He was just looking out for my family—”

“Bullshit! Believe what you like, but keep it away from the senior command, because your brother isn’t the only person who’ll deck you if you say anything against Chekov.” Rubbing the sore spot on his head, Leo stormed out of Med Bay, ignoring the furious ex-security officer.

Halfway to the lift, he almost bumped straight into Jim rounding a corner. The warm smile froze on Jim’s lips. “Bones? What’s wrong?”

“Banged my goddamned head,” Leo growled.

“Let me see.” Jim took either side of Leo’s face in his hands and pulled his head downward as gently as possible. Keeping one hand cupping Leo’s jaw, he used the other to tenderly explore the top of his head. “Nothing’s bleeding. You’ve got a bump, but you’ll be all right.” He kissed the spot softly.

“Dammit, Jim, I’m a doctor, I know it’s just a bump,” Leo said. He knew he was being unreasonable, but he really didn’t care.

Jim studied him, looking worried. “There’s—” he began, then stopped and shook his head. “Come on.”

Ignoring Leo’s grunt of protest, Jim took his arm and dragged him to the lift. He didn’t say another word until they were back in their quarters, then dragged him into their bedroom, pushed him onto the bed, and crawled in next to him, leaning on his folded arms on Leo’s chest. “I know you, Bones. There’s something that’s bothering you. What is it? Did something go wrong with Sulu?”

“No, Sulu’s fine, I let him go at the end of shift.” Automatically, Leo’s arms encircled Jim, holding him close. “It’s just…it’s a couple of things. He was kind of agitated at the beginning of the shift, and he told me that…” He sighed, burying his face in Jim’s hair. “Apparently Finney’s been feeding Chitose some sort of crap about Chekov—I don’t know exactly what, but I can guess. He’s probably trying to excuse what he did to the poor kid all those years ago, make it seem like Chekov is the sort to come on to him or something. Whatever it is, Chitose thinks he’s ‘unsuitable’ for her brother. Add that to the fact that Chekov still hasn’t told Sulu that Finney was the one who raped him, and…well, hitting my head was kind of the icing on the cake.”

Jim was silent for a moment. When he did speak, his voice was tight with anger. “There are times I really hate being the captain. Finney isn’t a member of my crew—he’s not even in Starfleet anymore, technically—so I can’t discipline him, and even if I could, I couldn’t discipline him for something he did more than fifteen years ago when he wasn’t even a member of the ship. And he’s technically a guest, not to mention a civilian, so I can’t deck him. I can’t even throw him off the damned ship, not on a non-Federation planet.”

“I hope we’ll be able to get rid of him soon,” Leo said.

“I wish,” Jim replied. “Unfortunately, I heard back from Starfleet Command earlier today, and we’re not supposed to be anywhere near a point where we can get Finney—and Chitose—and Gaila if she decides to go—off the ship for another eight to twelve weeks.”

Leo groaned. “You’re kidding.”

Jim shook his head, then leaned it against Leo’s shoulder. “I hate this, Bones. I hate feeling like I’ve failed my crew…and I hate feeling like I’m putting them in danger.”

“It’s not your fault,” Leo said firmly. He tangled his fingers in Jim’s blond hair. “You couldn’t have left Finney on that planet, even if you’d known. Imagine the consequences of leaving that asshole as the sole god in charge of a developing civilization.”

Jim snorted. “On the other hand, maybe I should’ve let them ‘free him from his vessel.’”

Leo toyed with the idea briefly before saying gently, “No, Jim, you couldn’t have done that. You’re not that kind of person. Look, Sulu probably knows by now, so that’s three of us—three people with a vested interest in making sure Chekov is okay. We’ll look after him. And since Finney’s a guest, a civilian, there are places he can’t go—places where Chekov will be safe. Besides, do you really think he’d be dumb enough to try something again?”

“He might,” Jim said in a low voice. “If he thinks nobody knows.”

“We’ll look after Chekov, Jim,” Leo said again. “And hopefully, in two months, he’ll be somebody else’s problem. For good.”

“Yeah.” Jim sighed.

They lay in silence for a while. Finally, Leo looked down at Jim. “Did you eat lunch today?”

“Yeah…Chekov and I split a burger and fries. Not exactly nutritious, but neither of us was hungry enough for a full meal and we thought it might be okay if we just ate part of an unhealthy meal.” Jim looked up. “You?”

“Forgot,” Leo admitted. “Sulu and I got wrapped up in a game of Chinese checkers.”

“Bones!”

“I know, I know, forty lashes with a wet noodle.”

Jim shook his head with mock severity. “I’ll have to punish you later.”

“I look forward to that.” Leo dipped his head for a quick kiss. “Meanwhile, why don’t we go get something to eat together?”

Jim smiled. “I’d like that.”


	69. Who Mourns for Adonais?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is based on the episode of the same name by Gilbert A. Rolston and Gene L. Coon.
> 
> I am so, so sorry this took me so long. Part of it's my own fault; I've been letting myself get distracted filling prompts on my Tumblr (which can be found [here](http://brethewriter.tumblr.com); my drabbles and such are specifically located [here](http://brethewriter.tumblr.com/tagged/bre+writes+fanfic)). Part of it is that life generally sucks, and every time I thought I was going to get the time to write, something happened and I lost it. But I really, really, really hope this chapter was worth the wait.
> 
> **General warning, however: This chapter contains mentions of past abuse. Nothing explicit, necessarily, but there are some heavy implications and a few exchanges that might be triggering for some people. Please read with caution.**
> 
> And yes, that is a Firefly reference. I couldn't resist.

“Pollux IV approaching, Keptin,” Chekov reported.

Jim nodded in acknowledgment. This was a binary star system, with at least two dozen planets orbiting one or both stars, but only one, Pollux IV, that was capable of supporting life. In appearance, it greatly resembled Earth.

“Sensor readings indicate no life-forms,” Spock reported from his station. “Approximate age, four billion years. Will we be making contact?”

Jim gave a fleeting thought to “accidentally” leaving Finney there, then shook his head. “Unless there’s something on this planet you think we need—some sort of mineral or natural resource—”

Spock shook his head. “Preliminary scans show marble, granite, and a great deal of plant life, but nothing I would deem necessary.”

“Then I think we’ll give it a miss, Mr. Spock.”

“Very good, Captain.”

The bridge doors slid open, and Jim turned to see Slim holding Addie’s hand. The little girl looked sleepy. “There’s my girl. Come on in, you two. What’s up?”

“She got up from her nap an’ wanted to see you,” Slim explained. He’d taken to minding Addie any days he wasn’t in Engineering, no questions asked, which Jim appreciated. Carol had asked him not to tell anyone that she had put in for a transfer back to Earth—yet.

Addie pointed to the viewscreen with one hand, rubbing her eyes with the other. “What dat?”

“It’s called Pollux IV,” Bones told her.

Chekov glanced over his shoulder at Slim, who drifted closer. “Was Pollux ze one who died in ze Battle of ze Labyrinth?”

“No, that was Castor,” Slim said. “Pollux made it through the end.”

“Mythology?” Jim vaguely recalled that Pollux and Castor were the Gemini twins, although he couldn’t remember why they were significant.

“Uh, no, the Percy Jackson books,” Slim admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. “In the fourth one, see, there was this—”

Addie suddenly let out a bloodcurdling scream. Every head on the bridge whipped around to look at her, but her blue eyes were fixed on the viewscreen. Jim looked up and felt a thrill of terror, too.

Something had come between them and the planet—something amorphous, and transparent, so that Jim could still see the stars through it. It was already huge, and rapidly growing in size.

Slim turned white. “Chekov, am I seeing things?”

“Not unless I am, too,” Chekov said. “Keptin, zat thing is a giant hand!”

Jim was speechless. Chekov was perfectly right; the pale green field in front of them had begun to shift into five gigantic fingers, a massive palm, the suggestion of a wrist dropping out of their view. The whole thing had an eerie, surreal quality.

“Great Green Hand of Buddha, save me,” Sulu said under his breath.

Irrelevant as the comment was, it shook Jim out of his numbness. “Readings, Mr. Spock,” he said crisply. “Is it a hand?”

“No, Captain,” Spock said. “Not living tissue.”

“A trick, then? A magnified projection?”

“Not a projection. A field of energy.”

“Hard about! Course 230 mark 41!” Jim ordered, scooping Addie up and putting her in his lap. If they turned too sharply, he could at least keep her from falling on her unsteady legs. Bones gripped the back of Jim’s chair.

The field was getting more distinct, and it really was uncanny just how much it looked like a hand. Jim could see the valleys that on a human hand would be joints, the narrower gullies that would denote veins, even the ridges and whorls of fingerprints. And it was stretching, moving—moving _towards_ them.

“It means to grab us!” Chekov cried.

Spock turned to the viewscreen again. “Captain, if it is a force field—”

“All engines reverse!” Jim shouted.

The lights flickered and the ship shook violently, strained metal screeching. Slim winced and put a hand to his forehead, grabbing the back of Chekov’s chair with the other. It didn’t help as the tossing and shuddering sent everyone on the bridge crashing to the deck, Addie’s wailing only adding to the extant chaos. Sulu grabbed at the helm, pulling back as hard as he could with both hands.

“Slim! Pasha!” he cried.

Chekov hauled himself to his knees; Slim struggled upright. Both of them joined Sulu and hauled hard on the helm. It didn’t budge.

“Ze helm won’t answer, Keptin!” Chekov shouted. “We can’t move!”

Scotty came rushing in from the elevator. Jim managed to regain his chair, still clinging to his crying daughter, as Bones struggled back to his feet. “Hush, Addie, it’s okay,” he said, gently but firmly. “Lieutenant Uhura, contact Starfleet Command and give them our position and circumstances. Tell them that the _Enterprise_ has been stopped in space by an unknown force.” He turned to the helm, where Sulu had managed to get back into his chair. “Mr. Sulu, try rocking the ship. Full impulse forward, _then_ back.”

Uhura turned. “Damage reports coming in. Situation under control. Minor damage stations three, seven, and nineteen.” She hesitated, then got up, crossed over, and took Addie from his arms, bouncing her to try to soothe her.

Jim nodded to her gratefully. “Sulu?”

“Applying thrust, sir.” Sulu pressed on the throttle. The ship vibrated slightly, but there was no other results. “No results, Captain. We’re stuck tight.”

Jim looked at the viewscreen. The hand was still there, still gripping the ship, and still translucent. It was eerie. Addie sniffled in Uhura’s arms. “Don’t yike it.”

“Don’t worry,” Uhura said soothingly. “It hasn’t hurt us.”

The _yet_ went unspoken. Jim turned to Spock. “Status, Mr. Spock.”

“The ship is almost totally engulfed in a force field, Captain. It resembles a conventional force field, but of unusual wavelengths. Despite its resemblance to a human appendage, it is not living tissue. It is energy.”

“Thank you, Mr. Spock.” The calm recitation of facts calmed Jim’s temporarily racing heartbeat. “Forward tractor beams, Mr. Sulu, and adjust to repel.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Jim didn’t miss the look that Slim and Scotty exchanged, but he ignored it as he said, “Activate now!”

The ship quivered and groaned. Slim was already shaking his head even before Sulu reported, “Ineffective. There doesn’t seem to be anything to push against.”

“I suggest we throw scanner twelve on the main viewscreen, Captain,” Spock said.

Jim nodded. “Do it.”

The faint green palm disappeared. A moment later, it was replaced with a still-translucent image of a face. Everyone on the bridge was silent—even Addie, although she seemed paralyzed with terror. The face was enormous, but what struck Jim most forcefully was its beauty. It was a man, with dark eyes, a chiseled jaw, a nose straight from sculpture. Crowned with a diadem of stars, the whole thing gave the impression of classic artwork—beauty as ageless and timeless as the stars. It stirred the poet in Jim’s soul.

The voice that spoke went with the face—a deep, almost musical tone. “The eons have passed, and what has been written has come to pass. You are welcome here, my beloved children. Your home awaits you.”

Addie gave a squeak and hid her face in Uhura’s shoulder. Jim shook his head and said quickly, “Response frequencies, Lieutenant.”

“Want me to take her?” Bones asked, reaching for Addie.

“No, I’ve got it.” Uhura sat down and operated her board one-handed. “Calculated, sir. Channel open.”

Turning to the screen, Jim tried to look largely disinterested and unimpressed. “This is Captain James T. Kirk of the USS _Enterprise._ Please identify yourself.”

“You have left your plains and valleys to make this bold venture,” the voice said, evidently ignoring the request. “So it was from the beginning. We shall remember together. We shall drink the sacramental wine. The pipes shall call again from the woodlands. The long wait is ended.”

Jim frowned. “You—whoever you are— _whatever_ you are—are you the one stopping my ship?”

“I have caused the wind to withdraw from your sails.”

“Return it,” said Jim, ignoring the evocative old-fashioned mental image painted by the words. “Then we’ll talk. You seem unwilling to identify yourself, but we have the means to defend ourselves. If you value your safety, let us go!”

The surprisingly full lips curled upwards in a smile. “You have the old fire. How like your fathers you are. Agamemnon…Achilles…Jason…”

Slim started. Jim got to his feet. “Forget the history lesson! Release this ship or I’ll—”

The smile vanished. “You will obey—lest I close my hand—thus—”

The ship began shaking like a toy in a child’s hand.

“External pressure building up, Captain,” Scotty called from his station. “Eight hundred GSC and mounting.”

“Compensate, Mr. Scott.”

Slim cried out and gripped his temples, screwing up his face. Scotty looked at him anxiously. “One thousand GSC. It’s critical. We can’t take it—and neither can—”

Savagely, Jim swung on the screen. “All right, whatever you’re doing, you win. Turn it off.” He meant it to sound defiant, but it came out borderline terrified.

The ship steadied. Bones sprang forward and caught Slim as his knees buckled. He looked pale, but otherwise okay.

“That was your first lesson. Remember it.” The stern look on the face dissolved into a radiant smile again. “I invite you and all your officers to join me, Captain.”

Spock lifted an eyebrow. “Fascinating.”

The face’s expression changed again, this time to something between a scowl and a pout. “Don’t bring the one with the pointed ears. Pan is a bore. He always was.”

Spock’s other eyebrow went up. Quickly, Jim said, “Easy, Spock.”

“Hasten, children,” the voice urged. “Let your hearts prepare to sing.”

The face vanished, but the field stayed in place around them. Jim sighed. “Well, Bones, ready for the concert?”

“Is that the right move, Jim?” Bones asked, still steadying Slim.

“It is if we want a ship instead of a crumpled tin can.”

“Pa, I’m fine, honest.” Slim stepped away, still rubbing his head with one hand but at least sounding more or less normal. “Just a—pressure headache.”

The ghost of a smile that flickered over Slim’s face told Jim that his son had just intentionally made a pun. He decided to trust his judgment on his health. “Slim, you sort of jumped when—the voice—was listing off those names. Why?”

“They’re from ancient Greek mythology,” Slim said. “Jason was the captain of the _Argo,_ went questing for the Golden Fleece an’ all that. Achilles is the one whose mother dipped him in the River Styx to make him almost invulnerable. I ain’t sure who Agamemnon was, but the name sounds familiar.”

“How does an alien practically at the other end of the quadrant know Earth myths?” Bones asked, frowning.

Jim’s mind clicked over into higher gear. “Son, which one of your friends would you say knows the most about Greek mythology?”

“O’Flaherty,” Slim said without hesitation.

“O’Flaherty?” Jim repeated, surprised. “I thought she hadn’t read those books of yours.” He’d seen the ensign at breakfast, and she’d asked for female pronouns that day; she was even wearing the mini-dress uniform, which was a little unusual in Engineering but not unheard of.

“She hasn’t,” Slim said. “That’s how she knows more ‘n the rest of us. She’s actually studied the myths. She told me once that she minored in anthropology at the Academy.”

“With a focus on ancient Earth civilizations,” Sulu offered.

“Sounds perfect. If we’re meeting an alien who somehow knows our ancient myths, I want an expert along.” Jim turned to Scotty. “Mr. Scott, get Ensign O’Flaherty and meet us in the transporter room. Mr. Chekov, you’re coming, too…Mr. Spock, you’re in command here. Get all labs working on the nature of this field holding us. Find a way to break free.”

“Acknowledged, sir.” Spock turned to Slim. “Thomas, will you assume the Engineering station, please?”

“Aye, sir.” Slim moved over to take Scotty’s place.

“Addie come too!” Addie started to wriggle off Uhura’s lap.

Uhura caught her firmly. “Not on your life.”

“Addie, stay here,” Jim said gently. “Stay with Aunt Nyota and Uncle Spock.”

“Unca ‘Kawu, too?” Addie asked, looking over at the helm.

Jim hadn’t missed the way Sulu went pale when he named Chekov to the landing party, but the helmsman gave Addie a shaky smile. “Of course, Addie.”

Crossing over to his side, Jim put a hand on Sulu’s shoulder and said quietly, “Don’t worry, Sulu. I’ll look after him.”

Sulu looked up at him. He tried to speak, then bit his lips, squeezed Jim’s hand, and nodded wordlessly.

Scotty and O’Flaherty arrived in the transporter room just as Jim was issuing tricorders. The ensign looked pale and apprehensive. Jim would almost have expected Chekov to look the same; every away mission he’d gone on since the beginning of this particular voyage had resulted in a near-death experience for the navigator. Surprisingly, though, Chekov didn’t seem worried at all. It could be that he was just really good at hiding it, but somehow, Jim doubted it. He made a mental note to ask about that later.

“Are we ready?” he said. At four confirming nods, he led them onto the platform, then nodded to Kyle. “Energize.”

They materialized among a grove of trees. Chekov’s eyes widened. “Olive trees?”

“Or this world’s equivalent,” Bones said.

Jim shook his head. Chekov was dating one of the two most knowledgeable xenobotanists in the galaxy, and Jim was the son of the other. He pulled down a branch to show Bones the ripening pods. “This isn’t some alien plant with a superficial resemblance to an Earth plant, Bones. These are honest-to-God olive trees.”

“Aye, an’ that’s a taste of home, too,” Scotty said, pointing ahead of them.

There was a grassy knoll, atop which sat a small structure made entirely of white marble. Six fluted columns stood outside the front, graceful curls supporting the flat caps, which in turn supported a facade embossed with sculptured figures. As Scotty had said, it was familiar, but Jim couldn’t put his finger on why. A semicircular flight of steps led upwards and into the structure.

“Doric columns?” Bones asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Ionic,” O’Flaherty said automatically. “Doric are the plainer ones.” She blushed. “Um, sorry.”

“Don’t be, that’s why we brought you along.” Jim directed a reassuring smile at the ensign. “Maintain readings on tricorders. That goes for everybody. Come on.”

Together, the five of them headed up the curving steps. The columns led to an open space, almost like a courtyard of some kind. At the far end was a dais, on which was an elaborately carved marble throne. Benches of the same material surrounded a table laden with fruit and wine, simple enough fare. The sound of wild but sweet pipe music issued from somewhere. On one of the benches next to the table sat a man—ordinary in size, but there was no mistaking that here was the being that had stopped their ship.

Jim had seen any number of attractive people in his life, of any given species or gender, but this male was in a class of his own. His face had the same ageless beauty Jim had noticed earlier. His skin was bronzed to perfection, and the linen-like thigh-length garment he wore emphasized rather than hid his impressive physique. Next to him, Jim felt inadequate, insecure.

The man rose to his feet, setting aside a curved string instrument that Jim at least had no difficulty recognizing as a lyre, and walked to meet them. “My children, greetings. Long, long have I waited for this moment.”

In appearance, the man didn’t seem much older than O’Flaherty, certainly no older than Chekov, but somehow his youth didn’t make the term “children” as absurd as it should have. His air of quiet dignity allowed him to get away with it.

As quietly as he could, Jim said, “Bones, aim your tricorder at him.”

“Ah, the memories you bring of our lush and beautiful Earth!” The man threw his arms wide expressively, like he was beckoning the memories to himself. “Its green meadows…its blue skies…the simple shepherds and their flocks on the hills…”

“You know Earth?” Jim asked, although he suspected as much. “You’ve been there?”

White teeth flashed in a radiant smile. “Once I stretched out my hand, and the Earth trembled. I breathed upon it…and spring returned.”

“You mentioned Achilles,” Jim pressed. “How do you know about him?”

“Search back into your most distant memories,” the man intoned, “those of the thousands of years that have passed…and I am there. Your fathers knew me, and your fathers’ fathers. I am Apollo.”

“Yes, and I am ze Tsar of all ze Russias,” Chekov said, his voice unusually loud in the silence that had fallen over the other four.

“Mr. Chekov!” Jim didn’t take his eyes from the being, hoping he wouldn’t take it into his head to punish Chekov’s insolent outburst.

“Sorry, Keptin,” Chekov said, and he did sound genuinely contrite. “I never met a god before.”

“And you haven’t now,” Jim said. “Your readings, Bones?”

“Just a simple humanoid,” Bones said. “Nothing special.”

“You have the manners of a satyr. You will learn.” The self-proclaimed Apollo spoke almost absently, certainly not like he was about to crush them the way he’d tried to do with the _Enterprise._ His dark eyes were fixed on O’Flaherty.

The being stepped forward and touched O’Flaherty’s chin, tilting it up to face him. Scotty bristled, but Jim cut him off quickly with a “Hold it, Scotty.”

“Earth—she always was the mother of beautiful women. That at least is unchanged. I am pleased.” The man smiled at O’Flaherty, whose eyes were nearly bursting out of her skull. “Yes, we gods knew your Earth well…Zeus, my sister Artemis, Athena, Poseidon. Three thousand years ago, we knew it well.”

“All right,” Jim said, resisting—with difficulty—the urge to knock the hand away from his crewman. “We’re here—now let’s talk. Apparently you’re all alone. Maybe we can do something to help you.”

“Help me? _You?_ You will not help me. You will not leave this place.” The creature spoke with finality. “Your transportation device no longer functions.”

Jim flipped open his communicator. There wasn’t even a responding crackle. The being spoke casually. “Nor will that device work, either.” He paused, then added just as casually, “You are here to worship me, just as your fathers worshiped me before you.”

“If you want to play god by calling yourself Apollo, that’s your affair,” Jim said, fighting back the surge of panic at not being able to contact his ship—his _children._ “But you are not a god to us.”

“I said,” the creature repeated, beginning to frown, “you shall worship me.”

“ _You’ve_ got a lot to learn, my friend,” Jim said sharply.

“And so have you! Let the lesson begin!”

Jim felt his mouth go dry. Before his disbelieving eyes, the creature began to rise taller, higher and higher. He was twice their height—three times—four—a colossus of beauty and rage. The eyebrows drew together in fury, and the light seemed to dim, as if the sun had hidden behind a cloud. The very air crackled with electricity, and Jim realized that Apollo’s head seemed literally to be crowned with a nimbus of flame.

In a deep, rumbling voice, Apollo bellowed, “Welcome to Olympus, Captain Kirk!”

Jim fought the evidence of his senses. However much reason told him that this being could not possibly be a god, his eyes—his ears—swore it was true. He felt himself starting to tremble. Then he saw a look of weariness, almost pain, cross Apollo’s face. The massive shoulders sagged—and the being vanished. Instantly the skies settled back to normal. Silence fell.

Bones was the first to speak. “To coin a phrase—fascinating.”

Jim turned to O’Flaherty. “Ensign O’Flaherty, what do you know about Apollo?”

O’Flaherty seemed slightly stunned. Her face was white, and she was trembling slightly, much the way Jim had been a moment before. Chekov touched her shoulder gently, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. “What? Oh…Apollo. He was the son of Zeus and Leto—a Titan woman—him and his twin sister Artemis. God of light, music, archery, and poetry. He—he controlled prophecy.”

“And this creature?” Jim prompted gently.

Taking a deep, shuddering breath, O’Flaherty collected herself. “He seems to know Earth culture well, sir. His classic references, the way he speaks, his looks. And this place is nearly identical to the surviving images of the temples of Apollo.”

“Bones?”

“I can’t say much until I’ve checked out these readings,” Bones said. “He looks human, but we all know that doesn’t mean anything.”

Jim nodded, remembering Excalbia and the unanswered questions he’d left there. Chekov spoke up softly. “Whatever he is, he seems to control a remarkable technology.”

Something in the navigator’s voice made Jim turn to look at him. He seemed almost as pale and shaky as Jim and O’Flaherty did. Neither Bones nor Scotty appeared to have been affected, though. Before he could say anything, Scotty piped up, “Power is what the thing controls. You can’t pull off these tricks without power.”

Recalling himself to the present, Jim said, “Fine. But what power? Where does it come from? Scout around with your tricorders and see if you can find that out.” As Scotty and Chekov turned to follow his instructions, he took a step closer to Bones, his expression growing thoughtful. “I wonder if, three thousand years ago, a race of—” He stopped.

“You have a theory, Jim?” Bones prompted.

“I’m considering one. What if—”

“Jim, look!” Bones suddenly hissed.

Jim and O’Flaherty both turned. Man-sized again, Apollo was sitting on the marble throne, regarding them with a stern expression.

“Come to me,” he ordered.

It was the last thing Jim wanted to do. A nameless terror gripped his heart, and he wanted nothing more than to run in the other direction. However, he found himself obeying without consciously choosing to. Only Bones’ presence at his back enabled him to gather himself enough to speak in a more or less normal tone of voice. “Mister—” he hesitated—“Apollo, will you kindly tell us what you want from us? Without the Olympian comments?”

“I want from you what is rightfully mine,” Apollo said loftily. “Your loyalty, your tribute, and your worship.”

“What do you offer in exchange?”

Those dark eyes bored into Jim. “I offer you human life as simple and pleasurable as it was those hundreds of years ago on our beautiful Earth so far away.”

Jim stood his ground, with difficulty. He really couldn’t explain why he was so unconsciously afraid of the man calling himself Apollo. “We’re not in the habit of bending our knees to everyone we meet with a bag of tricks.”

“Agamemnon was one such as you. And Heracles. Pride—hubris.” Apollo’s voice was dark with memory. “They defied me, too—until they felt my wrath.”

Scotty suddenly popped up at their side, scowling. “We’re capable of some wrath ourselves.”

Jim signaled behind his back for Scotty to shut up. “I have four hundred and thirty people on my ship up there, and they—”

“They are mine,” said Apollo. “To cherish or destroy. At my will.”

Jim’s breath caught in his throat as he thought of his children. He didn’t have to look at Chekov to know that he was thinking of Sulu.

O’Flaherty broke in suddenly. “But _why?_ What you’ve said makes no sense.”

Apollo looked away from Jim and to O’Flaherty. His expression shifted subtly, and Jim found he wanted to hit him again. “What is your name?”

“Ensign O’Flaherty.”

“I mean your _name._ ”

O’Flaherty looked at Jim, fear and desperation in her eyes, then turned back to Apollo and stammered out, “K-Kelly.”

Apollo leaned forward. “Yes…when she gave you beauty, Aphrodite must have felt exceptionally generous. I have a thousand tales to tell you. We must speak together, you and I, of valor and love.”

“Let her alone,” Scotty snarled.

“You protest?” Apollo seemed amused rather than annoyed. “You risk much, mortal.”

“Aye, and so do you!” Scotty whipped out his phaser.

Before Jim could move, Apollo rose to his feet and extended a finger to point at the phaser. A blue flame extended from it. Scotty let out a yell and dropped the weapon, recoiling. Chekov retrieved it and handed it to Jim. The weapon had become a still-hot lump of melted metal.

“Impressive,” Jim said. He couldn’t keep the genuine respect out of his voice—not for the action itself, but for the power it obviously presaged. “Did you generate that force internally?”

“Keptin!” Chekov suddenly cried. “Ze phasers—all of zem!”

Dropping Scotty’s useless phaser, Jim reached for his own, only to find that it, too, had melted. Chekov had already tossed his to the ground next to Scotty’s. Neither Bones nor O’Flaherty had carried one.

“None of your toys will function.” Apollo stepped down from the dais, obviously unconcerned with continuing the discussion further, and stepped up to O’Flaherty, searching her eyes with his. She shrank back slightly as he said, “Yes, the Cyprian was unusually generous to you. But the bow arm should be bare…”

He reached out and touched her uniform. The fabric thinned, lengthened, changed color, until O’Flaherty was wearing a pale golden gown that reminded Jim uncomfortably of the outfits Chitose and Gaila had worn on Okor V. Her black boots were gone, too, replaced with golden sandals. She looked down at herself, then said in a half-whisper, “It…it’s beautiful…”

“ _You_ are beautiful,” Apollo said. “Come.”

“She’s not going with you!” Scotty shouted angrily. He lunged forward—and was slammed back against a marble bench. Bones ran to his side.

“That mortal must learn the discipline of my temple,” Apollo said calmly. “So must you all.” He reached over and took O’Flaherty’s arm. “But you—you come with me.”

Jim couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, but he saw the look in O’Flaherty’s eyes and forced himself to take a step forward. He wouldn’t let this bastard take her.

To his surprise, however, O’Flaherty shook her head quickly. “It’s—it’s all right, Captain.”

Her voice shook violently and she certainly didn’t look like she believed it would be all right, but Apollo smiled approvingly. “Good. Without fear. You are fit.”

A radiant beam of light surrounded both of them, and a moment later, they were gone.

Bones looked up from where he was tending to Scotty, his eyes inscrutable. “Scotty’s stunned. He’ll be all right in a minute. But O’Flaherty, Jim—I don’t know that it was wise to let her go off like that.”

“I don’t think I could have stopped him if I’d been able to try,” Jim said honestly. “Scotty certainly couldn’t.”

Scotty came around with a groan, rubbing the back of his head. He blinked blearily at the glade, then sat upright. Ignoring Bones’ hand, he said, “Did he take O’Flaherty with him?”

“So it would seem,” Jim admitted.

“Captain, we’ve got to stop him! The way he looks at her—”

“Scotty, I don’t disagree with you, but we don’t know where he took her, or where to start looking. And she sort of volunteered to go with him—hopefully to find out more about him. She’s doing her job. I need you to do yours.” Jim ran a hand through his hair. “You and Chekov get those tricorders out. Find that source of power. One other thing—no more unauthorized actions against Apollo. I don’t want you getting killed. That’s an order.”

Scotty didn’t look happy, but he complied.

Bones slid his arms around Jim’s waist from behind. “Scotty doesn’t believe in gods.”

Jim leaned back against his husband. “Apollo could’ve been one, though—once.”

“That’s your theory?” Bones demanded.

“Think about it, Bones.” Jim looked over his shoulder. “Suppose a highly-advanced race of humans achieved space travel three thousand years ago—before the Federation, before the Prime Directive. Suppose they landed near the Aegean Sea. To a group of simple shepherds and farmers, wouldn’t they have appeared to be gods? Especially if they could alter their forms and summon energy at will?”

“Isn’t that what happened on Okor V?” Bones said slowly.

Jim nodded. “And what happened on Nibiru, to a certain extent. It’s possible. Even probable. That would explain how he knows so much about Earth—because he really _was_ there.”

“Like humans, occasionally benevolent, occasionally vindictive,” Bones said quietly. “Maybe you’ve got something there. I tell you what, though—I sincerely wish O’Flaherty was back on the _Enterprise._ ”

“Me, too,” Jim admitted softly. “I don’t blame Scotty for jumping to her defense. She’s in his department, and hell, Bones, she’s just a kid.”

Bones’ arms tightened around Jim. “I know.”

They stayed where they were for a moment, drawing strength from one another. At last, reluctantly, Jim pulled away. “We should probably help them with the readings.”

“You’re right.” But Bones held on a moment longer. He drew Jim back against him, pressing a soft kiss to the crook of his neck, then let go and picked up his tricorder.

After a few moments, Chekov approached Jim. “Zere’s a repeated occurrence of registrations, Keptin. A regularly pulsating pattern of radiated energy.” He pronounced the phrase carefully, as though the combination of sounds was one he still had trouble with.

Scotty nodded, almost absently; he was moving towards them as well, but his eyes were fixed on either his tricorder or the ground in front of him. “Aye, I can detect the energy pattern, too, but I can’t seem to focus on it.”

“Apollo seems to be able to focus on it,” Jim pointed out. “He taps that power. How?”

“Ze electric eel can generate and control energy without harm to itself,” Chekov said. “And ze dryworm of Antos utilizes—”

“Not the whole encyclopedia, please,” Bones begged.

“Ze keptin asked for complete information,” Chekov replied. He probably meant to sound defensive, but it came out slightly broken. Whatever calm confidence he had had on the ship had obviously deserted him.

“Jim, Spock is contaminating this boy.”

That got a faint smile from Chekov—and from Jim as well. “Mr. Chekov, what you’re suggesting is that Apollo taps into a flow of energy that he discharges through his own body. Is that it?”

“Zat would seem most likely, Keptin.”

“But we don’t know where the energy _comes_ from,” Jim said, frustrated. “That’s what we’ve got to find out if we’re going to cut off its source.”

“Number one on our ‘to-do’ list,” Bones murmured.

“Anything else to contribute, Bones?” Jim asked, a little snappishly.

“Just this,” Bones said calmly. “Your Apollo’s got an extra organ in that impressive chest of his. I can’t even begin to guess what it’s for.”

“An extra organ,” Jim repeated. He calmed down a little as his brain kicked into gear again. “Bones, is there any chance—”

“Captain!” Scotty shouted.

Jim spun around. Apollo had materialized on the temple steps and was watching them impassively. He was alone.

Swallowing his instinctive and inexplicable fear, Jim took a few steps closer to Apollo, putting himself between the humanoid and his men. “Where is Ensign O’Flaherty?”

“She is well,” Apollo replied calmly.

_Where’s Jimmy?_

_He’s fine._

A powerful, vivid memory, one Jim had been suppressing for thirty years. He was eight years old, hiding in one of the few places in the house where Frank could neither reach him nor move things to get at him more easily, bruised and battered, while Frank and Sam spoke to Winona on one of her rare calls home and Frank tried to brush off the question. For once, she’d pushed back.

He responded to Apollo with the same words she had. “That’s not good enough.”

“She is no longer your concern, Captain Kirk.”

“You bloodthirsty heathen, what have you done with her?” Scotty shouted.

“No!” cried Jim, sensing danger, but he was too late. Scotty had already snatched up a stone and charged Apollo headlong. Apollo extended a finger—and the blue-white streak shot out. Scotty tumbled head over heels through the air and landed with a crash, the stone rolling from his hand.

Bones was at his side immediately. Half to himself, it seemed, he said, “He’s in deep shock.”

Jim stood immobile for a long moment, staring at Scotty’s white face, the blood trickling from a cut near his mouth. He was struck again with that odd feeling of unreality, of being caught between two times. He was five years old, Sam lying half-stunned on the floor of the barn, Frank standing over him and sneering at his puny attempts to defend himself and his little brother, telling him it was no more than he deserved.

Like then, Jim’s anger overcame his fear. He whirled around again and strode to the temple steps. “All right, Mr. Last of the Gods. You wanted worshipers? You got enemies. From now on—”

The bolt of blue-white energy caught him directly in the chest. It didn’t flicker. It didn’t fade. Jim felt as though he was burning from the inside out—as though the blast had wrapped itself around his heart and was _squeezing_ it, as hard as it possibly could. He choked, his hands clutching at his chest. He caught a glimpse of Bones’ stricken face, and then he blacked out.

He came around with a gasp, feeling a sharp pain in his neck; when his vision cleared, he saw Bones leaning over him. Wordlessly, he reached out and clutched his husband with all the strength he could muster.

“Oh, God, Jim,” Bones murmured, gathering him close. “Dammit, don’t _do_ this to me.”

“I—I’m sorry,” Jim croaked. “Where’s—?”

“Gone,” Bones said shortly. “He just stared at you for a minute, then turned around and—faded. It’s the best way I can put it.”

Jim managed to get to his feet with Bones’ support. Chekov was kneeling next to Scotty, wiping the blood from his face. He groaned faintly, his eyes opening. “What happened?”

“You let your enthusiasm get the better of your pragmatism,” Bones said dryly.

“I—I was going to separate his head from his ruddy neck,” Scotty said ruefully, letting Chekov help him sit up.

“Mr. Scott, I gave you a direct order _not_ to do that,” Jim said.

“She’s worth it, Captain.”

“You’re a Starfleet officer, Scotty. Start acting like it! Besides, you stiff-necked thistlehead, you could have gotten yourself killed.”

“Keptin,” Chekov said quietly.

Jim turned, more than half expecting to see Apollo looming behind him and knowing, with flinching certainty, that he wasn’t up to defying him again. Instead, he saw O’Flaherty coming towards them, her face white and tearstreaked, hugging herself as if she was cold. Her expression was that of a terrified child.

Jim was reminded of his five-year-old self again.

He moved forward as O’Flaherty drew closer. She gave a faint sob and hurried straight to him, gripping the front of his shirt the way Addie did after a nightmare; Jim gently enfolded her in his arms. “Are you all right?” he asked softly.

“I—I don’t know,” O’Flaherty whispered.

“Did he hurt you?”

“N-no.” O’Flaherty didn’t sound certain. “He didn’t—he mostly wanted to talk—but he tried to kiss me and…” She looked up at him, her green eyes wide with fear and some half-remembered pain. “He terrifies me…but at the same time I…I don’t know, Captain.”

Jim tensed, remembering the little he knew about Greek and Roman mythology beyond what was directly related to the heavens. “Did he—”

“No,” O’Flaherty said immediately. “He’s—I said I wasn’t—and he stopped. But…” She burrowed back against Jim again, obviously scared out of her wits. “The things he said…”

“What _did_ he say?” Jim asked, as gently as possible.

“We—talked about what happened to—the others,” O’Flaherty said slowly. “He says there’s a point of no return…even for the gods. Of course, he’s not a god, but—he’s not exactly inhuman.”

“He’s not exactly human, either,” Scotty growled.

“I know,” O’Flaherty said, pulling away from Jim and looking at Scotty with tears in her eyes. “I know, but—I really think he is something more, something—”

“Ensign,” Jim said gently. “There are four hundred and thirty people on our ship, and they’re all in danger. So are we.”

“I _know,_ Captain,” O’Flaherty cried desperately. “Don’t you think I know that? But I—” She burst into tears.

Jim put his arm around her again, feeling bad for making her cry. “Scotty, how are you feeling?”

“I can’t move my left arm.”

“You won’t for a while,” Bones told him. “There’s some neural damage to the arm, Jim. I could fix it if I had the facilities.”

“One more reason to get us out of here.” Jim let go of O’Flaherty and looked around desperately, seeking an idea.

Bones drew Jim to one side, out of earshot of the others. In a low voice, he said, “Jim, listen, I’ve been trying to remember what I can of Greek mythology. And one thing I remember is that, after they expended energy—shape-shifted, smote the unbelieving, whatever—they had to rest, same as humans do.”

“You think Apollo is off somewhere recharging his batteries?”

“Why not? He’s disappeared again, hasn’t he? Remember, he’s maintaining a force field on the ship, while simultaneously pulling off his display down here.” Bones laid a hand over Jim’s heart, his expression suddenly becoming worried. Almost under his breath, he murmured, “Gonna have to check you over when we get back. I don’t know…”

Jim didn’t bother protesting that he felt fine. He’d never felt less fine. He tried to focus on the matter at hand. “So he’s draining off energy. If we can overwork him, wear him out, that might just do the trick.”

Bones shook his head, the worried expression deepening. “The trouble with overworking him is that it might get us all killed.”

“Not if we can trick him into striking one of us,” Jim said. “The energy drainage could make him vulnerable to being jumped by the rest of us.”

“What? No! Jim, I don’t know what kind of damage that energy bolt can do—has _already_ done internally.” Bones grabbed Jim’s shoulders tightly. Jim froze, trying to remind himself to breathe, that Bones would never hurt him, that they loved each other, that it was okay. “I can’t let you risk it, dammit. And I _know_ you, Jim. You’ll insist on being the one to bait him and you’ll get hurt and I’ve already _told_ you not to keep doing this to me—”

“Doctor,” Chekov said insistently.

“ _What?”_ Bones snapped. Suddenly his face turned white. “Oh, Christ, Jim.”

He let go of Jim’s shoulders immediately. Jim gasped, unprepared, and stumbled; Bones caught him and held him, but gently this time. “Jesus, Jim, I’m so goddamned sorry. I know better. I shouldn’t—Christ, kid, are you okay?”

Jim leaned against Bones and nodded. “I’m okay. I’m okay. I—I’m sorry, Bones.”

“No, you have nothing to be sorry about.” Bones rubbed Jim’s back. “I just—I can’t do that. I can’t let you—I can’t lose you.”

“I’ll be careful, Bones.” Jim drew back a little bit, looking over his shoulder to where O’Flaherty was helping Scotty into the shade of the temple. “Besides—I think O’Flaherty’s right. I don’t think Apollo _wants_ to kill us.”

_“Mertvyy vrag ne mozhet znat', chto on byl pobezhden,”_ Chekov said softly.

“Which means?” Jim asked.

“A dead enemy cannot know he has been defeated.”

“An old Russian proverb, no doubt,” Bones said, raising an eyebrow.

Chekov shook his head, not meeting their eyes. “Just something my father used to say.”

Jim took a deep breath. Too many problems, too many stresses. He needed to concentrate on the big issue—Apollo. “Listen. It’s our only chance. When he comes back, try to provoke him. I don’t think Scotty’s going to be much use in a scramble, with his arm.”

The three of them made their way back to the temple. As they approached, Jim heard O’Flaherty say, a little brokenly, “Mr. Scott—I’m so sorry.”

“I’m not blaming you, lad—lassie,” Scotty said heavily. He looked up at her, pushing himself upright with his right arm. “Kelly—don’t let yourself fall in love with him.”

It was the first time Jim had ever heard Scotty refer to one of his crew members by first name, with the exception of the Simril twins. Tears flooded O’Flaherty’s eyes. “Do you think I _want_ to, sir?”

“You’re the only one who can answer that, Ensign,” Jim said.

O’Flaherty flinched, then looked up at him. “I don’t,” she whispered. “I don’t, I—”

“He’s recharged, Jim,” Bones said, very quietly.

Jim turned around to see Apollo, looking better than ever, the very picture of health and strength. Jim felt a little stronger, but he knew he wasn’t strong enough to face off against Apollo. And if he was wrong…

“Come here,” Apollo ordered.

Jim and Chekov both obeyed immediately. It never crossed Jim’s mind to refuse, no matter how badly he wanted to, and he could tell Chekov thought the same. Bones went with them. All three stopped a little ways away from Apollo.

“You are trying to escape me,” Apollo said. “It is useless. I know everything you mortals do.”

More echoes of the past. _Don’t bother hiding, you little bastard, I know where you are and what you’re doing and I’ll get you._ Frank’s voice sounded in Jim’s head as loudly as if he was present. Something tugged at the back of his mind, telling him this was important, but he couldn’t place what it was.

Bones was the only one who seemed unaffected. “You know nothing about us mortals. The mortals you knew were our distant ancestors. They’re the ones who cowered in fear. We’ve been to places they never dreamed of, seen things they never would have thought possible, _done_ things they never would have believed. Your tricks don’t frighten us, and neither do you.”

Jim fervently hoped that Apollo couldn’t read human body language enough to know that that was true in the case of only two-fifths of the landing party. Apollo flashed a smile. “I could sweep you out of existence with a wave of my hand. Then I could bring you back. I can give life and I can take it away.”

“So can I,” Bones retorted. “Only I don’t think it’s something to brag about.”

Apollo sighed, obviously bored. “No more debate, mortal. I offer you eternal joy in the ancient way. I ask so little in return. But what I ask for, I shall have.” He leaned forward. “Approach me.”

It took everything Jim had to disobey. Instead, he turned his back, along with Bones and Chekov. The three of them began walking away.

“I said _approach me!”_ Apollo roared.

“No,” Jim said without looking back.

“You will gather laurel leaves! You will light the sacred fires! You will slay a deer—and make the sacrifice to me!”

Now that he wasn’t looking at him, Jim found it a lot easier to laugh at Apollo. “Gather laurel leaves! Listen to him!”

Bones smiled encouragingly and gave Jim’s hand a squeeze. “It’s warm enough without lighting fires!”

“Maybe we should dance around a Maypole,” Chekov suggested.

“You shall reap the reward of this arrogance,” Apollo threatened.

“Spread out, get ready,” Jim said quietly.

The three of them separated. Jim was about to turn around and try to hurl an insult at Apollo when Bones got in first. Leaping onto a bench—actually leaping—he shook his fist at Apollo and shouted, “We’re tired of you and your phony fireworks!”

“You have earned this,” Apollo snarled.

He pointed at Bones. Jim felt his breath catch in his throat, tensing himself to spring, but before he could, scream rent the air. “ _No!_ ”

O’Flaherty flew forward, throwing up her arms. “No, please, _no!_ You can’t do this—you can’t hurt them—how can they worship you if you hurt them?”

“Shh,” Bones hissed.

O’Flaherty didn’t seem to hear him. She was in front of the throne now, dropping to her knees, trembling all over, her head bowed. “Please…you know so much of love…don’t hurt them!”

Apollo lowered his arm. He picked O’Flaherty up in his arms—Jim flinched with fear—and then set her gently on the throne. His hand proprietorial on the back of her neck, he turned to the _Enterprise’s_ crew. “She is my love of ten thousand years,” he intoned. “In her name I will spare you. Bring your people down to me. They will need homes. Tell your artisans to bring axes.”

“And I suppose you’ll supply the sheep and the pipes,” Bones snapped.

Apollo didn’t answer. Instead, he gathered O’Flaherty into his arms again. A burst of radiance surrounded them, and they vanished.

“Captain, we have to _do_ something,” Scotty said. He tried to stand, then fell back, his face white.

“We _were_ doing something, until O’Flaherty intervened,” Jim said wearily. “All right, she stopped him—this time. How much longer will her influence last?”

Chekov tugged Jim’s sleeve. “Keptin, can I…?”

Since Bones had gone over to check on Scotty, Jim let Chekov lead him off to one side. “What is it, Mr. Chekov?”

“Keptin,” Chekov said in a low voice, “was Kelly—was Ensign O’Flaherty abused?”

Jim stared at Chekov. “I don’t know. Why?”

Chekov glanced at Bones and Scotty. “Because zey aren’t afraid of him. Of Apollo. It’s easy for zem to defy him, to challenge him, to walk away. It—it took almost everything I had to turn my back on him. Especially since I knew he wasn’t going to kill me.”

“Don’t you mean ‘even though’?”

“Death has an end, Keptin.”

Chekov’s voice was so low and soft that Jim could barely hear the words, but he knew he hadn’t mistaken them. His eyes widened, and he made an involuntary motion as if to touch Chekov’s shoulder. The navigator didn’t notice. He was staring off into the distance with an unfocused look in his eyes that said he, too, was caught between the past and the present.

He spoke as if from a great distance—maybe a physical one, maybe just the distance of twenty years. “My father was a hard man to please. And he liked pain. He often used to boast zat he could skin a man alive ower ze course of twelve hours, and zen _keep_ him alive for twenty-four more. But zat was still only if he wanted someone dead. He was a master at inflicting ze maximum amount of pain without risk of death, and he taught my older brothers ze same. If I displeased him—” He broke off and looked up at Jim with haunted, pain-filled eyes.

This time Jim didn’t hesitate. He reached over and gripped Chekov’s shoulder comfortingly. “I think you’re on to something,” he said softly. “I’ve spent half the day feeling five years old again—hiding from my stepfather, watching him beat my brother…he was mean anyway, and he drank, which made him meaner. It wasn’t just the physical abuse—I could usually stand up to that—but he was emotionally abusive, too. He told me I was worthless so often that I started to believe him…and I stopped fighting back, because I thought I deserved it.”

“If O’Flaherty’s father—or mother—if someone beat her—”

“That explains her fear,” Jim said. He looked at Bones and Scotty again. “And why they’re not afraid of him. Their fathers never gave them reason to be afraid.”

Chekov nodded. “Aren’t gods supposed to be like parents? Ze problem is zat we had parents who hurt us, so we can’t help but tremble—ze way Apollo wants. Mr. Scott and Dr. McCoy can’t imagine a cruel parent—and zerefore a cruel god—and so zey can reject his divinity claims more easily.”

The last of the pieces clicked into place. “That’s it, Chekov. That’s the answer. It’s not about provoking an attack—it’s about drying up his supply of worship.”

“He thrives on having people in his power,” Chekov said, his eyes widening. “Like any bully. Only in his case—”

He stopped, looking over Jim’s shoulder. Jim turned around. O’Flaherty was walking up the steps of the temple towards them, very slowly, looking like she was in some sort of trance. She didn’t seem to notice any of them at first, her eyes fixed on the throne.

“Ensign?” Jim said gently. “What did he say to you?”

O’Flaherty had climbed onto the dais. She touched the arm of the throne with her fingertips, brushing them lightly over the carvings. Jim motioned for Chekov to stay back, then walked over to the base of the dais and raised his voice slightly. “Ensign O’Flaherty?”

O’Flaherty started. “I—I have a message for you.”

“Go on,” Jim prompted.

“He—he wants us to live in—eternal joy.” O’Flaherty spoke without taking her eyes from the throne. “He wants to guard…and provide for us for the rest of our lives…” She looked up then, her eyes falling on Jim. Her lower lip trembled.

Wordlessly, Jim held out his arms. O’Flaherty half-jumped, half-fell off the dais and into his embrace; he wrapped her close, feeling her crumple against him, and despite her obvious fear and pain he gave silent thanks. She wasn’t so far gone that she had lost all reason.

“Captain, I’m scared,” she whispered, her voice full of tears.

“I know.” Jim tightened his grip on her. “Has he hurt you?”

“No—at least—not exactly—but he scares me. I—I don’t know how to explain it. I said no and he stopped…but ever since then I—I can’t seem to say it.”

“Do you want to say no?” Jim asked gently.

“Yes, but—” O’Flaherty looked up at Jim helplessly. “I—I used to wonder, in the old stories, why people let the gods love them, or make love to them, when they knew what the end result was likely to be. Now I don’t think they had a choice. I wanted to tell him to stop, but I couldn’t…” She dissolved into tears again and buried her face in Jim’s shoulder.

Jim stroked her hair comfortingly as he steeled himself for what he had to say. “I need you to.”

O’Flaherty looked up again. “To what?”

“To reject him.”

O’Flaherty seemed stunned. Jim continued, keeping his voice as low and gentle as possible. “Love, worship, abasement—they’re meat and drink to him. He thrives on them. The only way to save ourselves—and the ship—is to refuse to give them to him. Especially you. He’s chosen you as his favorite.”

The ensign shivered violently. In that moment, Jim knew Chekov was right—she’d been abused, probably sexually. “Captain—I don’t think I can. Something about him…it’s impossible to say anything but yes. And he t-terrifies me. I don’t think I’m strong enough.”

Jim sighed. “All right. We’ll try taunting him again.”

“What?” O’Flaherty’s eyes were full of mingled confusion and fear.

“Our initial plan was to get Apollo to strike out at one of us—to draw his energy, weaken him so the others could attack,” Jim said quietly. “You stopped him. He thrives on his power over us—especially over you—and cutting that off might be more effective than making him waste power. But I’m not going to force you to do something you don’t want to do. We’ll think of another way. It’s just that right now—”

“I—I’ll try,” O’Flaherty said, her voice shaking. “I’ll try…”

“That’s my brave girl.” Jim hugged her again.

“Will you—come with me?” O’Flaherty whispered. “I d-don’t think I can face him alone.”

“Of course I will,” Jim promised. He let go of O’Flaherty and started to turn to tell Bones and Chekov the new plan. Before she disappeared from his field of vision, she froze, looking up at the ceiling of the temple as if listening to something.

“He’s—calling me,” she faltered.

“I don’t hear anything,” Jim said, turning back with a frown.

O’Flaherty began to glow. She looked down at her hands, then fearfully up at Jim, her breath beginning to come in gasps. She reached for him, took a couple of steps forward, opened her mouth as if to scream—

—and vanished.

Jim stood perfectly still, staring at the spot where she’d been a moment before. Another powerful memory assailed him, this one much more recent—Carol Marcus desperately running towards him as her father beamed her from the _Enterprise_ to the _Vengeance._ Just like then, he was helpless to save her, helpless to do anything but prepare for his own destruction—and that of his crew.

“ _Enterprise_ to Captain Kirk! _Enterprise_ calling Captain Kirk! Come in, Captain!”

_And now I’ve completely lost it,_ Jim said to himself. _I’m hearing things._

At his hip, the useless communicator beeped again. “Communication restored, Captain! Come in, Captain. First Officer Spock calling Captain Kirk…”

It was the personal plea that shook Jim from his stupor. He flipped open the communicator, trying to calm his suddenly racing heartbeat. “Kirk here.”

“Are you all right, Captain?” The relief in Spock’s voice was palpable.

Jim hesitated. “All right, Spock.”

“We have pinpointed a power source on the planet that may have some connection with the force field.” Spock sounded normal once more, his usual calm, stoic self, but the fact that he had momentarily displayed a great deal of emotion spoke volumes to Jim. “Is there a structure of some sort near you?”

Jim wanted to laugh, but recognized that that was probably the first sign of hysteria and would just result in Bones running over with a hypo. “Indeed there is, Mr. Spock. I’m in it.”

“The power definitely emanates from there.”

“Good. How are you coming with the force field?”

Spock was silent for a minute. Jim was beginning to think the connection had been dropped when the science officer’s voice came back over the line. “Thomas and Sulu have a theory. They believe that we can drive holes through it by synchronization with all phaser banks. We aim the phasers—and there will be gaps in the field ahead of them.”

Jim felt, for the first time since the first encounter with Apollo, that he could breathe properly again. “That should do the trick, Mr. Spock. Have Sulu lock in every phaser bank we’ve got on this structure. Fire on my signal—but cut it fine. We’ll need time to get out of here.”

“I would recommend a discreet distance for all of you, Captain.”

“Believe me, Spock, we’d like to oblige,” Jim said dryly. “But we’re not all together right now. One of us is hostage to the Greek god Apollo. This marble temple is his power source, and I want to know where he is when we attack it. Kirk out.”

He snapped the communicator closed, regretting his words as soon as he did so. Sulu was on the bridge. He had to have heard every word. And by not being specific, Jim realized that he had left doubt as to _who_ was being held hostage. There was no doubt that Sulu would be frantic with worry about Chekov. Pushing the thought from his mind, he headed over to the remainder of his team.

Bones was looking at him oddly. “I think I’ve gone mad. Or maybe you have. Did I just hear you talking to Spock through that broken communicator—or was it the spirit world?”

“It’s working again,” Jim said. “Don’t ask me how. Ask Spock when we’re back aboard the _Enterprise._ Now we have to get out of here. All the ship’s phaser banks are aimed at this place. I’ll give you a hand with Scotty.”

“I’ve got him, Keptin,” Chekov said, quickly moving around to Scotty’s paralyzed side.

“I won’t leave,” Scotty said stubbornly. The stubbornness quickly gave way to anxiety, however. “Captain, we’ve got to wait until O’Flaherty comes back before we fire on the temple. We don’t know what that bastard will do to her if he’s suddenly attacked.”

“I know,” Jim said heavily. He was worried about O’Flaherty, too. “We’ll wait.”

Chekov arranged Scotty’s paralyzed arm around his shoulder. “Keptin…Dr. McCoy mentioned an unusual organ in Apollo’s chest. Is zat—does it have something to do with ze energy transmissions?”

“I can’t think of anything else it could be,” Bones said.

Jim rubbed his forehead. Mostly to himself, he muttered, “I promised I’d go with her.”

“You couldn’t help it, Jim,” Bones said softly, letting go of Scotty to put his arms around Jim. “I saw what happened. It isn’t any different than when Marcus beamed Carol over to the _Vengeance._ ”

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Jim couldn’t help but smile a little. “Reading minds again, Bones?”

Bones kissed Jim’s cheek lightly. “I know you.”

They made their way out of the temple proper, towards the grove of olive trees. Scotty was opening his mouth to say something when the wind suddenly picked up. It practically tore their shirts from their shoulders; Scotty and Chekov were nearly knocked to the ground. Bones let go of Jim to help stabilize Scotty, so Jim braced himself as best as he could.

His communicator beeped. Flipping it open, he heard Spock’s voice, barely audible over the whistling and howling. “Spock, Captain. Sensors are reporting severe atmospheric disturbance in your area.”

“Gee, you think?” Jim yelled into the communicator. Clouds roiled overhead, a sickly yellowish-black, churning and boiling over the temple. A three-pronged fork of lightning momentarily split the clouds, which instantly re-formed. There was a peal of thunder, followed by another lighting flash. Jim heard a _crack_ and turned in time to see one of the olive trees burst into flame.

Jumping out of the way, he shouted, “Stand by, phaser banks! Mr. Spock, prepare to fire on my signal!”

“Captain, we have to find O’Flaherty!” Scotty yelled, pulling away from Chekov and Bones.

As desperately as Jim wanted to go find the ensign, he swallowed. “Here is where we stay, Mr. Scott! When he comes back—”

“What if he doesn’t?”

“He will! When that temple is—”

“Jim!” Bones shouted.

Apollo suddenly appeared before them, larger than life, towering over the trees, a colossus of rage. He threw his head back in agony, let out a howl, and more lightning forked from the sky, setting two more trees ablaze. The clouds opened up, sending rain pouring down on them. Jim was soaked to the skin in a matter of seconds.

A scream suddenly rent the air. Whipping around, Jim saw O’Flaherty, stumbling up the hill, the wind whipping at the golden gown Apollo had given her, branches and brush clawing at her, her face glaringly white with fear. Jim didn’t give himself time to think. He ran a few steps towards her, thrust out an arm, and shouted, “ _Kelly!”_

She heard him. Despite Apollo’s focused attention on her, despite the god’s power and might, she ignored him, put on a burst of speed, and ran to Jim, who clutched her tightly, one hand behind her head, the other curled around her shoulders, protecting her from Apollo’s gaze. The anger and hatred in his eyes made Jim cringe, thinking of Frank again, but he made himself remain firm. He had to protect O’Flaherty.

Bones suddenly dove for the ground and scooped up a small object—Jim’s communicator, which he hadn’t realized he had dropped. Flipping it open, Bones shouted at the top of his lungs, “ _Now, Spock!_ ”

The pulsing incandescent light of the phasers appeared through the clouds and struck the temple.

“No! No! _No!!!”_

Apollo suddenly dwarfed the temple. He spread his arms wide, his face suffused with rage, the blue-white energy leaping from his fingertips. Jim tensed and bowed his head, curling himself protectively around the girl in his arms. The howling of the wind, the crackling of energy, the sound of the rain pelting to ground and tree and flesh, rose to a fever pitch.

And then, suddenly, there was silence.

Jim relaxed the merest fraction. He raised his head, trying to catch his breath, to see Apollo standing before them—now man-sized, perfectly ordinary, with none of his mad powers. It was still overcast, but the fierce storm, which seemed to have been Apollo’s creation after all, was gone. The expression on the handsome face was one of utter dejection.

“I would have loved you as a father his children,” he said brokenly. “Did I ask so much of you?”

Jim flinched at the metaphor. He tried to find a way to explain why, for three-fifths of them at any rate, the idea was so abhorrent. To his surprise, Bones stepped up beside him and saved him the trouble.

“We’ve outgrown you,” he said simply. “You ask for what we can no longer give.”

Apollo gazed at O’Flaherty, who had raised her head to peep at him without pulling away from Jim. “I showed you my heart. See what you’ve done to me.”

O’Flaherty made a noise somewhere between a gasp and a sob, then burrowed into Jim’s chest again. Jim couldn’t tear his eyes away from Apollo. A slight breeze stirred his hair, but somehow didn’t reach the landing party. The god’s arms were spreading wide.

“Zeus, my father, you were right. Hera, you were wise. Our time has gone. Take me home to the stars…” Apollo tilted his head back, closing his eyes. “I am a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar…”

The words seemed to echo around them for a moment. Apollo’s form became blurry, indistinct. The breeze swirled around them, and then the last of the gods was gone, leaving an empty silence in his wake.

Bones was the first to break it, very quietly. “I wish we hadn’t had to do that.”

“So do I,” Chekov said.

O’Flaherty was sobbing quietly. Jim held her wordlessly, knowing that nothing he could say would comfort her and hoping only that his presence, holding her the way he would hold Addie or Slim when they were upset or afraid, would help. Silently, Chekov came over to them and slipped one arm around O’Flaherty’s waist and the other around Jim; Jim let go of O’Flaherty with one arm to include Chekov in his embrace. Bones somehow managed to hug all three of them at once, his steady strength surrounding them. Scotty, too, came over to join the group hug.

They stood that way for several long moments, until O’Flaherty’s sobs at last subsided. She drew a couple of deep, shuddering breaths, and then looked up at Jim, her whole expression one of misery and residual fear. “Can we go home now?” she asked in a small voice.

Jim nodded. Gently, he withdrew his arms from the young ensign; the other four also pulled back. Without further discussion, they spread out into beaming positions, two on either side. Jim flipped out his communicator. 

“Kirk to _Enterprise,_ ” he said quietly. “Five to beam up.”


	70. Send Me Off Forever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is late, guys. I kept getting distracted from finishing this chapter by doing prompt fills on Tumblr, plus I realized a couple days ago that I had no idea how I wanted to end it, so I just kept going. But I hope this chapter was worth waiting for...
> 
> Chapter title is taken from "Don't Fence Me In." You'll see why.

“This place looks familiar,” Kelly said, looking around. “But I swear I’ve never been here before.”

“Me, neither,” Slim agreed. “But I know what you mean.”

The _Enterprise_ had reached Upsilon Maenali VII, an M-class planet on the verge of uncharted space. This was the first time a Federation ship had ventured this far, but the inhabitants had made contact on their own some ten standard years previously; it had just taken a while for a mission to travel far enough in this direction. Jim had been asked to handle the signing of the paperwork to enter the Federation personally. The Arraps—a relatively small blue race with more than fifty arms each—were so pleased, both with the prospect of entering the Federation and the idea of having a celebrated hero on their planet, that they had immediately invited the crew to take shore leave on the planet while they completed the paperwork. Since everything the Arraps did seemed to be done by committee, and there seemed to be nothing they enjoyed more than a good debate, Jim had agreed.

Slim and his friends—including Chekov and Sulu—had beamed down together and been pleased and enchanted. The town was a bit like the popular image of an Old West town on Earth, just with more chrome and steel. The doorways were shorter than most humanoid doors, but wider, to accommodate the unusual proportions of the Arraps. Since none of them could read the signs over the doors, they hadn’t ventured into any of the buildings. Instead, they had ambled slowly down the main street, taking in the sights and being stared at in turn as they made their way through town.

Now they stood on the very edge of the town, staring around them at the red rock formations and wide-open space. In the distance, mountains stood, their tops obscured by puffy white clouds. There was only one structure beyond their position.

Audra’s nose twitched. “I smell horses.”

“You can’t,” Porter objected. “Something similar, maybe, but we’re light-years from Earth.”

“Port, my daddy was a vet. I grew up in ranch country. Trust me, I smell horses.”

“I’ve never seen or smelled one,” Nic’tlarn confessed.

Chekov pointed at the lone structure. “Zat looks like a stable to me.”

“Only one way to find out.” Sulu started resolutely towards the building. Slim and the others fell into step with him, letting him set the pace—for a couple of reasons—but not making it obvious in hopes of not hurting his feelings.

It _was_ a stable, and the creatures in the stalls, if they weren’t horses, were damned near to, near enough that Slim couldn’t tell the difference. He had never seen more magnificent creatures.

Audra voiced his thoughts. “These could be show critters. Wonder who owns ‘em?”

“Them, maybe?” Kelly nodded at an Arrap, who was coming towards them with what Slim hoped was a friendly grin on its face.

Sulu returned the alien’s smile. “Good morning. Are these yours?” He waved a hand vaguely at the horses, then indicated the Arrap.

The Arrap’s face lit up. It began waving its arms in complicated patterns, occasionally grunting or squawking. Audra looked at Slim; he shrugged, mystified. The aliens didn’t seem to speak Standard, which didn’t surprise him. After all, they were a long way from their neck of the woods.

As if sensing that it wasn’t getting through, the Arrap paused, then lowered all but two of its arms, right in front. It began gesturing again, but this time slower, more hesitantly, as if it was unfamiliar with the movements.

Chekov frowned. “Wait…” Raising his own hands, he moved them in a slow, deliberate pattern. The Arrap gave a hoarse squeak and moved its hands in reply.

“Sign language,” Chekov said, turning to the others with a relieved smile. “When ze Arraps made first contact, zey must have been taught at least ze basics of FSSL.”

“What?” Porter looked confused.

“Federation Standard Sign Language,” Kelly supplied. “I took a class in high school, but all I remember is the alphabet and how to sign ‘Slow down, please, I’m still learning.’”

Chekov signed something at the Arrap, who signed back. “He says zis is his business. His name is—” Chekov hesitated. “K-Z-R-R-P-T-H?”

The Arrap signed again, then made a noise that sounded like it would be written as _kzrrpth,_ nodding and smiling. Slim brightened as he realized what Chekov had said. “This is a hack barn?”

“A what?” Porter said again.

“A stable that rents horses, or hires ‘em out,” Audra said. She, too, looked excited. “You reckon we could…?”

“They’re not part of the Federation yet,” Sulu said quietly. There was a look of something like regret in his eyes. “So they probably don’t take credits.”

Chekov signed something to Kzrrpth, who waved several other arms as he signed back with the front ones. “Zis is an economy based on ze barter system, apparently. He will trade us for use of ze horses.”

“What can we offer him? I’ve got nothing,” Porter said.

Slim slipped a hand into his pocket. He had tucked his harmonica into it, but he was reluctant to put that on the table. In the first place, he knew he’d regret not having it if he traded it away; in the second, and more importantly, it had belonged to Christopher Pike. Especially after the encounter with the Excalbians, when Slim had seen a man whom all the officers had agreed was, if not the _actual_ Pike, close enough that there was no discernible difference, Slim wasn’t about to give away something that had belonged to him.

Again Chekov signed something, and again Kzrrpth waved several redundant arms as he signed with the front ones. Chekov turned white as a sheet and began signing more quickly, then evidently had to repeat himself more slowly as a puzzled frown creased Kzrrpth’s face.

“What?” Sulu asked, watching Chekov’s face closely, his eyes worried. “What is it?”

“Nothing. It’s nothing.” Chekov shook his head quickly.

“No, what is it?” Slim insisted. He was starting to get worried, too. “What did he say?”

“Oh, he said zat we could go for a ride and work out payment later, but I—I don’t do open-ended bargains.” Chekov was obviously trying to sound casual, but there was a slightly panicked look in his eyes.

“I don’t blame you,” Kelly said quietly.

Nic’tlarn’s eyes were worried as xe studied Kelly. Slim, Porter, and Audra exchanged looks. Ever since meeting Apollo—which Kelly had refused to discuss, even with Nic’tlarn, and they hadn’t pushed him—there’d been something fragile about Kelly. He seemed normal, most of the time, but every once in a while, Slim would surprise a look that indicated he was just barely holding himself together. Combined with Chekov’s unease, especially around Finney and Chitose, the others spent a lot of time trying to help their friends relax. It wasn’t always successful.

Kzrrpth had been looking from one person to the next. He got Chekov’s attention, then signed something. Chekov frowned slightly.

“What?” Porter asked.

“He—he wants to know how we seem to be communicating without using our hands,” Chekov said slowly. “I don’t—”

Nic’tlarn turned away from Kelly with obvious reluctance, but xe did look interested. “The Arraps language is exclusively sign?”

“Not exclusively,” Sulu said suddenly, his eyes lighting up. “It’s like the ancient joke about Italian.”

“What?” Slim and Audra asked together.

“Before first contact, there was an old joke on Earth that if aliens were to come to Earth and observe humans without any context, they would conclude that Italian was primarily a sign language, with sounds added for emphasis,” Sulu explained. “I think that’s what the Arraps language is. Those squeaks and grunts he does occasionally—they’re intensifiers.”

Chekov bit his lip. “I don’t know if I can sign zat…”

“It’s okay. I’m pretty sure I’m right. Can you explain why we don’t sign?”

“I—I think so.” Chekov raised his hands again, hesitated, and then signed, obviously taking care with his words. Kzrrpth looked interested and signed something back. Chekov tried his best to answer. Kzrrpth gave a hoarse barking noise as he signed wildly. “Uh—Kelly, how do you say ‘Slow down, please, I’m still learning’ again?”

Kelly stumbled his way through the short phrase. Kzrrpth obliged, signing much more slowly. Chekov touched Kelly’s shoulder in gratitude, then turned to the others. “I told him zat we use our woices to talk and sing, and he asked what singing was. I tried to explain…he seems to like ze idea. He says if we will give him a demonstration, he will let us ride his horses for ze afternoon.”

Audra and Slim exchanged glances. Slim was surprised to realize that he could read a whole conversation in her eyes—when had they gotten to know each other so well? Still, this wasn’t the time to question, this was the time to act. He reached into his pocket again and withdrew the harmonica. After blowing through it briefly to warm it up, he closed his eyes and began to play a melody that seemed fitting for the surrounding. Audra waited until the proper time, then began singing. “ _Oh give me a home where the buffalo roam…_ ”

Kelly and Sulu joined in as she reached the chorus. It was clear that Sulu didn’t know the verses, although Kelly did. Slim kept playing as the other three sang to a wide-eyed, obviously entranced Kzrrpth. When they got to Slim’s favorite verse, Audra dropped out, letting Kelly’s clear voice ring out over the open space. “ _How often at night when the heavens are bright…with the light from the glittering stars…have I stood here amazed and asked as I gazed…if their glory exceeds that of ours…”_

When the song at last came to a finish, the group stood in silence for a moment while the echoes died away. After a few moments, however, Kzrrpth began to applaud.

It was definitely a sight to see. The Arraps’ arms were in no way, shape, or form arranged in even pairs, but somehow he managed to make each one clap against another. It was like being applauded by a small crowd, but it was only one creature. Kzrrpth began making the hoarse, excited barking noise again as he clapped.

“I think that was a success,” Nic’tlarn said with a quiet smile.

When the applause finally finished, Kzrrpth signed to Chekov, who smiled as well. “He says he will saddle horses for us now. Zat was more zan a fair trade.”

The speed with which Kzrrpth saddled the horses was astonishing. Aided by his multiple arms, he cinched the girth, adjusted the stirrups, and buckled the reins onto seven horses in a matter of moments. Slim, Audra, Sulu, and (surprisingly) Nic’tlarn mounted their horses with ease; Kzrrpth gallantly assisted the other three into the saddles. Sulu reached over to show Chekov how to hold the reins. Nic’tlarn immediately did the same for Kelly. Porter winked at Slim and adjusted his own hands accordingly.

Kzrrpth opened the gates, then looked up at Chekov and held up a finger. He indicated the horses, then the stables, then pointed at the sky and touched one hand to another elbow, moving the upright arm in a straight line to fold on top of the other, then pointed at the ground with a stern grunt. Even Slim had no trouble understanding what the Arraps was saying: have the horses back in the stable by sundown, or else.

Chekov, evidently, gave his due promise. At any rate, Kzrrpth looked satisfied and stood to one side, allowing them to ride out the gate and into the desert.

Slim hadn’t been on a horse in a long time—at least five years—but it was true what they said, you never really forgot. A few minutes out of town, he had the sudden urge to whoop and spur the horse he was riding into a gallop. He restrained both himself and the horse, however, as he didn’t want to lose the novice riders, and kept it to a walk. They ambled for a while in silence, leaving the town behind and venturing into the red rocks.

“This is real nice,” Audra said at last. “I’ve missed this.”

“Me, too,” Slim agreed.

Kelly glanced quickly at Nic’tlarn. “You seem pretty comfortable on a horse. Have you ridden before?”

“In a sense. We have animals like this on Zathros, but they have six legs, and their coats tend to shift color based on their mood.”

“That’s a horse of a different color,” Sulu quipped.

Kelly and Audra both laughed. Porter shook his head. “But you’ve ridden those—what are they called?”

“ _M’salon,_ ” Nic’tlarn answered. “And…yes. I—I rode a few times.”

Xe seemed uncomfortable, so nobody pushed the question. Instead, Audra asked Sulu, “Where’d you learn to ride?”

Sulu smiled. “I was in Scouting, so I learned to trail ride a little. But more importantly, my grandparents—my mother’s parents—bred for steeplechasing. I used to go out every summer, and the trainers would throw me up on the saddle and lead me around. By the time I was ten, I could take fences with the best of them.”

“These don’t strike me as bein’ jumpers,” Slim said.

“Not that there’s anything to jump out here anyway,” Sulu pointed out.

“Well, there is that.”

Chekov’s horse was skittish. He was obviously having some trouble controlling it as it shied from the sun glinting off rocks, from the tumbleweeds that occasionally crossed its path, even from the occasional gusts of wind that blew through the canyon. Slim was about to offer to switch horses with him when some sort of slithering creature popped out of a hole in the dirt, right in front of them.

The horse exploded. It reared up on its hind legs—Chekov yelped and clutched the reins tightly to hold on—then came back to ground and bolted for the horizon.

“Pasha!” Sulu yelled. He spurred his own horse in the side and took off after it.

“C’mon!” Slim called to the others. He leaned forward over the horse’s neck and nudged its flanks. The horse immediately broke into a gallop, racing after the others.

He was dimly aware of the others following him, but he was mostly preoccupied with the wind in his hair, the speed at which they were covering the ground. Up ahead, Chekov was hanging on for dear life; Sulu was leaning forward on his own horse, one arm stretching out as he thundered closer to Chekov. As they neared some rocks, Sulu managed to lean over, grab the reins, and haul back desperately. Both horses slowed to a stop.

Chekov half-slipped, half-fell out of the saddle. Sulu jumped down from his own horse and hugged Chekov tightly. Neither of them spoke.

Slim reined in his horse as he approached the two men. Nic’tlarn also managed to stop smoothly. Kelly’s horse pranced to one side, making his face go pale, but steadied out easily. Porter pulled too hard on the reins, and the horse tossed its head and whinnied in protest, nearly throwing him. Fortunately, Porter managed to keep his seat.

“You okay?” Slim asked Chekov as gently as possible.

“Y-yeah.” Chekov sounded a little breathless and shaken, but otherwise okay.

Sulu pulled back slightly, his face worried as he scanned Chekov’s. “You sure?”

Chekov nodded. “Zat was…an adwenture.”

“Wanna switch horses?” Audra offered. “This one’s pretty gentle.”

“I don’t want you to get hurt,” Chekov said, but the protest was a little feeble.

Audra slid off the horse. “’Fore I decided to join Starfleet, I was gonna be a bronc rider. I ain’t scared o’ this critter.”

She handed the reins over to Chekov, then took the reins of his horse. It whinnied and tried to toss its head, but Audra pulled down sharply on the reins. She twisted her head to one side and squared off. “Now, look,” she said firmly. “I got a long way to go, an’ you’re gonna take me there. An’ you’re not gonna give me any trouble about it. Right?”

The horse snorted. She seemed to take that as an answer. “Right.” Putting a foot to the stirrup, she swung herself into the saddle easily and added, “Now, _git._ ”

Kelly actually smiled. “Did you just quote _The Rescuers Down Under?_ ”

“It’s a good movie,” Audra said defensively.

“Well, at least it was appropriately timed. And I didn’t say I didn’t like it. I loved those movies.” Kelly’s eyes took on a reflective quality. “Dressed up as Miss Bianca for Halloween one year. I think I was eight or nine.”

“I’ve never seen that movie,” Slim confessed. “When did it come out?”

“Uh, late twentieth century. It’s a Disney movie.”

“I ain’t seen too many of those,” Slim said. “Just a few.”

Sulu gave Chekov a hand back into the saddle. The horse Audra had given him didn’t so much as flinch. “We’ll have to have another marathon sometime soon. You haven’t seen all of the official princess movies, even.”

“Neither have I,” Nic’tlarn said softly.

“Then we _definitely_ need to have that marathon.” Sulu climbed onto his horse and sighed. “Jeez, I feel like I’m standing up.”

“The horse isn’t that short,” Porter said.

“No, it’s not that,” Sulu replied, laughing a little. “It’s just—foxhunters, jumpers, that sort of thing, they use an English saddle. It’s lighter, shorter stirrups, closer contact with the horse. The Western saddle is bulkier.”

Slim frowned slightly. “I was just thinkin’ these didn’t seem right. I reckon they’re somewhere between a Western an’ an English saddle.”

“I reckon they’re designed with the Arraps in mind,” Audra pointed out. “They have kinda short legs. Maybe these are Western saddles to them. Their English saddles probably might as well be bareback.”

“Good point,” Slim admitted.

They set off again, silent for a while. Porter looked all around him. “It’s so…open,” he said finally. “I haven’t seen so much open space, planetside anyway, since I visited Alaska when I was ten.”

“There isn’t much like this left on Earth,” Sulu said. “Even when I was at Philmont, when we went on the trail ride, it was all…contained. There were fences everywhere telling us where we could and couldn’t go, and the horses they had didn’t jump. I couldn’t stand it.”

The words brought a song to Slim’s mind. He eased his horse a little faster, until the steady rhythm of its hooves matched the tempo in his head, and then he began to sing. “ _Oh, give me land, lots of land, under starry skies above…don’t fence me in…”_

It was an old song—not as old as the traditional ballads that Slim had learned to play on the harmonica, but old nonetheless, at least three centuries. He’d heard several different singers covering it, with varying degrees of scratches in the recordings, but the one that held his heart was the one that Mr. Pinkerton had played for him in the back office at the Roxie, the one with Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters. Slim couldn’t help but sing the song with the slight spin that Crosby had put to it.

Somehow, it didn’t surprise him when Audra joined in. “ _Just turn me loose, let me rattle my ol’ saddle underneath the western skies…”_

Kelly looked a little uncomfortable as his horse, like the others, picked up the pace to match the rhythm of the song, but the others were smiling broadly. Slim and Audra grinned at each other and raised their voices for the final lines. “ _Papa, don’t you fence me in…”_

“Nice song,” Porter said with a grin. “You two been planning that?”

“Nope,” Slim said, blushing a little. “Just sort of…happened.”

“Is it an old—cowboy song?” Nic’tlarn asked, a little uncertainly.

Audra shook her head. “Not exactly. It was written for a western in the 1930s.”

“Still old,” Sulu said.

“Yeah, but it ain’t Ol’-West old.”

“What is a—what was zat word?” Chekov frowned slightly. “Ze—whatever you were on as you wander over yonder?”

The word “yonder” sounded incredibly odd in a Russian accent, but Slim didn’t laugh. “A cayuse? You know, I was never real sure ‘bout that. I’d’a looked it up, but I ain’t sure how to spell it.”

“C-A-Y-U-S-E,” Audra supplied. “In the American West, it was a term for a low-quality pony, or a feral one.”

“What’s the difference between a pony and a horse?” Kelly asked. His voice was shaking a little, but Slim could see that it wasn’t because he was nervous—he was being jolted by the movement of his horse.

Slim caught Audra’s eye and slowed the pace a little, evening things out for the novice riders. “Anythin’ under fourteen-two hands is a pony. Above that it’s a horse.”

Porter glanced at his enormous hands. “Whose hands?”

Audra smiled. “A ‘hand,’ in horseman’s terms, is four standard inches. It used to be a literal hand, but they changed that to make things more standard.”

“So…wait, how do you count fourteen-two? Fourteen-two what?”

“Hands are a base-four unit of measurement,” Slim explained. “Fourteen-two is actually fourteen an’ a half hands, or fifty-eight inches. Bit less ‘n five feet, as measured at the shoulder.”

“Knew there was a reason we kept them around,” Sulu joked to Chekov.

“Don’t challenge my horse knowledge, you’ll lose,” Audra said, laughing. “My daddy taught me to tell one breed from another almost ‘fore I could walk.”

“What breed would you say these were, then?” Sulu asked. “If you had to compare them to Terran horses.”

“If they were actually Terran horses, I’d say they were a cross between the Mustang an’ the Carolina Marsh Tacky, with maybe a dash of Virginia Highlander.”

“I ain’t ever heard of those last two,” Slim objected.

“There ain’t but so many of ‘em, maybe a thousand all told of the Marsh Tackies an’ twice that of the Highlanders. An’ you ain’t likely to have seen many in Oklahoma,” Audra told him. “But they’re real breeds.”

Sulu’s horse whickered and began trotting a little faster. “Whoa,” he said sternly, pulling back on the reins. It slowed, but with obvious reluctance.

Slim observed the way the horses’ nostrils all began flaring. “Wonder what they’re smellin’?”

Audra gave her horse a bit more rein. “Let’s find out.”

It turned out there was a watering hole, just beyond the next rock, with hitching posts and a feeding trough full of grain. There was a ring of logs close to the water’s edge as well, with a charred circle in the middle that indicated at least one fire had been built there. Slim’s horse eagerly reached for the trough, so he slid off and hitched the reins loosely to a post, allowing the horse free access to food and water. “Reckon it wouldn’t hurt to sit here a while.”

Porter squinted up at the sky, his eyes going back and forth. “Mmm, at the rate the sun’s been moving, I figure we’ve got a good three hours before sundown. It took us maybe forty-five minutes to get here, but remember, we had that stretch of gallop. Say it’ll take about an hour to get back. We can rest for two hours, easy.”

Chekov smiled. “And zat’s why we keep him.”

The horses hitched, the seven of them sat in the circle. The rocks overhead formed a sort of shade, giving at least the illusion of late evening to the scene. Without really thinking about it, Slim pulled out his harmonica and began to play. The horse’s ears flicked briefly as the wistful, languid notes of the song rolled up the rocks and sang out over the water.

“What was that song called?” Nic’tlarn asked as the last tones rolled away.

Slim lowered his harmonica. “‘Bye an’ Bye.’ It ain’t too long, just the two verses, but I always thought it was pretty.”

“Sing it, Slim, go on,” Audra urged, smiling at him.

Slim really hoped he wasn’t blushing. He cleared his throat and began to sing. “ _When I look above at that big heavenly plain…and the stars that shine in the sky…”_

The song was a short, wistful one, a man hoping for a rest when he died and went to heaven. When it was over, Sulu tilted his head back up to look at the sky. “Wonder if he ever dreamed that someday men would be among the stars even before they died.”

“Wonder if he ever dreamed that someday someone would sit on a world orbitin’ one of those stars an’ sing his song,” Slim said.

“Good point.”

Chekov leaned against Sulu’s shoulder. “What’s ze oldest cowboy song you know?”

Slim hesitated. “That’s a hard question to answer. Most of ‘em don’t have definite dates.”

“If you had to guess,” Chekov persisted.

“If I had to guess?” Slim repeated. “Probably ‘Root Hog or Die.’”

Porter coughed. “I’m sorry, what? That sounds indecent.”

Slim couldn’t help but laugh. “It’s an old sayin’, dates back to the American Revolution. People who kept pigs used to let ‘em loose in the woods to roam about an’ fend for themselves. If they didn’t root around an’ find food…”

“They’d die,” Kelly supplied. “How’s the song go?”

“Well, there are a lot of versions of it, but my favorite’s also called ‘The Philosophical Cowboy.’”

“I know that one,” Audra said, nudging him companionably. “Tell you what, you play an’ I’ll sing, how’s that?”

Slim smiled and picked up his harmonica again. This particular song was faster, peppier, and all in all really sounded better with guitar accompaniment rather than harmonica, but he started playing anyway. Audra waited until he got to the end of the phrase, then began singing.

Without thinking about it, Slim started tapping his foot. Nic’tlarn clapped in unison with Slim’s foot. Kelly joined in, and by the time Audra reached the end of the second verse, everyone was clapping. One or two of the horses actually looked up at the cluster as the music played.

“That was fun,” Kelly said when they finished. “You know, for a song with ‘philosophical’ in the title.”

Slim wiped his harmonica on his shirt. “It’s a real earworm.”

Nic’tlarn frowned. “You say that as though it’s a good thing.”

“It’s another old Earth term, Nico,” Kelly said. “It means a song that gets into your head and won’t leave.”

“Oh, a _tim’prznik.”_

“Bless you,” Porter said.

“No, it—it means what Kelly just said,” Nic’tlarn said, looking a little embarrassed. “But—I don’t know if you have a word in Standard for it…”

“We do,” Audra said. “Earworm.”

“No,” Nic’tlarn said again. “It’s a word that was repurposed. It originally meant ‘one who lives on another’s property without their consent.’”

“Squatter,” Chekov and Sulu said in unison.

Nic’tlarn smiled. “Personally, I like ‘earworm’ better. In either language.”

Porter stretched. “You ever have that one song that you heard when you were a little kid that won’t leave your head? Like, it does for a little while, but every so often, you’ll be sitting around doing nothing, minding your own business, and then suddenly your stylus starts tapping out a rhythm on the desk, and then you’re humming, and the next thing you know you’re singing whatever song it was?”

“‘When the Iceworms Nest Again,’” Kelly said immediately.

“I’m sorry, _what?”_ Audra cracked up.

Kelly’s face turned pink. “It was…it’s this song I learned back in preschool. My teacher had this collection of songs where each one was about something that started with a different letter of the alphabet, and that was the one for I, was ‘When the Iceworms Nest Again.’ I can sort of remember the other songs, but that’s the one that every so often I’ll just get stuck in my head and the next thing I know I’m singing, _There’s a trusty husky maiden in the Arctic…”_

Slim fought hard to suppress his giggles as Porter stared at Kelly like Christmas had come early. “Dude, you are _so_ singing that song now.”

Kelly’s blush deepened, but he did as Porter requested. He hadn’t even gotten to the end of the first verse before Slim lost his struggle not to laugh, and by the time the first chorus was over, the others had joined in. Even Kelly was laughing as he began the second verse. “ _For our wedding feast we’ll have seal oil and blubber…_ ”

When he finished singing, he immediately turned the spotlight to Porter. “What’s yours?”

“My what?” Porter asked innocently.

“Don’t play the idiot, Simril. What’s your earworm?”

“Oh, uh…” Porter rubbed the back of his neck. “It was actually—um, it was a counting song, and it’s _really_ dumb, and I was probably about Addie’s age when I learned it.”

“So sing it so I can teach it to her,” Slim urged, suddenly painfully aware that he hadn’t taught Addie any songs.

“You don’t want to teach her this song, trust me, it’ll never get out of your head.”

“She needs to learn how to count. She wants to learn how to sing.”

Porter heaved a huge sigh and began to sing. “ _Ten green and speckled frogs…sat on a speckled log…”_

Porter was right. It was ridiculously catchy and repetitive and exactly the sort of thing Addie would love. And, although Slim would rather have gone ten rounds with the mirror version of his father than admit it, he had actually learned it as a child, too. The others joined in by the time Porter was down to eight frogs (it was a counting-down song). Slim listened until he guessed what key they were singing in, then started playing along. It was kind of surprising that any of them could keep singing, as hard as they were laughing.

“Do you have an earworm, Slim?” Porter asked when the last frog had jumped into the pool.

“Not exactly. The only song I get stuck in my head a lot—” Slim stopped and blushed. 

“No, what?” Kelly insisted. “If I had to sing about mukluks and rolling polar bears—”

“It’s just—it ain’t a kiddie song. It’s an old cowboy song.”

Porter grinned. “I should’ve guessed. Well, go on, Slim, let’s hear it. What’s it called?”

Slim blushed deeper. “Um, ‘Green Grow the Lilacs.’”

“Zey do?” Chekov asked, confused.

“Not usually,” Sulu told him. “Go ahead, Slim.”

Slim took a deep breath and began singing the sentimental old ballad, about a cowboy pining for his Mexican lover. There were a couple of versions of that one, too, but Slim preferred the one that implied the woman was pining for the cowboy, too. “ _By the next meetin’ I’ll hope to prove true…an’ change the green lilacs to the Red, White, an’ Blue…”_

“That’s a real pretty song,” Audra said softly when he’d finished. “An’ you’ve got a real good voice.”

“We always knew zat,” Chekov said, smiling. “He gets it from ze keptin…remember ze first time we heard him sing?”

“At the party Pike threw for him after he officially got the _Enterprise,_ ” Sulu said, grinning in reminiscence. “He sang some old John Denver tune…let me think…what was it called again?”

“‘Looking for Space,’” Chekov filled in. “Even Dr. McCoy had no idea he could sing before zat.”

“Wonder what instrument Addie’s gonna play?” Audra said idly. “You play harmonica an’ your dad plays guitar. Wonder if she’ll play somethin’ a little more modern?”

“Piano,” Porter suggested. “I bet she’ll play piano.”

“Can’t you see her on the stage performing Mozart?” Sulu said innocently.

Slim grinned. “Ticklin’ the ivories ‘til they gleam?”

“Isn’t that from a movie?” Kelly asked.

“ _Tangled,_ ” Audra said, pushing a lock of hair that had fallen out of its braid back behind her ear.

Kelly nodded. “Right. ‘I’ve Got a Dream.’ The scene in the Snuggly Duckling.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Porter said, folding his arms over his chest.

Sulu shrugged. “Then when we have that Disney princess marathon, you’re coming, too.”

Slim was thoroughly enjoying himself. It was the first time he’d had solid ground under his feet since being on Capella IV, nearly two years ago now. It had been that long since he’d breathed real air, that long since he’d been on something that couldn’t be easily moved from a prearranged orbit. And he’d technically been on a mission at that point. This was the first time he’d been on a planet and had the chance to relax since leaving Earth.

As if picking up on his thoughts, Audra said, “I’m glad the captain let us come down here. I ain’t set foot on a planet’s surface since we left Earth.”

“Me, neither, although it hasn’t been as long as you,” Porter said. Nic’tlarn nodded.

Sulu shrugged. “Shore leave beats away missions any day of the week.”

“Amen,” Kelly said fervently, shivering a little.

To dispel the dark mood that was starting to gather over them, Slim lifted his harmonica and began to play again. He played quietly, like he was playing Addie to sleep, but the notes rolled out over the desert, the rocks, the water of the little oasis. Chekov melted against Sulu; Kelly and Nic’tlarn leaned into one another. Porter clasped his hands around his knees and closed his eyes, while Audra looked out across the desert.

Slim held the final quavering note for as long as he could, then slowly lowered the harmonica to his lap. For a long moment, none of them spoke. He was startled, and a little alarmed, to see that Audra had tears in her eyes.

“What was zat song called?” Chekov finally asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

“‘Curtains of Night,’” Slim answered softly. “Ol’ night-herdin’ song.”

“My daddy used to sing that to me,” Audra whispered. “When I was little, after my momma left. I don’t remember most of the words, ‘cept that there was a line that was somethin’ like ‘I’ll remember you, love, in my prayers.’”

Slim hadn’t meant to upset Audra, and he wasn’t sure what to do, so he let instinct take over. He reached over and took her hand, squeezing it gently, then began to sing. “ _When the curtains of night are pinned back by the stars…and the beautiful moon sweeps the skies…”_

Sulu wrapped his arms around Chekov, half-pulling him onto his lap, and Kelly and Nic’tlarn moved even closer together, but Slim never took his eyes from Audra’s bright green ones. They hadn’t done much beyond acknowledging that they had feelings for one another up to that point, just sitting close together. This felt important, like they were somehow taking another step forward, a step closer to the kiss they both guessed they weren’t ready for just yet. “Curtains of Night” was one of the great cowboy love songs, one of the few that didn’t end badly, and Slim sang it with his whole heart. Unconsciously he was forming a bridge between Audra’s past and her future—hopefully one that he would have a part in.

“ _And at night when I kneel by my bedside to pray…I’ll remember you, love, in my prayers…”_

When Slim reached the end of the song, there was a silence as the words reverberated through them all. The whinnying of one of the horses broke the spell that had fallen over them all, and Slim let go of Audra’s hand, blushing a little.

Porter glanced up at the sky and reluctantly got to his feet. “We should probably start back if we want to get these horses back before sundown.”

“You’re right.” Sulu got to his feet as well, helping Chekov up. “Round ‘em up and move ‘em out.”

As they remounted the horses, Kelly looked over at Slim. “Do you know any more trail songs? I think the horses respond to them and—I’m not exactly a natural rider. I can use all the help I can get.”

“Sure do,” Slim said, smiling. “Most old cowboy songs are trail songs…hey, Auds, do you know ‘Goodbye, Ol’ Paint?’”

“Just try me,” Audra replied, grinning in reply.

The horses fell into step easily as Slim and Audra sang through a few of the lighter, more upbeat trail songs, the ones that didn’t touch on love or tragedy or any of the sensitive subjects they’d discussed that day. There was some talk, some laughter, but mostly just singing and riding. The sun was staining the sky red, but hadn’t sunk below the horizon, when they rode into sight of the hack barn.

Kzzrpth was just coming out of the barn as they rode through the gates. His face lit up in a grin as he saw them. Chekov was the first to slide off his horse, not exactly in a textbook dismount, and he and the Arraps had a brief conversation in sign. Turning to the others, he said, “He says zat we are welcome to come back and ride any time we’re in ze area. Zere will always be a horse for us, no questions asked.”

Slim dismounted, faced the Arraps, and made the one sign he knew: touching his fingertips to his lips, then extending his arm straight out, palm up. “Thank you,” he said sincerely, reinforcing the sign.

Kzzrpth’s smile was all the answer Slim needed.

As the seven of them proceeded to the beam-up point, ready to get back aboard the ship, Slim saw Jim and Leo rounding the corner of a building. Leo had Addie in his arms; she was falling asleep, obviously worn out with excitement. Jim spotted the group first. He smiled and waved. “I guess you guys found ways to amuse yourselves?”

Slim glanced at his friends. They all exchanged broad grins before turning back to Jim. “Yeah, Dad,” Slim said. “We sure did.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All of the songs mentioned in this chapter are real songs. Most of them are real cowboy songs. "Don't Fence Me In" was written for Roy Rogers (I don't think he actually wrote it), but the version I've been listening to is by Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters (it's on YouTube if you want to listen to it). "When the Iceworms Nest Again" is, apparently, an old Canadian song, but I became aware of it through a CD entitled "Sharon, Lois, and Bram Sing A-Z." (It really is annoyingly catchy and I've had it stuck in my head all night.) Porter's earworm is usually just called "Ten Green and Speckled Frogs," in case anyone was wondering.


	71. You Know What's On the Way

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, I am so sorry this is so late. It's been a hell of a couple of weeks--I live on the East Coast and we got SLAMMED with winter weather--and I was also trying desperately to get two birthday presents finished for a friend. (Did I finish either one? No.) And parts of this chapter just refused to be written. It was like pulling teeth.
> 
> I know I keep saying this, but hopefully I'll be able to reestablish a buffer soon. I sort of know what's coming in the next couple of chapters, but not completely, and I've given up predicting where they're going.
> 
> That being said...this chapter. I debated with myself over what happens here. A lot. I know it's something that might throw people out of the story. But, as I say in the chapter itself, there is in-universe precedent--not a lot, but there is precedent. And the more I've thought about it, the more I've come to like it. So...here. I hope it doesn't bother TOO many people...

Len crossed his arms over his chest, more out of habit than need, as he stood at the side of the exam table. “Well, Ensign O’Flaherty, what seems to be the trouble?”

“I don’t know,” O’Flaherty admitted. “I’ve just been feeling…weird.”

“Care to be a little more specific?” Leo asked with a slight smile. He liked the young ensign, who was presenting male that particular day, and he couldn’t resist a little gentle teasing. “Weird how?”

“A little tired. A little achy. And for the last few days, I’ve been nauseous most mornings. Didn’t throw up until today, though, which is why I came in finally.”

“Mmm.” Leo glanced upwards, then back at O’Flaherty. “Have you noticed any changes in appetite, sleeping habits, that kind of thing?”

O’Flaherty hesitated, biting his lip. “Well, not—a lot. But I usually drink coffee in the morning, and the last few days, just the smell of it’s been making me sick.”

Leo made a couple of ticks on his mental checklist. “All right, well, let me ask—are you sexually active?”

“Kind of?” O’Flaherty’s voice rose in inflection slightly, implying a question.

Leo raised an eyebrow. “Meaning?”

“Well, it’s just—Nico is basically asexual,” O’Flaherty blurted. “At least, that’s the nearest human equivalent. It’s got to do with xyr gender, sort of—I don’t really understand much of Zathros biology and I haven’t really wanted to interrogate xem about it. Sometimes xe’ll—for me—but it’s not really xyr thing, and I’m okay with not—so I don’t ask xem too often. We’ve only had actual sex a few times—maybe a handful. And only once or twice since we’ve been on the _Enterprise._ ”

“When was the last time?”

“Maybe three months ago?”

“And when was your last period?”

O’Flaherty managed a smile. “Never. Biologically speaking, I’m male.”

Leo smiled back. “Well, that rules out my first thought. It’s probably just a low-grade ‘flu. We’ll run some tests to be sure, but I bet we can knock out that queasiness and have you back in tiptop condition in no time.”

“Thanks, Doctor.” O’Flaherty looked relieved.

The tricorder and other diagnostic equipment was highly sophisticated, constantly updated, and extremely sensitive; if there was even a hint of virus, bacterium, parasite, enzyme deficiency, or anything else that might have caused illness, it would pick it up instantly. Leo ran the standard battery of tests, but they came back clean, so he went for a more intensive set of tests. He even pulled blood to test separately. Nothing.

The whole time, a single thought kept running through Leo’s head. Finally, after half an hour or negative results, he turned to O’Flaherty and said quietly, “I just want to try one more thing. Do me a favor, okay? Pull up your shirt and lie on your back.”

O’Flaherty did as he was told, although Leo saw the flash of panic in his eyes as he did. Reassuringly, he squeezed the young man’s hand. “It’s okay, O’Flaherty. Look, do you want me to call someone else in for this part?”

“N-no.” O’Flaherty’s voice wavered a little. “I’m okay.”

Leo wasn’t sure about that, but he nodded anyway. He turned and set up the machine he hadn’t actually expected to ever need to use, certainly not for this particular exam. In a moment, it was ready, and he gently pressed one end of the machine to O’Flaherty’s abdomen. The ensign flinched slightly, closing his eyes and biting his lips hard, then began breathing in deep, slow breaths.

The test normally didn’t take long to run, but it was made a little difficult in this case because it wasn’t designed for someone like O’Flaherty. Still, it was no more than ten minutes before the results flashed up on the screen. Leo stared at them for a minute, then turned to the ensign and touched his shoulder lightly. “O’Flaherty.”

O’Flaherty opened his eyes and managed a weak smile. “Is it done? Can I sit up now?”

“You can. But…I know why you’re nauseous now.”

“Why?”

Leo told him.

There was a long silence. O’Flaherty hadn’t sat up before Leo delivered his diagnosis; he still lay on his back, his shirt rucked up around his chest, his face as white as it had been when he’d run up the hill during Apollo’s storm. At last, he said in a soft, shaky voice, “Are you sure?”

“Positive,” Leo said. “It shouldn’t be possible…but it is.”

“But—but how?”

“Damned if I know. You’re only the second in human history.”

O’Flaherty looked confused. “The second? Who was the first?”

Leo smiled. “Incidentally, another engineer. Commander ‘Trip’ Tucker, the chief engineer on the original _Enterprise._ I mean,” he amended, “the original _starship Enterprise._ The NX-01.”

“I’ve heard of Commander Tucker, but I never heard he…” O’Flaherty’s voice trailed off. “Where did you—?”

“Dr. Phlox was one of my instructors at Starfleet Academy. He took a shine to me, for some reason. And just before our first five-year, he and Boyce insisted on taking me out to dinner to tell me some of the things I could expect on a deep-space voyage.” Leo shook his head, remembering the older man and the practically ancient alien, laughing as they swapped stories of ridiculous mishaps and quirky crew members. The smile faded, however, as he remembered Boyce struggling not to break down when they inadvertently touched off one of his fondest memories of Captain Christopher Pike. “Anyway, _he_ told me. It wasn’t…exactly the same, but it was similar enough. I can tell you the story, if you’d like.”

“No…not right now.” O’Flaherty’s hands drifted towards his bare midriff. In a voice scarcely above a whisper, he asked, “What now?”

“Well, that’s up to you, Ensign,” Leo said. Unconsciously, he folded his arms over his chest, but his eyes, as he regarded the engineer, were sympathetic and kindly. “It’s your body, and your medical care. You get to decide where we go from here.”

O’Flaherty swallowed. His eyes had a blind, unfocused look, and Leo could see the hint of terror hovering about him. In the two weeks since leaving Pollux IV, between his work and the company of his friends—especially the several hours’ rest he’d had on Upsilon Maenali VII, learning to ride horses in the desert—had soothed and relaxed him until he was once more the cheerful, sunny youngster he’d been on first arrival, but this news seemed to have taken him back to the fear and helplessness he’d faced under Apollo’s scrutiny.

Leo’s mind jumped back to their last encounter with the self-proclaimed god—to Jim, obviously (to Leo anyway) terrified of Apollo but doing his damnedest to hide it and be strong for his crew, wrapping himself protectively around O’Flaherty to shield her from the self-proclaimed god. Memory supplied several other snippets from the encounter, then connected the dots. Quietly, Leo added, “Whatever you decide, I’ll have to tell the captain. Would you like me to do that now?”

“Yes, please,” O’Flaherty replied immediately.

“All right. I’ll be right back.” Leo touched the ensign’s hand briefly before heading around the corner into the main Med Bay. Halfway to the door he collared Gage, who happened to be cleaning one of the biobeds, and said in a low but insistent voice, “Don’t let anybody else back there with O’Flaherty until I get back.”

“You got it, Doc.” Gage’s expression was unusually serious. The man might have been an absolute cut-up with a twisted sense of humor, but he was damned good at his job.

As he ascended to the bridge, Leo wondered how to carry it off—cavalier, treat the whole thing as a joke, or with warmth and excitement? It was difficult, he had to admit, to gauge what his reaction should be when he didn’t even know what _O’Flaherty’s_ reaction was. He decided, as the doors slid open, to just play it by ear and trust his instincts.

Jim was just turning away from the computer station, where he’d apparently been conferring with Spock, and caught sight of Leo. His face lit up in a smile as he came forward. “Hey, Bones!”

“Hey, Jim,” Leo said, smiling as warmly in reply as he could.

“Med Bay that boring, that you had to come up and take a look at this vast expanse of uninhabited space?” Jim teased.

Leo folded his arms across his chest again. “Kelly O’Flaherty rejected his breakfast this morning.”

Jim’s smile slipped. “Some sort of bug going around?”

“He’s pregnant, Jim,” Leo said quietly.

At that, the smile disappeared completely, and Jim’s eyes widened in shock. “ _What?_ ”

“I’ve just examined him. He’s pregnant.”

“Okay, wait. Wait.” Jim held up a hand and took a breath. “I know he’s presenting male today. I’ll just assume, then, that under the—”

“You’re assuming wrong,” Leo interrupted. “He’s biologically male. No ovaries, no uterus, no nothing.”

“Bones, that’s impossible!”

“There’s precedent. Not much, but there is precedent.” Leo glanced briefly at Spock, but the half-Vulcan seemed preoccupied with his own duties and was ignoring the conversation. “2151. First contact with the Xyrillians. Commander Charles ‘Trip’ Tucker accidentally became pregnant—well, more accurately, host to a Xyrillian embryo, but really, the only difference between that and a typical pregnancy was that he bore no genetic relation to the child he was carrying. His body still adapted to suit the developing baby’s needs.”

Jim’s hands curled into fists at his side. “Apollo?”

“That’s my guess.” Leo put a hand on Jim’s shoulder. “I don’t see any other explanation. After all, he _is_ an alien.”

“Is he okay?” Jim asked, a little anxiously.

Leo hesitated. “He’s in shock, understandably. I told him I was coming to let you know…”

Instantly, Jim turned around. “Mr. Spock, you have the conn. I’ll be in Med Bay. Contact me if there’s an emergency.”

If Spock was surprised, he didn’t show it. “I copy, Captain.”

Leo didn’t say anything, merely followed Jim into the lift. As they were descending, Jim said quietly, “What happens now?”

“That depends on what O’Flaherty wants to do next,” Leo said, just as quietly. “If he decides to terminate the pregnancy, I can remove it this afternoon, keep him at least overnight for observation, and have him back on shift two days from now. If he decides to keep it, I’ll start him on a round of neonatal vitamins and monitor his diet. Have to keep a close eye on him. This isn’t a typical pregnancy, obviously.”

“That’s worrying me.” Jim ran a hand through his hair. “I know it happens in women—what’s it called? Atopic pregnancy?”

“Ectopic,” Leo corrected him.

“But isn’t it dangerous when that happens?”

“It can be. The success rate is higher than it was two hundred years ago, but still, the placenta has to attach somewhere, and if it attaches to a part of the body that isn’t designed for it, it can cause complications. But I can’t predict the outcome of this situation. O’Flaherty’s body wasn’t designed to carry a child, period. That might bring about even more complications than a regular ectopic pregnancy.”

“And yet you’re still giving him a choice?” Jim said incredulously.

“It’s his body, Jim, and his decision. I can give him advice, even make a medical recommendation, but I can’t tell him what to do.”

Jim bit his lips hard and looked down at his feet. He didn’t say anything for the rest of their journey, and Leo, wise in the ways of his husband, left him alone.

O’Flaherty hadn’t moved since Leo had left the exam room; he was still lying on his back, his stomach still exposed, his face still ghostly white. He started at the sound of their footsteps and looked up. When his eyes locked on Jim, he sat up. “Captain—”

Jim instantly went to the ensign’s side and wrapped him in a wordless embrace. O’Flaherty crumpled against him, clinging to his shirt like a drowning man to a log. Leo felt a lump in his throat as he watched the two of them, feeling a little bit like an outsider but not enough that he was going to walk away.

“You okay?” Jim murmured in the same gentle tone of voice he used with Slim on the boy’s rough days.

“I—I don’t know,” O’Flaherty admitted. “It’s—it’s a lot to take in.”

“I don’t think I can even begin to imagine.”

O’Flaherty bit his lower lip. “I just—there are so many questions. I guess the most important one is…how?”

Jim pulled back a little and looked down at O’Flaherty with an expression of soft concern. “You know it has to be Apollo’s, right?”

Tears brimmed in O’Flaherty’s eyes, but he nodded and said softly, “I know, but—he didn’t—all he did was kiss me. Touch my arms, my face. I—I’d know if he’d done anything else.”

Leo’s blood ran cold. Jim’s expression didn’t change. “I believe you. But it still has to be his.”

“But—why?”

“That one I can answer,” Jim said quietly. “There was a time on Earth, in most cultures at one point or another, when having a man’s child bound you to him forever—or him to you—whether either of you wanted that bond or not. Apollo didn’t know we’d figure out a way to defeat him, that we’d get away, that you _wouldn’t_ be so much in his thrall that you’d convince us to stay. And if we’d stayed on Pollux IV, and you’d found yourself pregnant with his child—in his mind, that would have made you his.”

O’Flaherty flinched. Leo reached out to put a comforting hand on his shoulder, then checked. “I don’t know much about ancient Greek mythology, Ensign O’Flaherty, but I seem to recall that mere mortals didn’t leave the gods. It didn’t end well for them if they tried.”

“You’re not wrong,” O’Flaherty said, swallowing. “The gods were notoriously unfaithful lovers…but if their mortal lovers rejected them, or pulled away, they could be pretty vengeful.” He shivered.

“It’s all right, Kelly, he can’t hurt you anymore,” Jim said in a gentle, reassuring voice. “He’s gone.”

O’Flaherty slowly let one hand drift towards his abdomen, in a gesture Leo remembered, with a flash of pain, from Jocelyn’s pregnancy. “I don’t know about that…” He looked up fearfully, eyes flickering between Leo and Jim. “I don’t have the—the necessary equipment. How will the baby get out?”

Despite himself, Leo smiled. “Easy. We have a medical transporter right here. That’s actually the most common way of delivering a child these days—it’s faster, safer, and less painful. If you decide to try and carry the baby to term, when you go into labor, we’ll bring out the device and basically beam the baby out.”

“And if I keep it…what’ll happen to me?”

The question was asked soft and low, but it was obvious, from the way the fear in O’Flaherty’s eyes increased rather than lessened, that this was the real issue. And Leo knew perfectly well why that was. Starfleet regulations stated that any crew member who wound up pregnant had three choices: take a posting on a starbase or space station, retire from Starfleet entirely, or leave the child with a family member. Few chose that option.

“What do you want, Ensign?” Jim asked, keeping his voice equally low.

“I—” The tears at last began to spill from O’Flaherty’s eyes. “The _Enterprise_ is my home. The crew is my family, the only one that’s ever cared about me. And Nico…I don’t want to leave all that.”

Jim stroked his hair. “Then we’ll work it out so you don’t have to.”

“Jim, Starfleet regulations—” Leo began, hating to be a killjoy but not wanting Jim to raise impossible hopes, either.

“Bones, we have _our_ children on this ship,” Jim pointed out. “Addie’s been aboard since she was two months old. This is an experiment, right? An experiment is no good without a decent sample size. So if you want to keep this baby, O’Flaherty, I’ll talk to Starfleet Command and we’ll figure out how to squeeze a crib into your quarters.”

“Thank you, Captain.” O’Flaherty wiped his eyes and took a deep breath. “I—Dr. McCoy, you—you used the word _try._ Do you—do you think I wouldn’t—?”

Inwardly, Leo cursed his choice of words, even though it was accurate. He wanted to reassure the young man, tell him everything would be fine—tell Jim that, too—but he knew he had to be honest. He couldn’t pretend everything would be okay, because if it wasn’t, he’d be paying for that later. Quietly, he said, “Like you said, you don’t have the normal equipment. I don’t know what this embryo is attached to, what it’s growing in, if it’s growing in anything. Even regular pregnancies can spontaneously miscarry, but it’s more likely with an ectopic pregnancy. It might not go to term. It might not survive.” He hesitated, then plunged ahead. “Frankly, _you_ might not survive, if it’s attached to the wrong thing.”

O’Flaherty turned pale. “How…how would you be able to tell? I mean…”

“I can do a more detailed examination,” Leo said slowly. “Take a closer look at what’s going on…but, O’Flaherty, it would be more…invasive isn’t the right word, but you know what I mean.”

“Yeah,” O’Flaherty said softly. “I do, but…I need to know before I can make a decision, don’t I?”

Leo breathed a silent sigh of relief. The kid was actually going to be sensible about it—he was actually thinking things through, gathering all information before making a decision. Jim spoke up before he could. “Do you want me to comm Nic’tlarn?”

O’Flaherty hesitated. “N-no,” he said at last. “Xe’s on shift right now, and…”

Jim nodded. “Would you like me to stay, then?”

O’Flaherty’s expression was hopeful. “Would you?”

“Of course.” Jim squeezed the young man’s hand reassuringly.

Leo touched O’Flaherty’s shoulder gently. “Okay, kid, I’m gonna go get the equipment I need. You go ahead and get comfortable, and I’ll be right back.”

“Okay,” O’Flaherty said softly.

Nodding to Jim, Leo headed out into the main part of Med Bay to get his equipment. McCall’s eyebrows lifted as she saw what he was gathering. “Everything all right in there?”

“Everything’s fine,” Leo said with a quick smile.

“Need a hand, Doc?” Gage asked, gesturing to the equipment.

Leo hesitated for a brief moment. In theory he ought to say yes; it would probably take more than one person to run the machines. But O’Flaherty was terrified enough, and he hadn’t decided what he wanted to do yet. In the end, his desire to spare the ensign undue stress or embarrassment won out, and he said, “No thanks, Johnny, I can handle it.”

“Okay,” Gage said, not sounding at all as though he believed it.

Returning to the exam room, Leo found O’Flaherty lying on his back, his hands folded over his stomach, breathing deeply. Jim had pulled a chair up to one side, up by O’Flaherty’s head, and sat without saying a word. Leo took his cue from his husband, quietly getting everything in order and allowing O’Flaherty to attempt to compose himself.

“Okay, I think we’re ready,” he said at last. “Go ahead and pull your shirt up for me.”

O’Flaherty flinched at the request, his face paling again, fear filling his eyes, but then he stopped and lifted his shirt, quickly, as if more afraid of what would happen if he didn’t do what he’d been told. Jim touched his arm lightly. “It’s okay,” he said softly. “You’re safe here.”

“S-sorry,” O’Flaherty said nervously, swallowing hard. He licked his lips and glanced over at Leo. “I’m sorry, Dr. McCoy. I know you’re—you’re not going to hurt me. It’s just that I—” He broke off, obviously unsure of how to continue.

“It’s all right,” Leo said gently. “Fears aren’t rational. I know that. It takes a special kind of stubborn to look them in the face and tell them to get stuffed.”

“A kind of stubborn you possess in abundance,” Jim said, grinning.

“Shut up,” Leo said, but without any real heat.

“Hey, you know it’s true, Bones. Ex-wife or no ex-wife, you had to be pretty damned stubborn to get on that shuttle in the face of everything.”

“What shuttle?” O’Flaherty asked, his voice a little thready.

“To the Academy.”

“You were…afraid of joining Starfleet?”

“In a sense.” Leo smiled ruefully. “I had a severe phobia of flying—and space, for that matter. But I didn’t see I had much of a choice. Ex-wife took the whole damned planet in the divorce.”

“All he had left was his bones,” Jim added with a smirk.

That actually got a smile, however feeble, out of O’Flaherty. Leo kept talking quietly as he ran the battery of tests, telling the ensign all about that first shuttle flight, how he’d started by threatening to throw up on Jim and ended up _actually_ throwing up on him, how once he’d sobered up he’d gone out and bought Jim a new pair of shoes because he felt so guilty. It seemed to distract O’Flaherty from the discomfort of the examination, so when he reached the end of the story, he went into another, describing his sister’s obnoxious attempts to get Jim to kiss her when he brought him home for Christmas the first time. Jim sat at the ensign’s head, holding his hand, supplying additional details when necessary, but mostly just lending his wholehearted silent support.

It was almost two hours later that Leo was finally finished with the tests. Ordinarily he would have gone for the PADD that had been downloading all the data first, but instead he took O’Flaherty’s free hand, giving his fingers a gentle squeeze.

“You did good, kid,” he said gently. “You can go ahead and pull your shirt down and sit up now.”

O’Flaherty tugged his shirt down and, with Jim’s help, sat up as Leo picked up the PADD with the results on it. He quickly scanned through it, noting a couple of interesting points. “Well, the baby seems to be healthy, so far. Of course, it’s early days yet.” He looked up at O’Flaherty, who was watching him anxiously, and smiled. “The first thing I should tell you is that the embryo seems to have created its own environment to develop in. I don’t know if it can properly be called a uterus, but it’s something similar. So this isn’t an ectopic pregnancy. One worry down, at least.”

O’Flaherty was silent, and Leo wasn’t sure if he’d understood. At last, he muttered, “Dionysus.”

“What?” Leo asked, confused.

“Greek god of wine,” Jim supplied. “Roman form was Bacchus”

“One of the stories…there were two stories about his birth, but one was that he was the son of Zeus and a mortal woman,” O’Flaherty said softly. “Hera was jealous—she was always jealous of any woman Zeus cheated on her with—so she planted the seed of doubt in the woman’s mind that the baby’s father was actually Zeus. The woman insisted on seeing Zeus’s true form…the divine form of the gods was fatal to mortals, so as soon as she saw it, she died. The mortal half of the baby died, too, but the legend was that Zeus took him and sewed him into his thigh, allowing him to finish developing, at which point he burst out.”

“That’s…really disturbing,” Jim said.

Leo was beginning to understand. “And it’s probably pretty garbled. Think about who was telling the story—simple shepherds and scholars. An advanced culture in a lot of ways—we owe a lot of modern civilization to them—but technologically, they hadn’t even progressed as far as short-wave radio. They were probably trying to make sense of what they saw, but which the so-called gods weren’t willing to explain. It’s possible, too, that the story grew in the telling. Maybe the child’s mother just died—it happened a lot more often back then—and the race knew of a way to save the developing baby, so they removed it from the woman, maybe uterus and all, and sewed it into Zeus.”

“Frankly, that’s even more disturbing,” Jim said. “But I see your point. You’re saying that this species—even hybrids—has a remarkable ability and desire to survive, to the point that the embryos will form their own place to gestate, even if the…host, for lack of a better term, doesn’t have the necessary parts.”

“Right,” Leo said. “It’s just a theory, mind you, but from what we’ve seen, and what O’Flaherty’s just said, I think it’s pretty valid.”

“I always used to wonder,” O’Flaherty said softly. He rested his hands on his stomach again. The fear was beginning to recede from his eyes, to be replaced with something else, something softer. “So…there’s no danger if I carry to term?”

Leo hesitated. “I’d want you in for frequent check-ups, at least once a week, maybe twice. But…as far as I can see, no, there wouldn’t be any more danger than in a regular pregnancy.”

O’Flaherty bit his lower lip, looking down thoughtfully. Leo leaned back against the wall, folding his arms over his chest, and waited, not hurrying the ensign along. He knew well that this was a serious question, a serious decision that had to be made, and he was glad that O’Flaherty wasn’t rushing into things. After all, childbirth was an eighteen-year commitment.

“I’d like to talk it over with Nico first,” he said at last. “This is something—I mean, we’re together, so I’d like to know what xe thinks before I commit for sure. But…I’ve always wanted to be a parent.”

There was a curious, hungry light in his eyes as he spoke. Leo recognized that look. It was the same look Jim had had the night they’d first discussed the possibility of having children of their own. Jim, of course, hadn’t “always wanted” to be a father; the very idea had terrified him for a long time, since he’d never known his own father and his only example growing up had been Frank. But that night, they’d decided that there was nothing they couldn’t do together—and, Leo thought, they’d been right. Look at Addie. Hell, look at Slim.

“And you’ll be a great one,” Jim said with a smile, patting his back. “Want me to call Nic’tlarn up now?”

“No—no, Alpha’s not over,” O’Flaherty said. “It’ll keep—right?” he added uncertainly, looking up at Leo.

Leo nodded. “Right. You can stay here if you like. Get some rest, and that’ll give me time to get things set up and arranged for you. I’d like to start you on a course of neonatal vitamins, and we need to do a diet plan to make sure both you and the baby are getting all the nutrients you need.”

O’Flaherty nodded. “Thanks, Doctor. I—I don’t really want to go wandering around the ship just yet.” He ran his hands over his abdomen again, almost absently.

Leo couldn’t hold back a smile. “You’re barely into your first trimester, O’Flaherty. You’re not showing yet.”

O’Flaherty blushed. “I know, I just—”

“It’s okay, kid.” Leo rumpled his hair affectionately. “I’ll let you stay here while I work on what I need to do. Call me if you need me, okay?”

“I will. Thanks, Doctor.” O’Flaherty looked up at Leo and smiled—a real smile, the first one Leo had seen all day. He couldn’t help smiling in reply.

Jim accompanied Leo out of the exam room. Once they were beyond the door, he said quietly, “You’re sure he’ll be okay?”

“As sure as I would be if he were female,” Leo answered just as quietly. “Or biologically female, anyway. I really think he’ll be able to carry this baby to term, if he wants to. What’s worrying me at this point is your end of it. Do you _really_ think you’ll be able to talk Starfleet Command into letting him stay—and the baby?”

“If I can’t, no one can,” Jim said with the confidence that had characterized him from day one. “Seriously, though, Bones, it’s a good point. Addie is too small of a sample size to be an accurate judge of how well this would work. Even one to a starship wouldn’t be good enough. We need to see what having multiple children—multiple _young_ children—multiple families—would be like. O’Flaherty is giving us that opportunity.”

Leo nodded. “See you after shift?”

“I’ll be back down as soon as I can,” Jim promised. He leaned over to give Leo a kiss, then headed out.

The first thing Leo needed to do was update O’Flaherty’s medical records. He did this with as much care and neatness as he could, although after about twenty minutes he acknowledged to himself that he was stalling. At some point, he would have to clue in his medical staff. Although they were all supposed to read every file at least once every week, just to make sure nothing had changed, some of them didn’t. Besides, he owed his senior officers the courtesy of telling them. Part of him wanted to wait until O’Flaherty was a little further along; after all, this early, spontaneous miscarriages were relatively common.

Then again, maybe he would at least tell McCall.

He wasted a few more minutes needlessly tidying his already immaculate office, then headed out into the main Med Bay. It so happened that McCall was alone. She looked up and smiled when she saw him. “I sent everyone else on lunch. Figured you and I could hold things down for forty-five minutes.”

“Good thinking, Dix.” Leo smiled in reply. “All clear out here?”

“All clear. How’s O’Flaherty?”

Leo hesitated. “This doesn’t leave the two of us.”

McCall looked a little worried, but she held up a hand. “Not a word.”

“He’s pregnant.”

“He—what?” McCall gaped at him. “Are you sure?”

Leo fixed her with a Look. “I’ve been examining him for the last three hours. I’d damned well better be sure.”

“Okay, poor choice of words. It’s just— _how?_ ”

“Apollo. It’s something he’s still coming to terms with, so let’s try not to bring it up more than necessary, but he’s about two weeks along. And I think he’s planning to keep it.”

McCall smiled slightly. “So we’ll have two little ones on the ship for the rest of the mission?”

“The captain’s gonna pull some strings to allow that to happen,” Leo said, smiling a little as well. “If that’s what O’Flaherty wants.”

“I assume that by ‘that,’ you mean ‘keeping the baby,’” McCall said with a wry twist to her mouth. “Anyone can see, just from looking at that kid, that he wants to stay on the _Enterprise.”_ She pushed a stray strand of ash-blonde hair back behind her ear. “Addie will be glad to have a playmate her own age, anyway.”

“She will at that,” Leo agreed. “Although it’ll be a little while before this baby is old enough to play with her.” Catching himself, he shook his head and added, “Assuming O’Flaherty even decides he _wants_ the baby. And assuming it makes it to term.”

McCall grew serious instantly. “Ectopic?”

“Surprisingly, no. Best I can figure is that the species has the ability to create its own womb if there isn’t a hospitable environment available in the host. Probably why you never hear legends about women miscarrying godlings.”

“Demigods,” McCall corrected him.

Leo stared at her. “What?”

“The offspring of a god and a mortal is a demigod,” McCall elaborated. “A godling is someone who plays host to a god. Completely different thing.”

“And you know this because…?” Leo raised an eyebrow, folding his arms over his chest.

McCall looked sheepish. “I read the Rick Riordan books when I was a kid.”

Leo gave a mock-groan. “Not you, too.”

Gage and DeSoto came back in just then, effectively putting an end to the conversation. Leo watched them settle into their tasks again, then suddenly thought of something. Retreating into his office again, he shut the door, then activated the communicator. “Medical to Engineering.”

After a moment’s pause, Scotty’s voice came over the line. “Scott here.”

“Scotty, sorry to bother you if you’re busy—”

“Things are quite at the moment. What can I do for you, McCoy?”

“It’s not urgent,” Leo said firmly. “Don’t pull xem off of xyr station—but after Alpha is over, would you send Ensign Nic’tlarn up to Med Bay, please?”

“Aye, I can do that.” Scotty suddenly sounded worried. Dropping his voice, he asked, “Is it O’Flaherty? Everything all right? I know he was ill this morning—”

“He’s fine,” Leo said slowly. “For the moment. But…actually, why don’t you come up here after Alpha, too? I’ll explain what’s going on. You’re his head of department—you need to know what’s going on.”

“You’re worrying me, McCoy.”

“I promise, Scotty, it is neither contagious nor life-threatening.” _As far as I know._

Again there was a pause. “All right, I trust you. See you after Alpha, McCoy. Scott out.”

Leo switched off his intercom, hoping he hadn’t just made trouble. Scotty wasn’t exactly the type to fret, but he _was_ incredibly protective of his engineers—witness his behavior on Pollux IV. He wouldn’t come up to Med Bay until Alpha was over—he’d given his word—but if he started stressing, even unconsciously, that anxiety could convey itself subconsciously to his engineers. Leo vividly remembered the dramatic increase in Engineering accidents when poor Keenser died. Scotty’s guilt and grief had caused him to snap out unnecessarily, creating a hostile work environment. He didn’t want that to happen again.

“Hey, Doc,” Gage said as Leo reemerged into Med Bay. “How’s O’Flaherty?”

“He’s fine,” Leo assured him. “Resting here for a little big while I finalize his treatment plan, but he’s okay.”

“Nothing serious?”

“Nothing contagious, you mean? Don’t worry, there’s nothing going around.”

Gage pulled a face. “Thank God. I hate throwing up.”

“Do you know anyone who likes it?” DeSoto said with a raised eyebrow.

Leo laughed, then headed over to begin putting together a diet plan for O’Flaherty.

The remainder of the shift passed more or less quietly. There was the usual parade of minor illnesses and easily preventable injuries, most of which were spared their doctor’s grousing, as he spent about an hour with O’Flaherty, explaining exactly what he would need to do if he did decide to keep the baby in terms of diet and physical care and restrictions. O’Flaherty seemed to take everything in and asked a number of intelligent questions that left Leo in no doubt that, should he go through with it, he would be an excellent parent.

At change of shift, Leo brought M’Benga up to speed on O’Flaherty’s condition, taking care to keep his voice down so that no one else could hear. M’Benga, for his part, didn’t seem ruffled in the slightest. “I’ll add him to the shortlist of people to comm you about if they come in while you’re off-duty, then. Are you going to come back to brief Weaver before Gamma, or do you want me to?”

“Could you?” Leo asked. “It’s all in the file, if you want to just point her in that direction. I just feel like I ought to spend the evening with _my_ family.”

“Understood.” M’Benga laughed. “Speaking of, you going to go get Addie?”

“No, Slim’s got her today. I have to wait for Scotty and Ensign Nic’tlarn to get here.”

“I can brief them, if you like.”

Leo shook his head. “Thanks, but I promised O’Flaherty.”

The Alpha shift nurses and orderlies drifted out. Leo was just about to go check on O’Flaherty again when the doors opened and Nic’tlarn came in, xyr face creased in anxiety, with Scotty a half-step behind xem. “Dr. McCoy—” the ensign began breathlessly.

“Over here,” Leo interrupted, beckoning both of them to the back room. Pausing in the doorway, he touched Nic’tlarn on the shoulder as lightly as possible, remembering the Zathros’ nerves. “Go on. He’s just fine—but this is something he’ll want to tell you himself.”

Nic’tlarn nodded, then darted forward. Leo, following xyr progress, saw O’Flaherty look up with a smile at his approach. “Hey, Nico,” he said softly.

“Kelly,” Nic’tlarn said, just as softly. Xe touched xyr fingertips to O’Flaherty’s. “Are you all right?”

Leo drew Scotty to the side and into his office. Scotty looked more anxious than Leo had seen him in a while. “ _Is_ he all right? What was the matter with him?”

Folding his arms over his chest, Leo leaned against his desk. “He’s pregnant.”

Scotty went absolutely still. After a moment, he said in a low voice, “Apollo?”

“Apollo,” Leo agreed. “Don’t ask me how. O’Flaherty swears he never did anything more invasive than kissing him—and, mind you, he’s biologically male, so it shouldn’t be possible. But he’s pregnant with a demigod. _Not_ a godling. I have been thoroughly corrected about that.”

Scotty didn’t even react to the quip, feeble as it was. “I sincerely hope that—that _creature_ really is dead, because if he’s not, I’ll kill him.”

“You’ll have help. Jim wasn’t exactly thrilled, either.” Leo glanced at his door. “To be honest, neither am I. But trust me, Scotty, O’Flaherty’s okay. Physically, anyway. And…I think he’s adjusting to the idea of being a parent.”

“He’s going to keep it, then?” Scotty asked.

“He hasn’t officially made a decision—said he wanted to talk it over with Nic’tlarn first, since they’re together,” Leo said. “But…I think so.”

Scotty’s face fell. “Then I’ll be losing two engineers, will I? You know that regulations—”

Leo shook his head. “Jim’s going to see what he can do. After all, if having _our_ family on board is supposed to be an experiment…well, an experiment’s not much good with only one test case, is it? Be much better to see how it goes with multiple families. Especially if this baby is born on the ship.”

“Will it be a boy or a girl?”

“Scotty, at this stage of development, it’s a blob. I think the only reason he’s even having symptoms at this stage is because his body is flat-out not designed for this. Most women don’t start having morning sickness until about week six. O’Flaherty’s only at the end of week four.”

“But we were only on Pollux IV two weeks ago,” Scotty said sharply.

Leo held out out both hands, palms forward. “For ease of convenience, pregnancies tend to date from the beginning of a woman’s last menstrual cycle, which means that fertilization usually happens towards the end of week two, beginning of week three. I reckoned it that way out of habit.”

Scotty relaxed slightly. “McCoy, tell me honestly. Will he be all right?”

“As all right as any female crew member would be,” Leo answered. “He can still pull regular duties in Engineering, for the most part, throughout his first trimester. But I’m classifying this as a high-risk pregnancy, for obvious reasons. He needs to avoid too much heat, and I’ve got a list of chemicals he needs to avoid—all of which are probably pretty common down there, now that I’m thinking about it.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “And whatever you decide about his duties, he’ll need to either be assigned a desk job of sorts or put on medical leave at twenty-four weeks.”

“Should I reduce his schedule to every other day now? Ease up on him a wee bit?”

“That’s up to you right now. I’ll be monitoring him closely, and this might be rough on him, so in a few weeks I might be recommending that reduction in time. But right now, I’d say he can still work a regular schedule, if you want him to.”

Scotty hesitated. “Maybe I should talk to him first. See how he feels about it all.”

“That might be wise,” Leo agreed.

They stepped out of Leo’s office just as Jim came into Med Bay. He caught sight of them and strode over, his smile a little anxious. “Everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine,” Leo assured him. “We were just going to talk to O’Flaherty. Coming?”

“Naturally.” Jim slipped his arm around Leo’s waist.

Nic’tlarn and O’Flaherty were sitting on the edge of the exam table, holding hands and talking quietly, when the senior officers came in. Leo instantly noticed that O’Flaherty seemed a lot calmer than he had earlier, and he had that faint glow that pregnant women all seemed to emit—the glow of contentment that said they were hiding a beautiful secret. Nic’tlarn, for xyr part, looked happier than Leo had ever seen xem.

He didn’t really need to ask, but he did anyway. “Well, O’Flaherty, have you come to a decision?”

It was a sign of how thrilled Nic’tlarn was, Leo thought, that xe didn’t even jump, just looked up with a grin as O’Flaherty turned pink before saying, bravely, “I—we’re going to keep this baby, Doctor. If that’s okay with you,” he added, looking up at Jim.

Leo bit back the words that sprung to his tongue: _It’s your body, Ensign._ He realized what O’Flaherty was actually saying. In reply, Jim just smiled and hugged the ensign. “Congratulations, O’Flaherty. I know you’re gonna be great at this.”

O’Flaherty hugged him back. “Thanks, Captain,” he said softly. “And…thank you for letting me stay. For letting _us_ stay.”

“Hey, you’re family,” Jim said gently. “Of course you can stay as long as you like.”

Leo wanted to tell Jim to stop getting the poor kid’s hopes up, but he recognized that Jim was right—if anyone could get Starfleet Command to authorize a baby on an active starship, it would be James Tiberius Kirk. And he also had a sneaking suspicion that if Starfleet Command told him _no,_ Jim would find a way to get O’Flaherty and the baby to stay anyway. Jim lived for loopholes.

Scotty’s smile looked a bit strained. “All right, then, O’Flaherty?”

“I’m fine, sir,” O’Flaherty assured him, letting go of Jim. “I wasn’t sure at first…but like I told Dr. McCoy, I’ve always wanted to be a parent. I never thought it would be like this, but…” He rested a hand on his abdomen.

Nic’tlarn squeezed his free hand, still smiling broadly. “The last of the demigods.”

“Greek or Roman?” Leo asked lightly.

O’Flaherty sighed. “I guess I’m going to have to read those books, aren’t I?”

Jim laughed. “Don’t feel bad, Ensign. I haven’t read them either.”

“We’ll read them together, Kelly,” Nic’tlarn said. “It will be good for the baby to have us read aloud to it, anyway.”

“It’ll be a couple more weeks yet before the baby can hear you,” Leo said, folding his arms over his chest and smiling. “About week six or seven.”

“And I’m only at two weeks right now,” O’Flaherty said. “Right?”

Leo hesitated. “Technically, no. As I was telling Mr. Scott, a typical pregnancy is measured from the start of the woman’s last menstrual period. Fertilization is usually at the end of week two or the beginning of week three. Going by that reckoning, you’re about four weeks along.”

“How long is a human gestation period?” Nic’tlarn asked.

“Forty weeks, give or take,” Leo answered. “Most women deliver between thirty-eight and forty-two weeks. But this, I think, can definitely be considered a high-risk pregnancy, so it’s likely you’ll go into labor early.”

O’Flaherty’s smile slipped slightly. He looked from Leo to Jim to Scotty, then said softly, “What—will I still be able to work in Engineering?”

“That’s partly what Mr. Scott came in to talk to you about,” Leo said. “By twenty-four weeks, you’re not going to be able to work a full shift by any means—you won’t be able to stand for more than a couple of hours at a time without serious risk to the baby. In theory, you can still maintain usual duties until then, as long as you avoid harmful chemicals or wear a filter mask, but nobody’s going to make you do more than you’re comfortable with.”

“D’ye think ye can handle it until then?” Scotty asked.

“I—I think so,” O’Flaherty said.

Scotty didn’t look too happy, but he nodded. “All right, laddie. But ye’ll tell me if ye feel otherwise. An’ if Dr. McCoy says you’re to be on light duties—light duties ye’ll be on. Is that clear?” His accent was thickening a little.

“Aye, sir, clear as crystal,” O’Flaherty replied quickly.

Scotty studied O’Flaherty for a moment, then softened. “Congratulations, Kelly.”

Tentatively, O’Flaherty smiled. “Thanks, sir.”

Leo glanced at the chronometer. “I suggest you go get something to eat. Remember, you’re eating for two now, even if the baby _is_ only the size of a poppy seed right now. Don’t forget what I told you about dietary restrictions.”

“I won’t. Thank you, Dr. McCoy.” O’Flaherty got up, then hesitated and added, “Could—would you mind not—telling anyone just yet? I—”

“It’s your call when to tell people, O’Flaherty,” Leo said gently. “I told Dr. M’Benga—he’s going to tell Dr. Weaver, just in case something happens during Beta or Gamma shift—and I told Nurse McCall, but I won’t tell anyone else, not unless they need to know—like if they’re going to be treating you. Anyone outside the medical staff won’t know unless you decide to tell them.”

O’Flaherty’s relief was palpable as he said, “Thank you again.”

“You’re welcome, kid.” Leo rumpled O’Flaherty’s hair affectionately. “Go ahead. Be careful.”

Nic’tlarn linked xyr arm through O’Flaherty’s as the two ensigns left the room. Jim looked after them with an affectionate look on his face. “They’re good kids.”

“Aye,” Scotty agreed. “And hard workers. It’s sorry I’ll be to lose O’Flaherty after the baby’s born—however temporarily—but I’m glad he’s happy.”

Leo nodded, slipping his arm around Jim’s waist. “C’mon, you two. I think we need to eat something, too.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, I forgot to add at the beginning: Chapter title is taken from the song "I Got a Car" by George Strait. I'm actually out of lyrics from "Oklahoma", which is where I've been getting chapter titles up until now, with the exception of three lines/titles I'm saving for later chapters. So the rest of the chapter titles will either be episode titles (you'll know those) or lines from various other songs that have relevance to the chapter itself, however tangentially.


	72. Mister, Give It a Whirl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so incredibly sorry this chapter took me so long, guys. I'm not even going to say "hopefully I'll be back on track this week" because every time I say that it takes me two weeks to finish the next freaking chapter.
> 
> But I _can_ tell you that I have already committed to making this my Camp NaNo "novel" for April. My goal is 50,000 words--which is about ten chapters--so hopefully I'll be able to reestablish my buffer, at least a little bit, and get back to posting with some sort of regularity. And I kinda know where we're going for the next few chapters, so there's that.
> 
> The chapter title, in case anyone cares, is from the Tim McGraw song "Don't Take the Girl," which should give you a hint to the tone of the chapter.

“You’re certain of the timeline, Captain?” Spock asked, hands clasped behind his back as he strode easily next to Jim.

“Positive,” Jim said with conviction. “As long as there aren’t any unexpected delays, we’ll be at Space Station K-9 in about ten weeks.”

“‘About ten weeks’ is not a very precise time frame.”

Jim laughed. “I estimate we should arrive fourteen days after Addie’s birthday, which is in exactly fifty-eight days. So we will be arriving in seventy-two days, or ‘about ten weeks.’ Is that precise enough for you, Mr. Spock?”

“Thank you, Captain,” Spock said blandly.

Alpha shift had just ended. Jim liked to have a briefing with his senior officers at least once a quarter, but he and Spock discussed the progress of the ship and issues among personnel at least once a week. Sometimes Bones joined them, complaining about the effect on morale of the length of time they had been in space or grousing about hygiene, but usually it was just Jim and his first officer. Since both of them were hungry—even Spock, who didn’t experience such sensations as frequently as humans did—they had chosen to have their weekly meeting on the move.

“I assume there will be some change of personnel,” Spock said. “There usually is. Have we requisitioned any new officers?”

“A couple new engineers. Three are leaving, and they’re being replaced, plus I’ve asked for two more to keep in reserve.” Jim didn’t mention why and Spock didn’t ask, which he appreciated. O’Flaherty would likely be beginning to show his pregnancy by the time they reached the space station—if all went well—but as yet, he was still keeping his own counsel. Jim didn’t even think he’d told his closest friends yet. And since the senior personnel didn’t necessarily need to know yet, Jim kept his mouth shut, too.

“No others?” Spock raised an eyebrow.

“No one else coming on,” Jim said.

Spock seemed to accept this statement at face value, but Jim felt a little guilty. Carol had requested he not say anything unless he had to, but a prestigious position had opened up back on Earth, lead of a research facility that had nothing to do with Starfleet, unless they bid highest for the biotech produced. She had requested permission to put in an application, and he had granted it, even writing a recommendation that he had hoped would make the directors sit up and take notice. They would be hearing back within a week.

Meanwhile, it presented Jim with something of a problem. Apart from the fact that Carol was one of his friends, and he was going to miss her, there was the problem of her being Addie’s primary caretaker. He couldn’t ask Slim to take it on full-time, especially now that he was actively working towards joining Starfleet and being relied on in Engineering. And it was just beginning to occur to him that they would need a caretaker for O’Flaherty’s baby, too; it would make more sense for the same person to watch both of them, but Slim was, in Jim’s opinion, still a little too young to be entrusted with a newborn—especially someone else’s newborn. The whole thing gave him a headache.

“Speaking of Athena’s birthday,” Spock said, “have you considered your plans? After all, she will be three years old. I believe she will be old enough to remember what you do.”

“I’ve thought about it,” Jim admitted. “But it’s hard to think of things to do with a three-year-old when there aren’t any other—”

A loud crash interrupted them. Jim knew, from the fact that the ship remained rock-steady, that it wasn’t from outside. In fact, it sounded like it was coming from the rec room. He took off running, Spock hard on his heels.

The scene before him made him draw up short, momentarily stunned with shock. Two chairs were overturned, a table—an incredibly sturdy piece of equipment—cracked down the middle. Chitose and Gaila were together restraining Finney—Gaila holding him in a sort of half-nelson from behind, Chitose practically throwing herself across his chest. Simril, Slim, and Chekov were all struggling to hold Sulu back. Finney’s eye was already beginning to swell shut; blood trickled from a cut on Sulu’s lip.

“What the hell?” Jim exclaimed, forgetting for a moment to be professional.

Everybody froze, except for Finney and Sulu, who were ignoring Jim completely. The normally gentle helmsman was practically snarling as he struggled against his friends’ restraining hands, while Finney’s chest heaved with exertion, looking somewhere between anger and righteous indignation. “Get  _off_ me, Gaila,” he growled.

“When I get my hands on you, I swear—” Sulu spat, nearly managing to get free of Slim’s grip.

“ _Halt!_ ” Jim snapped, stepping forward to stand between the two men.

Both men glared at him, not seeming to realize who he was. Jim dropped his voice to a quiet, serious tone. “That’s enough out of both of you.”

A security team came in at a run, presumably in response to a call from Spock, who stood near the intercom box, his expression perfectly blank. “Captain?”

Jim turned to the security team. Still in the same quiet, deadly serious voice, he said, “Take both of these men to detention bay, and put them in opposite ends. Then alert Dr. McCoy that he has patients to tend to. I’ll be there shortly.”

“It’s not fair, he didn’t—” Chitose began passionately.

“ _Miss Sulu,_ ” Jim said sternly.

Chitose looked rather rebellious, but she did allow two security guards to grab Finney’s arms. He went meekly enough. Two more guards took Sulu, who went on his own, but glared daggers at Finney the whole time. Jim watched them, bewildered.

“What happened?” he asked at last, turning to the two groups.

Several people began talking at once. Jim held up a hand, silencing them. “All right, all right! Gaila, Chitose, over here, please.” Turning to Slim and his friends, he added, “I’ll come talk to you later.”

Slim nodded as he bent over to pick up the chair. The buzz of conversation started up again, but it was a little subdued, and most people found that they had pressing needs to be elsewhere.

Jim led Gaila and Chitose over to an isolated corner, then said in a low voice, “Okay, what happened? Chitose, you first.”

“Ben was just minding his own business,” Chitose said, her voice a little hysterical. “He wasn’t  _doing_ anything wrong. He walked by the group and stopped to talk to them, and Hikaru jumped up and decked him for no good reason. Ben was just defending himself, Captain, I swear it! He’d never hurt a fly!”

Jim felt a little lost. He’d expected Chitose to either be neutral or take her brother’s side, but she seemed firmly convinced that the blame was all on Sulu. So either that was how it really was…or there was something going on that he’d missed.

He turned to Gaila, raising an eyebrow. She shrugged. “I didn’t actually see what happened. I was just coming over to sit with—Slim—and the others because I sat with Ben and Chitose this morning when Hikaru got to his feet and said something to Ben. I didn’t see who threw the first punch. I guess it could have been Hikaru. Sorry, Jim—uh, Captain.”

“It  _was_ Hikaru,” Chitose insisted. “He’s been prejudiced against Ben from the beginning, just because I like him—he never liked anything I did, just to be contrary. Now he’s trying to cause trouble, he’s getting him into fights so that Starfleet won’t ever let him back in, because why would they rehire him if he has a disciplinary record?”

Since Jim was pretty sure that Finney would be barred from Starfleet based on his psych evals alone, he left this be and stood up. “All right, you can go. I’ll catch up with you later if I need to.”

“Can I go see Ben?” Chitose asked, adding belatedly, “Sir.”

“No,” Jim said, shaking his head. “Not until I’ve had a chance to talk to them myself. He’ll probably be released later. I’ll tell him to go find you.”

“I’ll stay here, then, I guess.”

“No, you won’t,” Gaila said firmly. “You will go up to the all-access lounge, where you will sit in a comfortable chair and have a large synthehol and  _stay out of trouble.”_ To Jim, she added, “I’ll be there, too, if you need me for anything.”

“Thanks, Gaila,” Jim said with a grateful nod. He watched them go, then moved over to the table Sulu had been sitting at.

Nic’tlarn and O’Flaherty were nowhere in sight, but Jim remembered that O’Flaherty had his weekly check-up with Bones; Nic’tlarn was probably with him. Slim and Cayne appeared to be comforting Chekov, who looked a little shell-shocked, and Simril gripped a mug tightly between his hands, staring into its depths. The younger three looked up at Jim as he joined them.

“All right,” he said quietly, sitting down. “Mr. Chekov, want to tell me what happened?”

Chekov dragged his gaze from whatever random point of space he was staring at and locked eyes with Jim. In a cracked voice barely above a whisper, he said, “We were…having dinner when Finney came by. He stopped at ze table and started talking to me. I asked him to leave me alone and he wouldn’t, and…Hikaru got to his feet and hit him.”

There had to be more to the story than that. Jim was sure of it. He probed gently. “Why did Sulu hit him?”

“Because he got to his feet before I did,” Simril said in a flat, calm voice.

Jim turned to look at the ensign. His face was almost as expressionless as his voice, but his eyes were hard and glittering with suppressed anger. “Is there a reason you wanted to hit Finney, Mr. Simril?”

Simril’s fists clenched, then slowly relaxed. “I don’t like him, sir. No point in denying it. I haven’t liked him since first meeting him. Every time I see him I have the instinctive reaction of wanting to punch him in the face, but I usually manage to fight it down. Today he pushed me too far and I probably would’ve decked him if Lieutenant Sulu hadn’t been quicker than I was.”

“What did he say to push you too far?” Jim asked.

“That’s the thing, actually,” Simril said slowly. “He doesn’t…actually  _say_ anything that bad. It’s just…the  _way_ he says it. I don’t know how to explain it. But in this case, it was less that he was saying anything provocative and more that he was being pushy. He kept trying to talk to Chekov and Chekov kept telling him to please go away…Sulu reiterated it and Finney still wouldn’t go away and Sulu got up and—hit him.”

Jim noticed the slight hesitation in Simril’s voice. He remembered that Chekov, too, had paused briefly before saying that Sulu had  _got to his feet and hit him,_ but he’d put that down to Chekov still being shaken from the encounter. Now he wondered if there was something they weren’t telling him. It surprised him a little that Chekov would omit information, even to protect—or think he was protecting—Sulu.

His eyes traveled over to Slim. His son wouldn’t lie; what he’d gone through in his foster homes had given him a subconscious fear of telling lies and getting into trouble. Jim hated to use him like that, but it was necessary. “Slim? Did he just jump up and haul off and hit him?”

Slim bit his lip, but shook his head slowly. “Finney…said something. I don’t know what, but whatever it was, Sulu turned white, then purple,  _then_ hauled off and hit him.”

Jim knew he would have to talk to both Finney and Sulu to get the full story. “Is there anything else any of you can add to this?”

Cayne spoke up for the first time. “Finney didn’t exactly lie down and take the punches, sir. He fought back—in case you couldn’t tell from the damage when you came in. He knocked Sulu into the table and broke it, but that was really the worst damage he did. Sulu was…he was furious. I think he would’ve killed Finney if Slim and Port hadn’t pried him off.”

“I’ve never seen him like zat,” Chekov whispered. “Not in all ze years I’ve known him…”

Jim reached over and squeezed Chekov’s hand lightly. “Whatever Finney said must have set him off, Chekov. I’ll talk to him, okay? I’m sure it’ll all be cleared up soon.” He rose from his seat. “If I need anything else, I’ll come find you all.”

Slim looked up at him. “Dad, when Sulu gets out, would you let him know we’ll be up on the Observation Deck?”

“Of course,” Jim said, grateful to his son for thinking of a way to distract Chekov, at least a little bit. “Be careful.”

“We will be.” Slim gently tugged Chekov to his feet.

Spock fell into step with Jim as he exited the cafeteria. “Captain, Lieutenant Sulu may be ill. That is the only logical explanation for his uncharacteristic behavior.”

“It’s not the only logical explanation, Spock,” Jim said heavily. “Sulu doesn’t like Finney, and frankly I don’t blame him, since it’s for a legitimate reason—of sorts. Officially, though, I can’t excuse it.” He raised an eyebrow at his first officer. “I’m sure you can tell me exactly what the punishment for attacking a civilian is.”

“Confinement for twenty-four standard hours, or until he can guarantee he will not attack Finney again, whichever is the longer,” Spock replied promptly. “But, as Mr. Sulu is generally a very calm and rational individual, I would predict it to be the former.”

Jim smiled sadly, but didn’t comment. Ordinarily, he exulted in proving Spock wrong—mainly because it was so rare—but this was one instance where he took no joy in it.

Bones was just arriving at the detention block when Spock and Jim stepped off the lift. He looked a little cranky. “Jim, what the hell? What about a couple of brawling crewmen is so all-fire important that you needed my personal attention?”

“Sulu jumped Finney,” Jim said simply.

Immediately, Bones’ expression shifted from irritation to surprise and worry. “ _Sulu?_ That doesn’t sound like him at all—even if Finney did—” He stopped himself. “What the hell happened?”

“I’m not sure, Bones,” Jim answered. “I’m about to find out.”

“Which one do you want me to treat first?”

Jim hesitated. “Can you hold off until I’ve finished? I want to talk to them without distraction first. But…I’ll talk to Finney first. Get it over with.”

“All right.” Bones stepped forward and gave Jim a hug. “Be careful, darlin’.”

Jim let Bones hold him for a moment, gathering strength, then pulled back, pressed a light kiss to his husband’s jaw, and headed into the cells.

Security had taken the sensible precaution of putting the two combatants at extreme opposite ends of the brig. Jim paused outside the first cell, staring at Finney, who was pacing angrily back and forth, touching his eye gingerly and swearing whenever he did so. The man glanced up, saw Jim, and scowled briefly before schooling his features into an expression of blank innocence. It didn’t fool Jim in the slightest, just as he was sure his professional expression didn’t fool Finney in the least. He pressed the appropriate button and stepped into the cell.

“Captain Kirk,” Finney said stiffly.

“Finney,” Jim said with a nod. “Have a seat, please.”

Finney complied, but immediately began to complain. “Is there any way you can do something about this shiner? It hurts like hell. Feels like there might be a fracture there, too. And my throat hurts bad, too. Could be permanent damage.”

“Dr. McCoy will be in to examine you as soon as we’re done talking,” Jim said, carefully refraining from speculating on the likelihood that Finney had any serious damage. “I just need to know what happened first.”

“What happened?” Finney repeated. “That son of—” He checked himself, then began again. “ _Lieutenant Sulu_ attacked me, for no reason.”

“What were you doing when he attacked you?” Jim asked, as calmly as he could.

“I was just walking by,” Finney said defensively. “Chekov and I knew each other at the Academy—navigators and pilots took some of the same classes, you know? Of course I knew him. I haven’t really had a chance to chat with him since I’ve been on the ship. I stopped to talk to him and Sulu just jumped up and hit me.”

“Just like that?” Jim prodded. “There was no conversation beforehand, nothing you said, nothing anyone else said?”

Finney frowned. “I said hello. Asked if Chekov wanted to talk later, maybe grab a drink, be sociable. Sulu told me to push off—you know, playing the heavy, being all possessive. Like he owns Chekov or something. I told him I wasn’t talking to him and turned back to Chekov, and he hit me. End of story.”

Jim tried to keep his temper. “You didn’t hit back?”

“Well, I defended myself, of course, but—look,  _sir,_ he’s the one who attacked  _me._ How is it  _my_ fault?”

It occurred to Jim suddenly that Finney had no idea that anyone else knew what he had done to Chekov. It was understandable; the entire experience had been a terrifying one for the poor kid, and he hadn’t told  _anyone_ for years afterwards. For right now, he was inclined to keep Finney in the dark. Chekov would be safer that way.

“I’ll send Dr. McCoy in,” Jim said, getting to his feet. “Once I’ve spoken to Mr. Sulu, I’ll come back and let you know my verdict. Unless there’s anything else you have to tell me?”

He waited, but Finney remained resolutely silent. With a silent sigh of relief, Jim turned and knocked on the transparent cell front. A security guard dropped the energy field, allowing him to step out and hurry a little ways away to where Bones and Spock still stood.

“Well?” Bones said quietly.

Jim jerked his head over his shoulder. “He thinks he might have a hairline fracture around the eye socket.”

Bones snorted. “Ridiculous. Even pissed, Sulu wouldn’t have that kind of force behind a punch. But I’ll check him out, the big baby.”

“Try to be professional, Bones.”

Ignoring Bones’ low, irritated growl, Spock said, “Did he offer any explanation for the incident?”

Jim shrugged. “Not really. He more or less had the same story as everyone else.”

“Which is?” Bones prompted.

“That he was walking by, stopped to say hello to Chekov, and Sulu got to his feet and attacked him.”

Bones shook his head, looking bewildered. “There’s gotta be more to it than that, Jim.”

“I know. I’m going to talk to Sulu now.” Jim rubbed the back of his neck. “Go make sure Finney is okay. I don’t know how long he’ll be staying here, but…just check him out, would you?”

“I will.” Bones kissed Jim’s cheek. “Let me know when you’re done with Sulu.”

Jim nodded and headed down the hallway.

In contrast to Finney, Sulu was sitting quietly, his back pressed to the corner, staring vacantly at the opposite wall. Blood trickled from his lower lip, which he made no effort to stop, and his shirt was torn in a couple of places. Every once in a while, his chest hitched slightly, as if breathing hurt. Jim fought back his worry and keyed in the code to enter the cell.

Sulu started and looked up as Jim came in. “Captain,” he murmured.

Jim sat down on a chair next to Sulu, positioning himself so that his back was to the cell door, and leaned forward. Softly, he said, “Sulu, what happened?”

Sulu looked down at his hands. “I lost control. Finney…I wasn’t sure what to make of him when he first came onboard, when I first met him, but then Pasha told me who he was—what he did—and…” He swallowed hard, then coughed.

“You all right?” Jim asked, concerned.

“Fine,” Sulu said quickly. “Just a little sore.”

“Bones’ll be in to look at you as soon as we’re done here.” Jim swallowed. “Can you start at the beginning? Tell me exactly what happened.”

Sulu was still staring at his hands, but there was a vacant look in his eyes, as though he was seeing the scene unfold before him. “We were just grabbing dinner—Pasha and I, Cayne and Slim and Porter. We’d only just started when Finney came by, stopped right next to Pasha’s chair—I mean  _right_ next to him, practically hovering over him—and just…smiled. Pasha shrank back a little. Finney said hello, asked how he’d been…and Pasha asked him to go away.”

“What were his exact words?”

“‘Please go away.’ But Finney didn’t,” Sulu said slowly. “He just kept smiling…he said something like, ‘Come on, I’m just trying to be friendly. The least you could do is talk to me for a bit.’ Pasha was scared to death, but he tried so hard to be brave—he just swallowed and said, ‘Please leave me alone.’ Finney kept pressing, saying they’d been ‘so close’ before and that he just wanted to pick up where they left off. I thought Pasha was going to faint, so I told him to go away. He brushed me off and I said that, no, Pasha had asked him politely to leave him alone,  _twice,_ and he needed to respect that. I guess I was on my feet at that point. Finney…he smirked at me and said—he said, ‘I’m sure we can work out an agreement to compensate you for a couple hours of his time.’”

“ _What?_ ” Jim gasped, feeling himself turn pale.

Sulu nodded. “I saw red. That’s when I hit him. He fell back for a minute, then popped up and hit me. I—I was trying to kill him.” He looked up at Jim, and his dark eyes were full of pain. “I  _would_ have killed him, if they hadn’t held me back. I never wanted to be like that, but—I’d do anything to protect Pasha, Jim.”

It was the first time in fifteen years of knowing one another that Sulu had called Jim by his first name. Jim reached forward and gripped Sulu’s hand. “I understand. Honest, I do. If I ever met somebody who’d hurt Bones…” He swallowed. “But you’re a Starfleet officer, and he’s a guest on the ship. And despite what he said, there’s no way to justify this as self-defense…or even as defending Chekov. You know that, right?”

“I know,” Sulu whispered. “I shouldn’t have…” He swallowed again. “I’m sorry, sir.”

“I know. And between you and me, I don’t blame you.” Jim took a deep breath. “However…I have to cite you. Given that you’ve admitted you jumped him without just cause, I also have to give you the mandatory punishment.”

“I accept that, sir,” Sulu said.

“You might not when you know what it is,” Jim admitted. “Mr. Sulu, if you see Mr. Finney again…can you guarantee that you wouldn’t attack him again?”

Sulu didn’t even hesitate. “No. I—I can’t. Not if he said something like that…honestly, I can’t guarantee I wouldn’t attack him just for being in the same room as Pasha, let alone saying something to him.”

“Unfortunately, that means you have to stay here for a while,” Jim said quietly. “Regulations state that, after an unprovoked attack— _technically_ unprovoked—you have to stay in the detention cells for twenty-four hours, or until you can guarantee the incident won’t be repeated—whichever is longer.”

Sulu’s face turned white. “But—oh, God, Pasha—”

“I’ll do my best for him,” Jim promised. “I’ll try to restrict Finney’s movements as much as I can, and I’ll make sure there are as many safe spaces for him as possible—and if it’ll make you feel better, I’ll try to arrange it so he won’t be alone at any point. But there’s no way I can guarantee that you won’t run into each other unless one of you is confined. And, unfortunately, the only one I have any justification to confine right now—”

“—is me,” Sulu finished. He bit his lower lip, then winced, having obviously forgotten about the cut. “I understand, Captain. And—and I’ll try. Honestly, I will try.”

“I know you will.” Jim stood up and patted Sulu on the shoulder. “And if he so much as lays a finger on Chekov, you better believe I’ll have him in a cell so fast his head will spin.”

“I know.” Sulu managed a weak smile. “There’s no one else I’d count on to look after him.”

Jim swallowed against the lump in his throat. “I’ll send Dr. McCoy right in.”

Bones and Spock were waiting halfway down the hall when Jim emerged. Spock’s face was as placid as ever, but Bones looked seriously worried. When he saw Jim, he didn’t wait for him to ask before speaking quietly. “Finney had some pretty severe bruises around his throat, Jim. Sulu did a damned good job of throttling him.”

“Whatever occurred between Lieutenant Sulu and Mr. Finney must have been somewhat serious,” Spock said. “Did your interview shed any light on the subject?”

Jim hesitated, but he acknowledged that Spock needed to know what had occurred. “Spock…do you remember about seven years ago, when we were getting ready for our second five-year mission, and we had a talk about our first times?”

“Yes, Captain,” Spock said, raising an eyebrow, “but I fail to see the relevance.”

“Do you remember what Chekov said?”

The eyebrow climbed a little higher. “As I recall, Mr. Chekov’s first sexual encounter was coerced under the influence of alcohol, and he was significantly under the legal age of consent at the time.”

“You recall correctly. You may also recall that Chekov described the man as having somewhat extensive tattoos.”

“I do.” Spock suddenly stiffened, his eyes widening. Involuntarily, it seemed, his head turned towards the front of the detention block. “You mean that—”

Jim nodded. “It was Finney.”

“And Mr. Sulu knows, of course,” Spock said slowly. “Which is why he attacked Finney for merely speaking to Mr. Chekov.”

“There was more to the story,” Jim said heavily. “Just not enough to technically consider the attack justified. Finney kept trying to talk to Chekov, even though Chekov told him to leave him alone…when Sulu stood up and told him to leave Chekov alone, Finney apparently told him that, basically, he’d be willing to pay for a couple hours of Chekov’s time.”

“ _What?”_ Bones exploded, his face turning brick red. “That son of a—”

“While I agree with your sentiments, Doctor, if there was no one who is able to corroborate Sulu’s statement, there is nothing that can be done,” Spock said, although he looked shaken nonetheless.

“Exactly,” Jim said. “I asked Sulu if he thought he could control himself around Finney and keep this from happening again, and he admitted that he doesn’t think he can. So…until he can, or until I can get Finney off my ship, Sulu’s going to have to stay where he is.”

Bones inhaled deeply. “What about Chekov?”

Jim ran a hand through his hair tiredly. “I promised Sulu I’d do everything I could to protect him. For starters, I’m going to restrict Finney as much as I can, and I’m also going to try and make sure Chekov isn’t alone.”

“I’m pretty sure the couch isn’t that uncomfortable in our quarters.”

“I already considered that, and I’ll be heading up to talk to Chekov as soon as I’ve talked to Finney.”

“May I suggest restriction to Deck Three?” Spock asked, naming the deck where guest quarters and most of the all-access lounges were.

“Unless he needs medical attention,” Jim said, nodding gratefully at his first officer’s quick thinking and deciding not to mention aloud that he had already made that call. Spock—and Bones, come to think of it—probably both knew that, but there was no point in saying so aloud. “Speaking of which, Bones, better go look in on Sulu. He said he was fine, but he seemed to have a little trouble breathing.”

Worry suffused Bones’ face. “Dammit, he overdid it. He’s still only just recovered from what happened on Okor V. I hope he’s not too seriously hurt.”

“If he has been, would that not be grounds for further confinement of Finney?” Spock asked.

“I wish,” Jim said. “Unfortunately, the damage Finney did is excusable as self-defense. Go take care of him, Bones. I’m gonna spring Finney and then go talk to Chekov.”

“Be careful, Jim.” Bones kissed Jim’s cheek, then headed towards Sulu’s cell. Jim watched him go before turning, reluctantly, towards Finney.

The ex-navigator was pacing back and forth again, his scowl once more in place. All marks of the fight were gone. Watching him, Jim was put in mind of an old cartoon he had once seen, grainy footage of a tiger pacing back and forth in a too-small cage. Finney was a lot like a tiger—handsome, powerful, and dangerous. Jim had to admit that he could understand how a fourteen-year-old—especially one who was as odd a mix of innocence and maturity as Chekov had been—would have been attracted to him. And with the added influence of alcohol, it would have been so easy for Finney to get Chekov to do exactly what he wanted.

Oddly, he didn’t scare Jim. Angered him, sure, but Jim wasn’t afraid of him. Maybe it was that they had a history and Jim had more or less come out on top. He knew he could beat him in a fight. Didn’t even have to be a fair one. But it probably also had a little to do with the fact that he had hurt Chekov. Jim would go after anyone who hurt someone he cared about without a moment’s hesitation. Whatever the reason, he paused long enough to convince himself not to put Finney’s head through the nearest bulkhead, then stepped into the cell.

“You’re free to go, Finney,” he said abruptly. “With a caveat. I’ll have a security guard walk you up to the all-access lounge on Deck Three—Chitose Sulu is waiting for you there. You will remain on Deck Three for the duration of your stay, until and unless you need medical attention—or until such time as we arrive at a starbase or space station, where you can obtain transport back to Earth, or wherever you wish to go.”

Finney smiled. “Thank you, Captain Kirk. I accept your terms willingly.”

Jim thought about ordering Finney to stay away from Chekov, then decided it was unnecessary. Chekov wouldn’t go anywhere near Finney if he could help it, and by confining the man to Deck Three, Chekov would be easily able to avoid him. Turning, he signaled for a guard.

“Please escort Mr. Finney to the lounge on Deck Three,” he told the officer who reported. “Escort him  _directly_ there.”

“Yes, Captain,” the officer said with a salute. Nodding to Finney, he led him towards the lift.

Jim counted to ten, both to give himself time to calm down and to give the lift time to rid itself of its cargo, then headed to the lift himself. The entire way to the observation deck, he tried to figure out what he was going to say to Chekov when he got there. He didn’t think Chekov would get angry—the only time he’d ever lost his temper, in Jim’s recollection, had been during their encounter with the Tholians—but it still wouldn’t be pleasant for him.

He found Chekov sitting on the floor in one corner, with Slim and the others surrounding him. O’Flaherty and Nic’tlarn had joined them, their fingers twined together as they sat and talked with the others. All six looked up at Jim’s approach. Chekov scrambled to his feet, his face pale. “Keptin?” he asked tremulously.

Wordlessly, Jim held out his arms. Chekov practically threw himself at Jim, who held him close, feeling the tears soak into his shirt and knowing that Chekov knew. He spoke quietly. “He’s not too badly hurt. Dr. McCoy is patching him up now.”

“And zen he’ll be here?” Chekov looked up hopefully.

Jim hated to break his heart, but he shook his head. “Regulations are clear. Because he attacked without just cause—meaning that he wasn’t attempting to defend himself or someone else from imminent physical harm—he has to stay in the cell for twenty-four hours, or until he can guarantee that he won’t attack Finney again.” He hesitated, then added, “And he told me himself that he can’t guarantee that.”

“Captain,” Simril said, his deep voice rumbling from his chest, “ _I_ can’t guarantee that I won’t attack Finney if I see him.”

“Then I advise you to stay off of Deck Three,” Jim said. “Finney is restricted to that deck, unless he has need of medical attention. And no, you can’t help him have need of medical attention. Please.”

That got a smile out of Simril, albeit a faint one. Chekov’s blue eyes filled with tears. “Can I see him, at least?”

“Of course you can,” Jim promised. “Sulu’s not dangerous. He’s just…regulations say I have to isolate him from the situation as long as it persists. I really hope I won’t have to have him confined for the next two months, but—”

“Two  _months?”_ Cayne blurted. “It’s gonna be that long before we get somewhere we can get rid of Finney?”

“I’m afraid so,” Jim told the ensign. “The flight plan we’re on will have us at Space Station K-9 in roughly ten weeks, but there aren’t any Federation planets between here and there—at least not any that have regular commerce with Earth, or any other Federation planet. So as tempting as it might be, I can’t leave him at one of those. Besides, most of them are so new to the Federation that I’m reluctant to wish Finney on them, for fear they’ll back out of it.”

Slim’s lips twitched briefly in a smile. “I reckon we can handle stayin’ off that deck for ten weeks. An’ I’m sure Sulu will be out sooner ‘n that. He ain’t unreasonable. Once he’s had time to cool down…”

“Yeah.” Jim didn’t want to outright disagree with his son, but he also didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up. Sulu “cooling down” wouldn’t do anything, but maybe if after a week Chekov hadn’t had any unexpected encounters with Finney, Sulu would relax enough that he’d be able to guarantee he wouldn’t attack Finney on sight—which was probably good enough to satisfy regulations. He pulled Chekov a little further away from the group and lowered his voice as far as he could. “You’re welcome to crash on our couch until he’s out.”

Chekov nodded silently, biting his lower lip. Jim hugged him again, knowing the navigator was scared and upset, but also knowing there was nothing that could be done about it, or at least nothing more than was already being done.

A small, mean part of him that he would never allow his children to know about wished that the  Thũn spear had hit Finney instead of Sulu.

 


	73. With All the Family Gathered 'Round

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fluff! Fluff fluff fluff! Unseasonable fluff, but fluff nonetheless.

“Hold it steady—almost got it—”

“Don’t you  _dare_ fall on me.”

“Hold it steady and I won’t.”

Slim tugged on the cuffs of his sweater absently as he watched Porter lean forward from his precarious perch to hang a brightly-colored ball on an outstretched branch. He was pretty sure it wasn’t… _exactly_ right, but it was the closest they’d been able to knock up in the limited time they had, with the limited materials they had. And it looked pretty good.

While every crew member was guaranteed one day off a week, and nobody was supposed to work more than ten days in a row, Slim and his friends never seemed to all be off on the same day more than once a month. The last time they’d been off had been six days after Sulu and Finney’s fight in the mess, and Chekov was still shaky and not dealing well with it. They’d gathered to watch movies, deciding to eschew the originally-planned Disney princess marathon, and ended up watching some of the films Slim had watched at the Roxie. Most of the old-fashioned and laughingly outdated ideas were easy to understand or ignore, but one had brought a question from Nic’tlarn that they’d ended up spending the better part of an hour attempting to explain. The end result was before them.

The sound system in the Kirk-McCoy family quarters was on low, playing a mix of decidedly old-fashioned music. Audra had used up a couple of her food cards and come in with a plate of spicy-smelling cookies shaped like people, with icing smiles and gumdrop buttons, which was sitting in the middle of the table. Porter and Slim had put their heads together and scrounged up some spare parts—copper wires, fiber-optic cables, a few titanium tubes that were waiting to be disposed of or recycled—which they had put together into something that at least vaguely resembled a fir tree. Scraps of tin, aluminum, and other waste metals had been repurposed into balls, stars, and snowflakes. Chekov had even dug out some fabric scraps and run up stuffed red-and-white canes and silky blue humanoids with outspread wings.

It was the three hundred and sixty-ninth day of the year, using the terrocentric stardate system that was still the standard for Starfleet, which, although part of the United Federation of Planets (which had long ago switched over to using a more galactic method of reckoning the day), was based on Earth and largely run and staffed by humans. And while religion, as a whole, had largely ceased to be widely observed on Earth—it still existed, of course, but it was less about believing in an omnipotent being or beings and more about having a set of governing principles with a history that traced back thousands of years—some holidays had been absorbed into the culture. It so happened that most cultures, or at least most cultures that had been involved in the founding of the Federation, celebrated  _something_ around the same time, whether they could trace its origins back to the turning of the seasons or the birth of a carpenter’s son or the triumph of reason over dangerous emotion. And it so happened that the Andorian word for  _peace_ was  _k’ryzmaatht._ So easy to let the word slip a little in the standard tongue and keep calling the holiday Christmas.

Slim hummed along to the jazzy, upbeat song as he set out the brightly-wrapped presents under the tree, each carefully labeled. That, at least, hadn’t been a problem; most of them had been buying little gifts and squirreling them away for the proper occasion, whatever that might happen to be. There were gifts for all of them,  _and_ for the entire senior command, and a nice pile of gifts for Addie, too—even though none of them knew what Slim and his friends were doing. Yet. It was stupid and it was insane and it was probably going to backfire spectacularly, but for now, it was at least a nice distraction for Chekov. He’d gone faithfully to see Sulu every day for two weeks before Dickenson had gently, and regretfully, informed him that anyone in the brig for more than fourteen days, no matter the reason, was forbidden to have visitors without an official reason.

Preparations for “Christmas” at least gave him something else to focus on.

“Seriously? Who put ‘Cruella de Ville’ on this playlist?” Audra demanded as the first song ended.

“It was playing on Christmas in the movie,” Porter said defensively.

“But it  _ain’t a Christmas song,_ Port.”

“Shut up. I like it.”

“It’s catchy,” Chekov agreed. He glanced at the chronometer on the wall. “Where are Nic’tlarn and O’Flaherty?”

Porter looked at the chronometer as well. “They ought to be here any—”

The chime of the door cut him off. Slim grinned. “Perfect timing. Enter!”

The door slid back, admitting Kelly and Nic’tlarn, whose arms were around each other’s waists. Like the other four, they were wearing brightly-colored sweaters with garish patterns and decorations. Kelly, who was presenting female that day, had a bowl of popcorn under her arm.

“Hey, guys, come on in,” Slim said with a grin.

“Didn’t know you liked popcorn,” Audra said, indicating the bowl. “In fact, I seem to recall you saying when we watched movies last that you can’t stand the smell.”

Kelly flushed slightly. “I don’t like it, but—well, it’s traditional. You have to have popcorn strings on a Christmas tree. I’ve got a pack of needles and a couple spools of thread in my pocket.”

“How does it work?” Chekov asked, sounding interested.

Nic’tlarn came over to help Porter finish hanging ornaments on the tree. Since they had dropped off their presents earlier in the day, Slim was already arranging them under the tree. He was trying not to worry about Kelly, but he couldn’t help it. She’d been making an awful lot of visits to Med Bay in the last few weeks, but she never said why she was going and avoided questions about if she was okay or not. They’d all come to a silent agreement to stop asking. It didn’t mean they’d stopped being concerned, but Slim figured she’d tell them in her own time.

He just hoped it was sooner rather than later.

A new song came on, something with lots of runs and flourishes. Audra lit up and started humming along, waltzing around the room. Slim realized that the song actually  _was_ a waltz, about a second before the words started. And suddenly Audra was whirling by him, one hand extended down and grabbed his, pulling him to his feet and dragging him along after her. He laughed, then pulled her into a proper hold, one hand on her waist and shifting his grip on her other hand. The song was a faster one, peppy and upbeat, and laughter made their steps a little uneven and unrefined, but they were having fun and that was what mattered. As the music crescendoed to a climax, Slim spun Audra around, wrapped an arm around her back, and dipped her dramatically, both of them bent nearly in half, their noses mere inches from one another and both breathless with exertion and laughter.

“What the hell is going on in here?”

Slim almost dropped Audra with shock. Both of them straightened up too quickly, cracking their foreheads together with an audible  _thunk_ that caused Slim to see stars. He blinked away the bright lights and turned to the doorway to see his father, watching them and struggling to keep a straight face.

“ _Have a holly, jolly Christmas…_ ” blared Burl Ives’ voice from the sound system.

“Uh, that.” Porter rubbed the back of his neck. “Sir.”

Jim looked up at the rough approximation of a tree in the center of the living room. “Where did you find an artificial Christmas tree? In space? At this hour?”

Kelly gave a snort of laughter, covering her mouth with her hand quickly. Slim blushed a little. “Port and I made it.”

“You  _made_ it?” Jim repeated incredulously. “Surely you can’t be serious.”

“He is serious. And don’t call him Shirley,” Kelly said.

Jim laughed. “Thanks for getting the reference, Ensign. But seriously, this is impressive. Any particular reason we’re celebrating Christmas?”

“We were watching  _101 Dalmatians_ last month,” Slim explained. “You know, the old animated one? The dogs come home on Christmas Eve. Nico didn’t know what Christmas was, so we were tryin’ to explain, an’…it kinda got out of hand.”

Chekov indicated the pile under the tree. “We have presents for everyone.”

Jim stopped laughing at that. He squatted down on his haunches and peered at the pile of gifts Slim had arranged. His fingers lingered briefly on one of the tags. After a moment, he got to his feet resolutely. “I take it from this that we’re all invited?”

“Of course,” Slim said with a smile. “What’s Christmas without your family?”

“Good point.” Jim ruffled Slim’s hair. “Well, Alpha shift is over. How ‘bout I get everyone together and we get this party started? You’ll have to explain it to Addie.”

“There’s music, food, an’ presents,” Audra said, brushing a stray lock of hair back from her hair. “I ain’t sure she’ll care why.”

“Also a good point,” Jim said, his smile returning. “Be right back.” With that, he disappeared.

Slim and his friends kept decorating and arranging and getting their hands smacked for stealing popcorn out of the bowl while Kelly tried patiently to thread them into chains. Finally she got a long enough chain that it would go around the tree. Nic’tlarn and Slim worked together to wrap the tree up. They were just finishing when the door slid open and Leo came in, holding Addie’s hand.

Her mouth formed a perfect O as she stared up at the tree. “What dat?”

“It’s a Christmas tree,” Slim told her, rumpling her curls affectionately.

“K’ismas twee,” Addie repeated dutifully. “Pitty, ‘Lim.” She saw the pile of gifts under the tree and brightened considerably. “Presents for Addie?”

“Some of them are.”

Addie started to run towards the tree, but Nic’tlarn intercepted her by pointing to one of the ornaments, a gently revolving snowflake cut out of tin that sparkled and flashed in the light. “Look, Addie,” xe said brightly. “Have you ever seen a snowflake before?”

“Nowf’ake?” Addie repeated. She reached up to touch the ornament, the bottom of which was just within her reach. “Pitty. What it do?”

“Real snowflakes are very cold and very small,” Nic’tlarn said, kneeling down on her level and wrapping xyr arm around her shoulders, then taking the ornament in xyr hand, stopping its revolutions. “But they’re like stars, stars made of ice, and when they fall from the sky, they collect on the ground in big piles. They don’t like being alone. When you have many of them, they hold hands and you can make them into balls, or build forts, or even make statues. Or you can lie down in a big pile of them and draw pictures with your body.”

Slim had never heard it explained that way, and he’d never seen snow, which was fairly rare in the part of Oklahoma he was from. But Addie was enchanted by Nic’tlarn’s words, and distracted from the presents. Leo smiled fondly, then looked up at the tree. “Needs something on top.”

“I don’t think we have anything,” Porter admitted, looking up.

“I can fix that.” Leo disappeared into the master bedroom.

A minute later, he returned holding something wrapped in layers of tissue paper. Addie abandoned the snowflake to look at the object in his hands. “What dat, Papa?”

Leo sat down next to Chekov on the sofa and carefully peeled back the tissue, finally revealing a tarnished metal object. It was shaped like an older model of starship; Slim, studying it, decided it was probably a  _Kelvin-_ class, which might be why they had it. Less readily apparent was why its top was pitted with holes.

Porter raised an eyebrow. “A salt shaker?”

“Sure is.” Leo unscrewed the ship from the base, revealing a space where salt—or any seasoning, really—could have been concealed. “Should fit nicely over the top of this tree of yours. Can’t have a Christmas tree without a top, after all.”

Addie touched the ship lightly with a chubby forefinger. Nic’tlarn spoke softly to her. “Addie, would you like to finish our tree for us?”

“Yes!” Addie looked up at Nic’tlarn with a bright smile. “What I do?”

Nic’tlarn bent down and whispered in Addie’s ear. She tilted her head to listen, then wrinkled her nose at him in a conspiratorial smile before turning to Leo. “Papa, Addie have, p’ease?”

“Yes, you may, and thank you for asking so nicely,” Leo said, handing her the ship. “Be careful, okay?”

“’Kay,” Addie said with a nod. She looked up at the tree, then turn to Porter and held up her arms. “He’p me p’ease?”

“You got it, kiddo.” Porter led Addie over to the tree, positioned her, and got behind her. “One…two…three… _jump!”_

Addie gave a little jump as Porter hoisted her into the air and held her as high as he could, his large, capable hands firmly locked around her waist. She leaned forward as far as she could, her face creased in concentration, and made two or three attempts before finally slotting the top of the tree into the hole at the bottom of the ship.

“Yay, Addie!” Nic’tlarn clapped in delight.

“Yay!” Addie giggled and clapped, too.

Porter set her down just as the door chimed, then slid open at Leo’s command, admitting Spock and Uhura, both of whom carried a small pile of presents. Addie ran towards them. “Unca ‘Pock! Aun’ ‘Yota!”

“Hi, Addie,” Uhura said warmly. “Merry Christmas.”

“You were prepared?” Leo asked, raising an eyebrow at the gifts they added to the heap under the tree.

“We haven’t done Enterprise Day in a couple of years,” Uhura pointed out. “We’ve got a backlog of gifts anyway.”

Slim decided not to ask about Enterprise Day. Instead, he got up to stop Addie from rushing at the presents again, only to find that once again, Nic’tlarn was ready with a distraction. “Oh, listen, Addie, they’re playing a foxtrot. May I have this dance?”

Addie’s hands went up immediately. Just like when Slim had danced with her at his birthday party, she refused to let Nic’tlarn pick her up, but xe led her through a pretty decent approximation of the foxtrot. Slim considered asking Audra to dance, but remembering what his dad had walked in on, he decided against it. Instead, he enjoyed watching his sister dance with his friend. Kelly, too, was smiling fondly as she put aside the remains of the popcorn.

Scotty was the next to arrive, with an even bigger pile of presents than Spock and Uhura. He was also wearing a floppy Santa Claus hat made of the same tartan pattern as his kilt. Audra clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle her giggles. “Mr. Scott, that hat…it’s you.”

“Be quiet, lassie.” Scotty shot her a mock glare as he set out his presents. “Jim not back yet?”

“No, not yet,” Leo said.

“Unca Scotty!” Addie ran over to him and threw up her arms. “Dance?”

“Certainly.” Scotty tried to pick Addie up and discovered, like everyone else, that she wasn’t having that.

Kelly and Audra both fought hard to stifle their giggles at the sight of their boss dancing with a two-year-old. Scotty obviously hadn’t taken too many lessons in ballroom, because he wasn’t even attempting a proper dance, he was just moving more or less in time to the music while holding Addie’s hands. It didn’t matter to Addie, who was having the time of her short life.

“Mistletoe, Mr. Scott,” Uhura called, grinning mischievously as she pointed at the ceiling above Scotty’s head.

Scotty glanced up at the beribboned plant hanging over him, then scooped Addie up and planted a resounding smack on her cheek. She giggled, grabbed his face, and kissed him on the end of his nose. “’Ove ‘ou, Unca Scotty.”

“Love you, too, Addie.” Scotty touched his forehead to hers before setting her down.

Leo suddenly chuckled. “Jim ever tell you about Suzanna and the mistletoe labyrinth?”

“Sounds like an action-adventure movie,” Slim said lightly. Something tugged at the back of his mind—a conversation he remembered, vaguely, from a couple of years back—but he didn’t know the story well.

“Well, ‘labyrinth’ maybe isn’t the best word. ‘Obstacle course,’ maybe.”

“Tell us,” Uhura urged.

Slim came over to sit cross-legged in front of the tree. Audra seated herself next to him, legs gracefully tucked to one side. Nic’tlarn perched on the arm of the sofa next to Kelly, who leaned back against xem, almost unconsciously. Uhura sat on Spock’s lap; he seemed startled, or at least as startled as Vulcans ever got, but not displeased. Scotty took the other armchair, and Addie scrambled into his lap, seemingly ignoring the presents, which was just fine with Slim. Porter leaned against the wall next to the group.

“This was our third year at the Academy,” Leo began. “I invited Jim to come out to Georgia with me for Christmas—just as friends, mind you, we weren’t dating yet because neither of us thought we had a chance, but that’s another story. Anyway, he jumped at the chance, so we took the shuttle out there. It just so happened that my kid sister had decided to meet me at the shuttleport.”

“I didn’t know you had a sister,” Slim said, surprised.

“She’s sixteen years younger than I am,” Leo said. “So she was only fifteen at the time. First moment she clapped eyes on Jim, she fell head-over-heels for him. It was pretty obvious he was uncomfortable with it, but he never said anything. She flirted outrageously with him for two days straight, and while we were decorating, she put up so much mistletoe that she must’ve stripped every tree in Atlanta.”

Audra giggled. “Poor Captain Kirk. What did he do?”

“Believe it or not, he didn’t understand the significance at first. My grandmother had to explain it to him. When he did, he just tried to avoid it for as long as he could. Suzanna actually stood under a sprig for a good ten minutes waiting for him to notice her, until one of our cousins did and kissed her…she chased him halfway to the city over that, and when she came back, she demanded to know if he knew what mistletoe meant. He promptly got up and kissed my grandmother.”

Slim burst out laughing. He wasn’t the only one. Even Spock looked faintly amused. “I take it your sister did not react favorably to this.”

Leo chuckled. “She was pretty pissed. Jim finally talked to her and told her—” He stopped, a brief look flickering through his eyes almost too fast for Slim to identify it. “Anyway, they’re friendly now, and she dismantled the mistletoe labyrinth afterward, so it worked.”

Jim’s voice rang out from the doorway. “Hey, did we start opening presents yet?”

Slim turned, still laughing, to see Jim standing just inside the doorway with a barely suppressed grin on his lips. “No, not yet, we were waitin’ for you.”

“Ah. Well, in that case, I think the first present is for Mr. Chekov.” Jim stepped fully into the room and to one side, revealing a figure standing behind him, smiling broadly.

Chekov gave a little cry and leapt to his feet, nearly stepping on Kelly’s foot. He made it two steps before Sulu was somehow right there, having crossed the room in a flash. Chekov threw his arms around Sulu’s neck, burying his face in his shoulder; Sulu wrapped his own arms tightly around him, pulling him close to his chest.

“Are you all right,  _koibito?”_ Sulu asked softly.

Chekov nodded wordlessly, clinging tighter to Sulu for a moment before pulling back enough to look up at him with a smile. Slim could see the glint of tears in his eyes, however. “Are you?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

“I’m fine,” Sulu assured him. “I’m sorry it’s taken me so long, I just…I couldn’t guarantee…”

“I know.” Chekov pulled Sulu’s head down towards him and kissed him.

Slim couldn’t help the grin that split his face. Maybe it was his own budding romance, but he loved seeing his friends happy and content with the people they cared about. And it occurred to him that this was the first time he’d ever seen Sulu and Chekov kissing in public. They were both fairly shy about their relationship; they would hold hands and curl up with one another, but something like this, the passion, this was something that they seemed to reserve for behind closed doors. That they were willing to display this much affection for one another in front of their friends meant either that they were comfortable enough with their relationship to share it, that they trusted the others enough to let them see them in a moment of unguarded love, or that Chekov had forgotten they weren’t alone.

Sulu broke off the kiss a moment later and looked down, startled, then grinned. “Hi, Addie. Miss me?”

“Unca ‘Kawu!” Addie said happily.

“Addie,” Slim murmured, rolling his eyes. He hadn’t even noticed her getting off of Scotty’s lap.

“It’s all right.” Sulu picked Addie up and swung her into the air, making her giggle, then set her back down again. “Sorry, didn’t mean to disrupt the party.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Sit down.” Jim grinned and nudged Sulu and Chekov towards the sofa. “Since we’ve started with the gifts, why not continue?”

Porter subtly turned the music down a hair as they began sharing out presents. Addie eagerly tore the wrappings off of her gifts and squealed with delight over each one. Slim wasn’t surprised that everyone had gifts for her, but he was surprised—and pleased—that they had gifts for everyone else. Mostly small, relatively useless knickknacks, although Scotty had given everyone a personalized drink flask. Not just for the senior command—for the younger engineers, too. Slim certainly hadn’t expected that, since they hadn’t even known about the Christmas party until that afternoon, more or less.

“Uh, you might want to wait to open that one,” Jim said, glancing at Kelly as she picked up a flattish box, one of the last presents under the tree. “Until—you know, you’re alone.”

Uhura raised an eyebrow. “I’m curious as to why you would be giving her something like  _that._ ”

“No! No, it’s nothing—” Jim threw her a mock scowl, but he was blushing a little. “It’s just…you might wanna wait.”

Kelly looked up at Jim. A look of understanding came into her eyes, and she looked down at the box, obviously hesitating. Finally, she smiled slightly and began undoing the wrapping, slowly and carefully. Slim watched as she lifted the lid off the box. Her face lit up with delight, and she lifted out what Slim at first mistook for a towel, until he saw the fringe. It was a blanket, dark blue and patterned with silver bobbles like stars, no more than a square meter in area. It looked incredibly soft, but awfully small.

“Thank you, sir,” she said in an awed voice.

Jim smiled in reply. “You’re welcome. I figured a night sky pattern would work best.”

“It’s perfect. Thank you so much.”

“Is it a shawl?” Audra asked, her eyebrows knitted in confusion. “I thought it was a blanket, but it ain’t big enough for that…”

“No, it is a blanket.” Kelly hesitated, glancing up at Nic’tlarn, then turned back to the group at large with a soft smile, her whole face seeming to glow from within. “I wanted to wait until…but everything’s going all right, and this seems like the perfect time to tell you all.” She lay the blanket back in her lap and folded her hands over her stomach in an almost protective gesture. “I’m pregnant.”

Slim gaped at Kelly in astonishment. He wasn’t the only one. But both Audra and Sulu seemed more excited than surprised. “Seriously? That’s—wow, Kels, why didn’t you tell us?” the former demanded.

“I…I had a lot to think about,” Kelly said, a little slowly. “It’s a lot to take in, you know? And I wanted to wait until I was sure it was probably going to be okay. But I’m between eleven and twelve weeks now, so…so I think it’s going to work out. Anyway, isn’t Christmas the time of year when you’re supposed to share exciting news with your family?”

“Congratulations,” Sulu said warmly. “Seriously. Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl yet?”

“We’re going to wait to find out.” Kelly smiled up at Nic’tlarn, who squeezed her fingers lightly. “At this point, ultrasound pictures wouldn’t show it conclusively anyway, and it’s not safe to do a genetic screening before—when was it, Dr. McCoy?”

“Twenty-eight weeks,” Leo supplied. “Under ordinary circumstances, which these aren’t. With a high-risk pregnancy, I wouldn’t do it before thirty-two weeks.”

The term  _high-risk pregnancy_ alarmed Slim, just a little, but it didn’t seem to be bothering Kelly just then, so he decided not to bring it up. Instead, he reached up and manually shut his jaw, then smiled. “That’s amazing, Kels.”

“Thanks.” Kelly blushed.

Porter touched a button on the controls to the sound system, shutting off the music, then began singing. “ _The season is upon us now…a time for gifts and giving…_ ”

Slim knew the song and joined in with him, harmonizing as best as he could. “A Baby Just Like You” was one of his favorite Christmas songs, and it seemed to fit the circumstances well. They ended up singing other carols afterward, all of them joining in together and teaching Nic’tlarn the words, and the party was filled with warmth and love and laughter, just as it should be.

That night, as he lay in the darkness, he conjured up the memory of Chekov’s bright face, his delight at having Sulu once more by his side…and of the glow on Kelly’s face, the contentment and joy of the child carried within her…and of Sulu and Nic’tlarn, both so protective and pleased with the delight of their lovers. He smiled and closed his eyes, pulling the blankets over him as he rolled onto his stomach and drifted off to sleep.

_That_ was what Christmas was all about.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from "Country Christmas" by Loretta Lynn. (I would have put this note at the beginning but I didn't want to spoil that this was a Christmas-y chapter!)


	74. Hard on the Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **OKAY, FOLKS, REALLY BIG WARNING HERE.**
> 
> The first part of this chapter contains porn. So those of you who don't like that might wanna skip ahead a few paragraphs.
> 
> But--and this is the big one-- **this chapter also contains an attempted rape.** It doesn't get very far, but unlike in "The Enemy Within," it happens onscreen (well, technically). So please, please, _please_ be aware of this. It's about halfway down the chapter. I don't want to accidentally trigger anyone, so if this might upset you, please be careful.
> 
> On an unrelated note, the chapter title is from the song "You're Easy on the Eyes" by Terri Clark.

Forty wasn’t technically “over the hill” anymore; it wasn’t the midway point in life now that humans routinely lived to be one hundred twenty years on average, and it certainly wasn’t when the body started slowing down now that medical science had advanced so far. But it was still a milestone to be celebrated, a nice round number and proof of having made it safely through another standard year. Leo was determined to pull out all the stops. Jim deserved nothing less.

His first step had been wrangling the duty rota so that both of them were off. That actually hadn’t taken much doing on his part. A quiet word in Spock’s pointy ear, and the first officer had immediately and without fuss arranged things. It hadn’t even seemed to register with Jim what the day was, just that they were both off. Slim was on schedule in Engineering that day, and he’d promised to get Addie ready and hand her over to Carol. He’d also exchanged a wink with Leo when Jim’s back was turned, silent confirmation of plans set in action. There would be a big party after Alpha shift—a family party, really, all the people who had been at the impromptu Christmas party—but the day was reserved for Jim and Leo.

Not having to wake up to their alarm—or their daughter—was a luxury Leo had almost forgotten. He blinked blearily at the chronometer as he came awake and smiled to himself. 0900 hours, an hour into Alpha shift. They had their quarters to themselves.

And Leo intended to make the most of it.

He let his fingertips trail lightly up Jim’s abdomen and over his pectorals, finally teasing at one of his nipples. Jim shivered and inhaled sharply, his eyes popping open as Leo’s fingers brushed the sensitive area. “Bones?” he half-gasped.

“You know anyone else who’s supposed to be in here touchin’ you like this, darlin’?” Leo asked, his lips close to Jim’s ear, dropping the timbre of his voice and letting his accent thicken.

Jim whimpered slightly. “You don’t play fair.”

Leo ghosted his fingers over Jim’s clavicle. He’d discovered, shortly after they started dating, that Jim’s collarbone was ridiculously sensitive and that the lightest touch could drive him crazy. “We’ve got all day. Why rush things?”

“Hmm?” Jim blinked at the chronometer. “Shit, it’s—”

“Our day off,” Leo reminded Jim. He pressed a kiss to the crook of Jim’s neck. “Remember?”

“Oh. Oh, yeah.” Jim turned over in Leo’s arms and smiled at him. “Hey, Bones.”

Leo smiled warmly, his eyes crinkling up at the corners. “Good morning, Jim.”

“Every morning I get to wake up and see this is a good morning.” Jim pulled Leo’s head down to kiss him.

Leo hummed contentedly into Jim’s mouth as he returned the kiss. He let Jim take the lead for a while, then suddenly went on the initiative, rolling Jim onto his back and straddling him. Jim looked startled but not displeased.

“Happy birthday, darlin’,” he whispered, trailing a hand down Jim’s ribs

Jim let out a surprised huff of air. “’S that today?”

“Forgot again?”

“Lost track of time. So much going on…”

“Mmm.” Leo pressed a kiss to Jim’s forehead. “Then let’s slow it down, huh?”

He caressed the side of Jim’s face lightly, teasing the hair at his temples lightly, then let his lips trail over Jim’s neck, the hollow of his throat, the collarbone. Jim gasped and arched his head back as Leo’s lips brushed that sensitive area again. “Christ, Bones…”

“Easy, Jim, I gotcha.” Leo kept up his exploration of Jim’s body, kissing every inch of exposed skin, using his tongue to connect the freckles on Jim’s shoulders into constellations. Jim let out a low moan as Leo gently traced the outline of his abdominal muscles. One of the advantages to morning sex, Leo had found, was that Jim generally slept without a shirt, so there was no worry about getting it off of him. Which meant that Leo didn’t have to worry about panicking his husband, at least not over that.

He kept kissing his way down Jim’s body as he slowly slid down his pants and underwear, but he ignored his cock, which was already erect. Instead, he kissed the sensitive skin on the inside of Jim’s thighs, the backs of his knees, the curve of his calves, before nipping gently at his big toe. Jim jerked his foot back reflexively and Leo immediately pulled back. “Sorry, Jim.”

“It’s okay,” Jim said a little breathlessly. He managed to push himself up on his elbows. “Can I take yours off?”

“Of course, darlin’.” Leo crawled back up the bed to lie next to Jim.

Slowly, carefully, Jim removed Leo’s clothing. He pressed a tentative kiss to Leo’s hip, right above the scar he’d carried since he was thirteen years old, the souvenir of a shuttle crash on a school trip. Leo felt a flush spread across his face. Jim knew he had self-esteem issues with that particular scar, so much that he’d tried covering it up with a tattoo while on his honeymoon—a spray of ivy, badly drawn and badly inked by someone using an outdated home kit in a back alley (the man had been a friend of a friend of a distant relative of the concierge at their hotel, and to be truthful, Leo had been pretty drunk at the time)—and managed to keep Jim from finding out about it for almost two years after they’d become lovers. But when Jim had found it for the first time, on one of Leo’s bad days, he’d made a point of showing Leo that he loved him, scars, bad tattoos, history, and all. And the next day, he’d taken Leo to the tattoo parlor he always used and got them to help fix the tattoo, turning the faded and cartoonish ivy into a vine of roses wrapping around a banner with a line of poetry.

“Jim,” Leo whispered.

“Bones,” Jim whispered back.

He came back up the bed to wrap his arms around Leo’s neck, kissing him passionately. Leo kissed him in reply for a long moment, then broke off to stare into his husband’s impossibly blue eyes. “Tell me what you want, darlin’. Tell me what you want me to do.”

For an answer, Jim kissed him in reply, then turned over onto his stomach. Leo was momentarily stunned by the gesture. Usually when the two of them made love, they did it face to face, normally with Jim on his back and his legs hooked over Leo’s shoulders. It had been a long time since they’d done it this way. Jim sometimes had issues when he couldn’t see Bones.

“Are you sure?” he asked gently, reaching for the bottle of lube but wanting to be absolutely certain this was the way Jim wanted it before he got started.

“Positive,” Jim said, and his voice, though soft, carried real conviction.

“All right, darlin’.” Leo pressed his lips to the tattoo on Jim’s left shoulder blade, the one he’d gotten at the same time as Leo had gotten his tattoo fixed—the caduceus with a line of poetry written on the serpent wrapped around the staff. Those who only knew Jim Kirk’s reputation would probably have expected him to have a tattoo or two, but they would more than likely not have expected that all but one of them incorporated lines of classical poetry. The last tattoo, on Jim’s upper thigh, was the one he referred to as his “wedding tattoo,” the match to the one on Leo’s thigh, and had a line from a country music song on it.

Leo poured the lube into his hand and performed his usual ritual of warming it up. Slowly, carefully, he slid one finger into Jim’s hole.

“Harder,” Jim begged. “Please, Bones…”

_That_ was a surprise, but Leo decided not to question it. He added a second finger, stretching and scissoring and working the hole relentlessly. Jim moaned, bucking back against Leo’s hand, increasing the pressure. Sooner than he normally would have, Leo added a third finger, then a fourth, brushing Jim’s prostate as often as he could. His cock twitched in response to every one of Jim’s keens.

“ _Bones,”_ Jim cried, his hands balling the sheets into his fists.

Leo withdrew his fingers abruptly—Jim let out a whimper at the sudden loss of contact—and squeezed another dollop of lube onto his hand, coating his cock generously. He lined himself up, bracing himself against the bed.

“You ready?” he asked.

“Yes, God, _yes,”_ Jim panted.

Lowering his head, Leo thrust into Jim as hard as he could.

Jim cried out, arching his back. Leo pulled back and thrust again and again, changing the angle so that he would hit Jim’s prostate, harder and faster than they usually did, but it seemed to be what Jim wanted, from the noises he was making. Involuntarily, Leo’s hands left the bed, and he wrapped his arms around Jim’s chest, holding him tightly against Leo, tucking his chin over his husband’s shoulder.

“Bones, Bones, Bones,” Jim chanted, his head lolling back against Leo’s shoulder.

“Hang in there, Jim, I gotcha,” Leo assured him. He tugged Jim upright into a kneeling position, keeping him trapped against him as he sped up the rhythm.

Jim’s breath was coming in short, panting gasps. He clutched at Leo’s arms as Leo fucked into him relentlessly. This was something they’d never really done before—the roughness, the raw passion. Even in their earliest days, even when they’d been young and hot-headed, they’d never gone at it this hard, and with the small part of his brain that was still hanging on to reason, Leo wondered if this was really what Jim wanted, if he was doing the right thing here. Most of him, however, was too far gone to care.

“Bones—I’m gonna—” Jim stuttered.

Leo instantly dropped one hand to just above Jim’s cock, his fingers a hairbreadth away from touching. “Not yet,” he said in Jim’s ear, his voice a velvety growl. “Not yet, Jim. Wait for me. Just wait.”

“B-Bones…” Jim sounded desperate.

“Trust me, Jim,” Leo insisted. “Do you trust me?”

Jim forced his eyes open and looked up at Leo. His pupils had almost obscured the blue of his irises, but he locked gazes with Leo. “Yes, Bones,” he gasped out. “I do.”

Leo gave one last hard thrust and froze momentarily as he came in a rush. Jim’s eyes closed again as Leo’s orgasm racked through both of them. Once he was sure he was finished, Leo pulled out. Jim let out a gasp, his eyes popping open.

“Trust me, Jim,” Leo said again, panting a little himself. Sitting back on his haunches, he took Jim’s shoulders in his hands and turned him over, laying him back against the pillows. He took a moment to survey Jim with satisfaction—his face flushed, his chest slick with sweat, his cock outrageously erect and leaking a little at the tip.

Deciding he had left him in agony long enough, he stroked Jim’s cheek lightly, then suddenly dropped back and took Jim’s length into his mouth, swallowing it down with practiced ease until he was practically flush with Jim’s groin.

Jim let out a wordless moan, a high sound of desperation. Leo couldn’t very well speak with his mouth full of Jim, but he tapped his husband’s thigh twice, indicating permission. That was all it took. Leo only got one more suck before Jim was coming, hot and sweet against the back of his throat.

He coaxed Jim through his orgasm, then gently pulled back, releasing Jim with as much care and tenderness as he could. Swiftly, he crawled up the bed and took Jim into his arms. “Are you all right, darlin’?” he asked softly.

“I’m fine, Bones,” Jim whispered, snuggling against Leo’s chest. He was trembling slightly, but when he looked up at Leo, his smile was as sincere and tender as ever. “That was…holy shit, Bones, where have you been hiding that all these years?”

Leo snorted, carding his fingers through Jim’s hair. “Didn’t think you were into that sort of thing, to be honest. I thought you liked it when I took it slow.”

Jim touched Leo’s cheek. “I do. And…I don’t know. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever really been into rough sex or if it was just what I was used to before I met you. I’m still not sure if I was ever into it. But… I liked that. A lot.” He smiled warmly. “Don’t know if it was because of what it was or just because it was you who was doing it.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Leo admitted. “I’ve been with a couple of guys who, well, _were_ into that, but I know it takes some getting used to. We’ve been together for a long time, and…I don’t know, Jim. You’ve been through a lot. I didn’t want to bring up bad memories or anything.”

“I kinda worried about that, too,” Jim said. He was silent for a moment, then said softly, “I meant what I said, Bones. I trust you. I think this is the first time I’ve really realized just how much I do trust you. I trust you not to hurt me, no matter what. I trust that you’ll always take care of me, that you’ll always stop it before it goes too far—or that if I ask you to stop, you will.” He leaned his head against Leo’s chest. “I mean, we get rough sometimes. I love that. But this was…”

“A little farther than usual,” Leo completed. “A _lot_ farther than usual.”

“Yeah.” Jim looked up at Leo with a smile. “It’s not something I want to do every single time. But this was nice, just this once.”

Leo leaned over and kissed Jim’s lips tenderly, aware that they were still sticky with come. “Happy birthday, Jim.”

“I love you, Bones.”

“I love you, too.” Leo pressed a second, smaller kiss to Jim’s lip, as a signature, then tugged Jim to a sitting position. “Think we should probably get cleaned up, yeah?”

Jim smiled. “Yeah.”

They climbed into the shower together, taking a little bit of extra time to get thoroughly cleaned up. Leo took the opportunity to surreptitiously check Jim over for bruises and was slightly surprised not to find any. He seriously hoped that he hadn’t done any internal damage, but Jim seemed perfectly fine, so Leo decided to let it go for the moment.

He dried Jim off tenderly. Jim reciprocated, wrapping the towel around his waist before they headed into their bedroom hand-in-hand to get dressed. Theoretically, Jim should have been in uniform even when he wasn’t on duty; if there was a crisis, he would need to be on the bridge in a flash and would be expected to be in uniform. But Jim always played a little fast and loose with the rules, and besides, it was his birthday. He pulled on a soft, well-worn sweater, the one that was Leo’s favorite on him, the one that brought out the color of his eyes. Leo couldn’t resist sliding his arms around Jim from behind and planting a kiss on his temple.

“You hungry, darlin’?” he asked.

“Starving,” Jim said, rubbing Leo’s arm in his flannel shirt. “I think I burned about a zillion calories back there. I can’t even imagine how you’re feeling.”

Leo’s stomach rumbled just then, making both of them laugh. Looping his arm through Jim’s, Leo led him out the door.

It was about mid-shift. Leo hadn’t realized they’d been in bed quite that long, but at least it meant they had the mess hall to themselves. He let Jim get whatever he wanted for lunch—well, brunch, he supposed, since this was their first meal of the day—which was something he didn’t normally do. He kept a careful watch over his husband’s diet, determined that he wasn’t going to lose Jim from something as stupid as cholesterol poisoning caused by eating too much fattening food, but once in a while it was okay to let him treat himself. And, after all, it was his birthday. (Leo found that he was reminding himself of that frequently and was starting to get a little annoyed by it.) Jim selected a stack of chocolate-chip pancakes drowning in maple syrup and butter, along with his usual cup of milky, over-sweetened coffee.

“You’re gonna go into a diabetic coma _today,_ ” Leo grumbled, but without any real heat, as he sat down opposite Jim with his own meal, hash browns, eggs sunny-side up, and three strips of bacon, along with a cup of black coffee.

“And you’re gonna have a heart attack,” Jim retorted, gesturing at Leo’s plate. “Or maybe we’re both going to be okay, because you’re an amazing doctor and you’ll save us both. Besides, this is a birthday brunch, and birthday brunches have no detriments to your health.”

Leo had to laugh at Jim’s outrageous statement. “Sure, Jim.” He stabbed the yolk of his egg, watching it run over his plate.

Lingering over a meal was another luxury they didn’t often get. Even when they weren’t about to go on shift, they usually had Addie to consider—and they didn’t mind, really; Leo loved that little girl and he knew Jim did, too. But Carol had offered to take her for the day anyway, to give Jim a day off completely. They stole bites of each other’s meal (Leo had to admit, if only to himself, that Jim’s pancakes were actually pretty good) and chattered lightheartedly about nothing in particular. Finally, they got up and disposed of their dishes.

“Where to now?” Leo asked Jim, sliding his arm around his husband’s waist. “We’ve still got about three hours before end of shift.”

“Why don’t we just walk the ship for a while?” Jim suggested, smiling up at Leo. “Do you remember the last time we took a walk with no particular destination, just the two of us?”

Leo laced his fingers through Jim’s as they set off on a slow, easy amble. “’Bout five years ago, wasn’t it? The pocket park on Station Three.”

“If it was Station Three, that was six years ago. But I thought we took a walk four years back, on Dayhobar Prime.”

“Thanks, Jim, I’d finally managed to block that place from my memories.”

“I thought it was nice.”

“Jim, it was a swamp. The entire planet was one gigantic swamp.”

“Actually, it was _three_ gigantic swamps. There were a couple of rivers that divided it up. Remember that?”

“Kinda hard to forget that when you walked straight off the end of a log before I could even cry out a warning.” Leo’s smirk, a mixture of amusement and fond exasperation, disappeared as he remembered the incident. “And went straight for a waterfall. Dammit, I thought I was going to lose you there.”

“But you didn’t,” Jim reminded Leo, squeezing his hand briefly. “Because you saved me, Bones. You’re always saving me.”

“Someone’s got to,” Leo said. He spoke lightly to cover up the deeper emotions. He saved Jim because he had to—not for Jim’s sake, but selfishly, for his own. And he lived in constant terror of the day that he came across something he couldn’t fix.

Jim nudged Leo as they rounded a corner. “Hey, let’s not be so serious, not today. It’s a good day. Let’s keep it that way.”

Leo smiled and kissed Jim. “Your wish is my command.”

“I like the sound of that.” Jim grinned, an impish twinkle in his eye.

Leo was just opening up his mouth for a suitable reply when he heard an angry-sounding yell from down the hall, followed by a crash. The two men looked at one another, then took off running.

This deck, which was mostly auxiliary storage rooms and rec rooms for senior officers, was largely deserted this time of day, so it wasn’t hard to guess that the only occupied room was the one whose door was slightly ajar. Leo burst through the door and pulled up short, Jim practically crashing into him.

Finney lay sprawled on the floor, stunned from a blow to the temple, a hypo nearby. Scant feet away was Slim, sitting with his back against the wall. His shirt was torn in a couple of places, and it didn’t look like it had been caused by getting caught in machinery, either. Christine Chapel knelt next to him, a hand on his shoulder, her eyes locked on his.

“That’s it,” she said softly. “Stay with me—in through your nose—” she drew in a deep breath, Slim’s shoulders lifting slightly as he inhaled more or less in unison—“hold it—and slowly out through your mouth. Slowly,” she warned him as he began to exhale much too quickly. “Good job. Again.”

Leo’s doctor brain, which was always quicker to come online than his personal brain, helpfully pointed out that this was a classic cure for hyperventilation. Slim had obviously been panicking, and Chapel was calming him down.

“What the hell?” Jim exclaimed, his voice cracking slightly.

Slim started and began to turn towards Jim, his blue eyes wide. Chapel touched his chin lightly, avoiding the bruise, and gently turned his attention back to her. “Focus on me. In through your nose—hold—out through your mouth. That’s it.”

Leo recovered himself enough to move over to the comm on the wall. “Security, send a team to auxiliary chamber four-two-F-nine for pickup.”

“Copy,” Dickenson’s voice replied.

Jim stared at Finney, then at Slim. “What the hell happened?” he asked, obviously fighting to control his voice.

Chapel’s tone never varied from the gentle, soothing voice she was using on Slim. “Finney attacked Slim.”

Leo felt his skin turn to ice. He took in Finney’s prone position, saw for the first time three parallel scratches on his face—defensive wounds—and let his eyes travel over Slim and the rips in his shirt. _Finney attacked Slim._ It wasn’t hard to imagine just what kind of attack Chapel meant.

Suddenly, Slim wasn’t the only one having trouble breathing.

The security team came in, took in the situation at a glance, and peeled Finney off the floor. Jim, who had been standing in numb horror since Chapel spoke, pulled himself together and said, “Take him to the security cell. And call Med Bay for someone to take a look at him.” He turned to Chapel. “Nurse Chapel—you know I have to—”

“Of course,” Chapel said softly. “Dr. McCoy, would you—”

Leo knew what she was asking him to do and nodded. He knelt down next to her and placed his hand on Slim’s other shoulder as Chapel got to her feet and backed away. Locking eyes with his stepson, he began what he’d always referred to as the “seven-eleven breathing”, encouraging the young man silently to stay with him.

After a few moments, Slim exhaled deeply, closing his eyes, and leaned his head back against the wall. Leo bit his lip anxiously. “Are you okay, Slim?” he asked gently, then winced. What a stupid question.

Slim nodded, however. “Yeah…yeah, I’m okay,” he said, a little breathlessly but otherwise normal. He opened his eyes, then leaned forward to hug Leo, who hugged him back tightly, rubbing his back. “I’m okay. Honest, Pa. He scared me more than hurt me.”

“You’re sure? I can check you over in Med Bay…”

“I’m positive. Really. Nurse Chapel helped me calm down. I’m okay.” Slim hugged Leo a moment longer, then pulled back, biting his lip. “Reckon I oughta get back down to Engineering. Don’t what Mr. Scott to think I’m slackin’ off.”

“What were you doing up here, anyway?” Leo asked, getting to his feet with a little more difficulty than he would care to admit and helping Slim up as well.

Slim indicated the panel behind him. “The tertiary particle confinement modulator tripped a circuit. I had to come up here an’ reset it.”

He might as well have been speaking Greek for all Leo understood, but he nodded. “If you’re going back down there, better change your shirt first.”

“Yeah.” Slim ran a hand over his ripped shirt, swallowed, and scooted out of the room. “See you after shift,” he called over his shoulder as he left.

Leo turned to Jim, who was still standing stock-still, looking stunned. “Jim,” he said softly. “Jim, we need to figure out exactly what happened here.”

“Security tapes,” Jim said immediately.

“Good idea.”

They made their way up to the detention block, where Dickenson met them with a puzzled frown. “Captain, I thought you were off today.”

“As much as the captain ever is.” Jim smiled wanly. “Bones and I happened to be on the scene when the incident happened—or at least arrived immediately afterward. This isn’t like the fight in the rec room, this was in an otherwise empty room with no witnesses besides the people involved. Since one of them was my son…pull the security tapes for the last twenty minutes for auxiliary chamber four-two-F-nine.”

“Yes, Captain.” Dickenson signaled to the technician seated at the terminal.

Jim and Leo came over to stand behind the tech as he queued up the tapes for playback. The screen flickered briefly, then came to life on a still image of Slim, one hand extended towards the computer bank. Jim nodded. “That’s it. Start playback.”

The technician pressed the appropriate button. The image came to life. Slim flicked several switches, watching intently as lights faded from the console, then pressed and held a button. After a moment, he began flipping the switches up the other way. He was just turning away from the console when the door whooshed open and Finney strode in.

“Ah, Slim,” Finney practically purred. Leo’s jaw clenched. The man’s smile was clearly visible on the camera.

“Excuse me,” Slim said, cutting his eyes away and heading for the door.

Finney stepped in front of him, blocking his path. “What’s the hurry?”

“I have to get back to Engineering,” Slim replied shortly. “Excuse me, please.”

“You’re not on the payroll,” Finney said, his voice soft and almost reasonable-sounding. “I’m sure they won’t mind you taking a couple extra minutes. You won’t get in trouble.”

“Yes, I will. Excuse me, please,” Slim said again, trying yet again to get around Finney.

Finney casually moved to block him again. “You’re a civilian. You’re a liability. Surely you can spare a little bit of time to talk.”

Slim took a breath. “Please leave me alone.”

Finney’s lips turned down in an exaggerated pout. “Is that any way to talk to someone who’s just trying to be friendly?”

Without even looking, Leo reached out and wrapped his arm around Jim’s waist, pulling him close to his chest from behind. Jim was trembling faintly, but Leo knew not to say anything, just held him tightly as they watched the scene unfold. Slim kept his eyes on the ground as he said, “I don’t want to be your friend. Leave me alone. I won’t ask you again.”

He tried once more to dodge around Finney, but the man was ready. He grabbed Slim by the upper arm. Slim looked up, almost involuntarily, and his face drained of color. He stared at Finney, transfixed, putting Leo in mind of a prey animal caught in the gaze of a predator.

“I don’t recall asking what you wanted,” Finney said in a matter-of-fact voice.

With that, he slammed Slim against the wall. Jim flinched with his entire body; Leo tightened his arms around his husband, staring at the screen. Slim struggled, but Finney was a head taller than he was and a good deal stronger, and he’d also managed to pin Slim at an awkward angle that made it difficult for him to use any of the techniques Jim had taught him. The former helmsman’s lips curled upwards in a malicious grin as he said in a low growl, “Struggle away. It’s always better when I have to work for it a little.”

One of Finney’s hands found a spot on Slim’s torso that was apparently one of his trigger spots, because the young man’s face turned, if possible, even paler, and he froze for vital seconds, allowing Finney to crowd even closer to the young man, making it difficult for him to move, let alone attempt to fight himself free. Finney’s grin broadened as his hand began dropping towards the waistband of Slim’s pants.

And then, suddenly, Christine Chapel appeared out of nowhere behind Finney, a hypo held in her raised hand, her thumb on the trigger. “Hey!” she yelled, jabbing the hypo against the side of Finney’s neck.

Finney snarled and took an involuntary step back as he half-turned and brought one arm up to grab Chapel’s wrist. She took advantage of that to yank him further into the turn and away from the wall. He raised his other hand to strike her. With eye-blurring speed, she swung her leg up and drove the heel into Finney’s temple. He dropped like a felled tree, obviously stunned. Chapel let go of him as he fell, stepped over him before he hit the ground, took Slim by the shoulders, and gently guided him a few feet away, helping him to slide to the ground.

“Are you okay?” she asked gently.

“End playback,” Jim said, his voice slightly creaky. The technician stopped the feed immediately.

Jim stared at the frozen image of Chapel kneeling next to Slim, at the look of vague shock on the boy’s face. Leo’s heart broke for both of them. He tightened his arms around Jim, if possible, still further. The horror of what they had just watched slowly seeped into Leo’s bones. Seeing something like that would have been bad enough, but seeing it happen to someone he cared about was even more painful.

And seeing it happen to his _son…_

After several long moments, Jim broke the silence, his voice small and brittle. “I should have known.”

“Jim, it’s not your fault,” Leo said gently, although he understood. He, too, wondered if he’d missed some sort of obvious hint, if he could have prevented this from happening. “You did everything you could…”

“I should have known Slim was in danger. I should’ve—”

“Stop,” Leo said. He kissed Jim’s temple softly. “You’re not psychic. You couldn’t have known.”

Jim sighed, leaning back against Leo. “Then I should have guessed. I should’ve realized, after what he did to Chekov…”

Leo shook his head. “We all thought he was fixated on Chekov. It’s easy to say in hindsight that we should have been able to figure it out, but we didn’t have all the facts. Besides, you did everything you could to keep Finney away from Chekov—and since Slim is almost always with Chekov or his friends these days, you went a long way towards keeping him safe.” He paused, frowning. “Come to think of it, what the hell was Finney doing on that deck anyway? I thought you restricted him to Deck Three.”

“I did,” Jim said, straightening up. Leo, understanding, let go of his husband, although he didn’t go very far. “Even if he hadn’t touched Slim, disobeying instructions would have been reason to confine him, for at least twenty-four hours. But this…he stays in that cell until we get to the space station, and then he’ll be transferred to _their_ detention cells. I’ve gotta call Starfleet Command…make a report…”

“Let me do that, sir,” Dickenson said from the doorway. Leo jumped; he had forgotten the chief of security was there. “It’s my job, after all. And your son is involved,” he added as Jim opened his mouth, probably to point out that he was the captain and it _did,_ technically, fall to him. “That makes this a personal matter for you. Since Finney is a civilian and not personnel, it makes more sense for me to be the one to file the report.”

Jim took a deep breath. “You’re right. Thank you, Chief Dickenson.”

Dickenson hesitated, then said quietly, “Sir, since he _is_ a civilian, and he’s still underage…I need your permission to speak with Slim about this. I mean, we have the tapes, but in order for my report to be complete…”

“I understand,” Jim said. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and nodded. “You have my permission. He’s down in Engineering right now, if you’d like to speak to him before Alpha shift ends.”

“I’d like to speak with Nurse Chapel first,” Dickenson said. “Sooner I talk to her, the sooner she can go.”

“Good point.” Jim smiled wanly. “Carry on, Dickenson.”

Dickenson nodded and headed into the cells. Leo led Jim out of the room and helped him to sit on one of the soft, comfortable benches just outside the room. Jim leaned into Leo, burying his face in Leo’s neck.

“I know it’s not my fault, but it feels like it is,” he whispered.

Leo wrapped his arms around Jim, pulling him close. “I know,” he said softly. “I feel that way, too. We’re supposed to be able to keep our kids safe. Every parent feels that way when something happens to their kids.”

Jim wiped his eyes and sat up, looking at Leo seriously. “Is this…how you felt when Joanna died?”

There was a moment of silence. Finally, Leo swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat and nodded. “Yeah. It is. It’s also how I felt when Addie came down with Rigelian fever. As a doctor, I know neither one of those things was my fault…but as a father, I can’t help but feel like I should have been able to prevent it from ever coming near them.”

“This is different. This is—”

“I know. But in a way, it’s not. You can’t keep Slim in a bubble. He’s sixteen now. He’s growing up. The universe is out there, and it’s a pretty big one. In a couple of years he’ll be at Starfleet Academy and we’ll still be up here in the black, and once he gets out of the Academy God only knows where he’ll end up.” Leo knew his words probably weren’t particularly comforting, but Jim was listening to him, at least. “Finney won’t be the last bully Slim meets—he’s not even the first, and let’s face it, Jim, he’s not the worst. You know better than I do what happened in some of those foster homes, but at least on the _Enterprise_ Slim had people who were willing to stand up for him. He’s safe and he’s loved and he’s taken care of. And Finney will get what he deserves. I doubt any of the foster parents who gave him those scars will ever so much as see the inside of a police station, let alone a detention cell.” A half-smile tugged at his lips. “Besides, it’s obvious he’s been paying attention in your lessons. He probably could have fought his way out of that if Finney hadn’t pinned him to the wall.”

“Guess I’m gonna have to start working on that, then.” Jim took a deep, calming breath. “I’m sorry, Bones.”

Leo didn’t know if Jim was apologizing for letting Slim get hurt or for falling apart or both or neither, but he decided it didn’t matter. “You don’t need to be.”

He got to his feet, took Jim’s hands, and pulled him to a standing position so as to get a better angle, then pulled him in and kissed him, deeply and passionately. They broke apart when they heard footsteps and turned in time to see Chapel coming towards them, Dickenson right behind her.

“Nurse Chapel, I owe you apology,” Jim said quietly.

Chapel shook her head, her blue eyes serious. “You don’t owe me anything, Captain.”

That wasn’t right, Leo realized. Captain Kirk had never been anything but respectful and professional towards Nurse Chapel. It was Jim who’d been avoiding Christine. Jim seemed to think of that in the same instant, because he reiterated. “I’m sorry, Christine. I shouldn’t have—”

“Forget it, Jim,” Chapel said. A faint smile flickered briefly across her face. “I never did apologize to you for spreading rumors about you—or for believing them. I’m sorry.”

“Forgiven and forgotten,” Jim said. He held out his hand. Chapel looked at it for a moment, then slowly shook it. “Hopefully the rest of your stay on the _Enterprise_ will be less…eventful.”

“Wouldn’t be the _Enterprise_ if there wasn’t a lot going on,” Chapel said, and this time she really did smile. “But yeah, hopefully not like this.”

Leo raised an eyebrow at her. “What was in that hypo, by the way?”

“High-powered vitamin shot,” Chapel said with a shrug. “And I didn’t actually dispense it. I just jabbed it against his neck to get his attention, but if I had, it wouldn’t have done any harm.”

“That was a hell of a kick, too,” Jim said. Leo could see the color beginning to return to his cheeks, just a little. “Where’d you learn that?”

Chapel looked definitely amused at that. “I was living on an outpost, remember? Things could get pretty rough out there. I needed to learn a few techniques.”

“Don’t suppose you’d be willing to come give me a hand with Slim’s hand-to-hand lessons once a week?”

“I’d be delighted. Just tell me when.”

“Are you on Alpha?” It suddenly occurred to Leo that, although Chapel was usually on Beta shift, she might have been covering for somebody.

Chapel shook her head. “This is actually my day off. But I’m on Beta for the rest of the week. Haven’t gotten next week’s schedule yet.”

“Then, if you don’t mind my asking, what were you doing on that deck?”

“I usually go up there when I’m not working,” Chapel admitted. “At least on days Carol’s with Addie. It’s pretty deserted during Alpha, so I don’t…bother anybody.”

Leo’s conscience gave a twinge. “I didn’t realize it was so uncomfortable for you…”

“Don’t,” Chapel said quickly. “Either of you. I haven’t exactly made an effort to make friends myself. And it’s actually been a real education.” With another of those smiles of hers, she added, “The crew’s really loyal to you, Jim. It’s amazing to see.”

Jim smiled wanly in reply. “Welcome back to the family.”

“Thanks.” Chapel glanced at the chronometer. “’Bout an hour left on shift. I think I’m going to head up to the rec room and see if I can join in on that running chess tournament.”

“Something else you learned on that outpost of yours?” Leo teased.

“You know it. See you later.” With a grin, Chapel vanished.

Leo turned to Jim. Now that they were alone, he was looking pale and washed-out again. “C’mon, darlin’, let’s go finish our walk, huh?” he prompted gently.

Jim let Leo lead him into the corridor. They ambled slowly, saying nothing, their fingers laced tightly together. Leo couldn’t help but feel that some of the joy had gone out of the day; it was memorable, all right, but not in the way he’d intended. Jim had yet another awful event to associate his birthday with. It had taken most of their time together for Leo to get Jim to stop feeling like it was George Kirk’s death day first and Jim’s birthday second, if at all.

They were halfway around Deck Five when the lift opened right next to them and Spock stepped out. He saw them and fell into step with them. “Are you well, Captain?” he asked in his most formal voice.

“Fine, Spock.” Jim forced a smile. “How’s our heading?”

“We remain on schedule. However, I must say that you look as though you are having a less than relaxing day off.”

“You could say that,” Jim agreed, a shadow crossing his face.

Spock raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps you and the doctor would care to join me for a drink?”

Leo looked sideways at Jim. His face was ashen, his breathing shallower than Leo would have liked, and he certainly didn’t look in any state for a drink. He shook his head, stopping both men in their tracks. “No. Spock, sorry, I know we wanted this to be a surprise, but I don’t think his heart can take any more strain tonight,” he said quietly. “Jim, we’ve got a party set up for you in the rec room where we had Slim’s fourteenth birthday party.”

Jim looked at Leo. Tears flooded his eyes. “Bones—God, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“You didn’t do anything wrong. I just…I’m worried about you.” Leo put his arms around Jim and pulled him close. He felt Jim’s heartbeat, rapid and slightly arrhythmic, and knew he’d been right to tell him—if they’d walked into a surprise party like they’d originally planned, Jim might’ve had a heart attack.

Next to them, he heard the sounds of Spock flipping out his communicator and speaking quietly, then closing it with a snap. “I have informed the others that we are no longer holding a surprise party, and that the captain is aware of it,” he said. He reached over and laid a hand gently on Jim’s back. “I am sorry, Jim.”

Jim took a deep breath and pulled away from Leo, who nevertheless kept an arm around his husband’s waist. “It’s not your fault, Mr. Spock. Come on, let’s go have this party.”

“We don’t have to, if you’re not up for it,” Leo began, worried.

“Bones, I think after today, I need a little bit of fun with my family.”

Spock fell into step with them. He asked no questions and seemed to expect no answers, but Leo knew that, if he hadn’t heard already, Jim would tell him sooner rather than later. After all, this was an incident that technically affected the entire ship, and more than likely everyone would have heard about it by the time Beta was half-over. If it took that long.

Everyone was already in the rec room when they arrived—including Slim, who looked a lot less worse for the wear than Jim did. Addie beamed when she saw them and ran over to hug Jim’s knees. “Birfday, Daddy!” she squealed.”

Jim laughed and picked Addie up, kissing the crown of her head. “Thank you, baby girl. I completely forgot it was my birthday.”

Cynically, Leo thought that he wouldn’t be surprised if he really had.

Considering it was barely two weeks after the Christmas party, it was amazing that anybody had any gifts left for Jim, but Leo suspected that they’d deliberately held something back so he’d have something to unwrap on his actual birthday. Most of them were books, which both was and wasn’t a surprise. Somehow, it had gotten out among the crew that their captain was a colossal nerd behind the front he put on. There was cake and ice cream and, yes, Scotty had brought a supply of alcohol for those who chose to indulge in it, and the whole thing was a relaxed, cheerful environment. If anyone noticed Jim’s strain, they gave no sign.

Just as Leo was about to suggest putting on music and dancing for a while, muffled shouting came from right outside the door. Jim heaved a weary sigh, set down his cup, and walked over to the door, Leo and Spock right behind him..

Chitose, red in the face, was squaring off against Chapel, who looked somewhere between startled and resigned. Gaila had a grip on the back of Chitose’s shirt and was trying to drag her back from the confrontation, but it was obvious Chitose was having none of that. She was in the middle of yelling at Chapel. “—where he is, or so help me—”

“I told you, I don’t know,” Chapel said in a level tone of voice.

“Chitose, knock it off, I’m going to rip your shirt off,” Gaila said.

“He can’t get away with this!” Chitose screamed.

“ _What_ is going on out here?” Jim said in a quiet but firm voice.

All three women turned to look at him, Chitose’s countenance suffused with anger. “You! Why aren’t you talking to Ben, getting to the bottom of what happened?”

“It is not your place to—” Spock began.

Jim cut him off. “I am not ‘getting to the bottom of what happened’ because I have already done so. Ben Finney is most definitely at fault and will be remaining in the detention cell until we arrive at our next Federation port of call, at which time he will be transferred to their custody. End of discussion.”

“Everybody’s against him!” Chitose cried wildly “You’re not really trying—you’re just prejudiced against him because of—”

“Miss Sulu,” Jim interrupted, and his voice was like ice, his posture absolutely correct, his eyes flashing, “if I were prejudiced against him, I would not have let him be at liberty after the last incident.”

“That wasn’t his fault and you know it! And _she—_ ” Chitose pointed a finger viciously at Chapel. “She just picked a fight with him to get him in trouble! Ben was just—”

Again, Jim interrupted her, his voice rising on each word. He was obviously at the end of his patience and something inside him had snapped. “Go up to Security. Tell them you want to view the security tapes from the incident and that I sent you to do so. They’ll let you watch them. And then, by all means, come find me and tell me how you think he’s justified in his attempted _rape._ I’m fascinated to know how you think that could _possibly_ be anyone else’s fault.”

“You won’t give him a fair trial,” Chitose said, but there was a glimmer of uncertainty in her eyes. “You’ll convict him without even listening to the evidence…”

“Since both Finney and his victim are civilians, that won’t be an issue,” Jim snapped. “As I said, you’re welcome to view the security tapes.”

“I will, then.” Chitose tugged her shirt away from Gaila’s hand, turned on her heel, and stormed off down the corridor.

The second she was out of sight, Jim sagged. Leo caught him and gently led him back into the room—only to be confronted with a stunned, horrified silence. Every single person was staring at either Jim or Slim, their faces pale. Uhura had one hand pressed to her mouth, Chekov looked like he was about to be sick, and Simril’s hands were clenched into tight fists.

“Daddy?” Addie sounded confused and uncertain.

Nic’tlarn recovered xemself and turned to Addie with a smile that Leo could tell was forced. “Addie, Slim tells me that you found a new star yesterday. Will you show me?”

The question worked; Addie lit up in excitement, then frowned slightly, looking around the room. “Not here.”

“Why don’t you take Nic’tlarn up to the Observation Deck and show xem your star?” Leo prompted, giving the ensign a look of gratitude. He hadn’t thought about the fact that everyone in the room could hear what was being said—the door had been open the entire time—and this was a conversation Addie didn’t need to overhear.

“’Kay!” Addie said happily. She grabbed Nic’tlarn’s hand, then reached for O’Flaherty’s with the other—she didn’t miss much—and headed for the door, jabbering the entire time about the star she’d “discovered,” which she probably wouldn’t be able to pick out if it had her name emblazoned on it.

There was a full minute of silence after the three of them left. Scotty finally broke it, turning to Slim with a horrified expression. “Is that what Dickenson wanted to talk to ye about?”

“Yeah,” Slim said softly. “’S why it took me so long to get back, too. I’m sorry, sir.”

“You’re sorry,” Scotty repeated flatly. “That miserable excuse for a human bein’ tried to rape you and _you’re_ sorry. Jim, this boy is definitely your son.”

Leo wanted to laugh, but couldn’t quite manage it. Cayne reached out a trembling hand to touch Slim’s forearm lightly. “I ain’t sure how you managed to even come back after that.”

“He didn’t hurt me,” Slim insisted. “Not really. Scared me more ‘n anythin’. Nurse Chapel here pulled ‘im off ‘fore he did too much damage. Just ripped my shirt a bit.”

“If anyone should be sorry, it’s I,” Gaila said quietly from behind Leo.

Leo turned to her with a frown. “Gaila, no, what do you have to be sorry for?”

Gaila folded her arms over her chest. “I lived with him for fifteen years. I should have known what he was like. He was just…slippery. Smooth. He put on a good act, but I should have been able to see through it. And there were whispers…nothing spelled out, and they never said it to me, but I heard the Thũn discussing on more than one occasion about his ‘acolytes.’ I don’t think Slim was his first attempt.”

“He wasn’t,” Chekov said, so softly he was barely audible.

Gaila’s head snapped up. Uhura gripped the back of a chair, looking like she was about to faint or beat Finney with it or both. Simril’s face turned a dark shade of purple and he took two steps towards the door before Spock stretched out an arm to bar his progress.

Scotty’s voice, when he spoke, was completely devoid of emotion. “The tattoo.”

“Aye, sir.” Chekov looked down at his shoes. Sulu wrapped his arms around the navigator from behind. “I—I didn’t know he was in Starfleet back zen. If I had, I would have said something to Admiral Hackett, but…”

Slim and Cayne exchanged glances, both of them looking horrified. Simril opened his mouth, but Jim beat him to the punch, his voice weary, but carrying such authority that everyone gave him their full attention. “It’s not anyone’s fault but Finney’s. He’s good at hiding what he’s like—good enough that he fooled a lot of people. Maybe he’s gotten complacent over the years, thinking that he’s untouchable, and maybe the fact that his previous victims have stayed quiet helped contribute to that, but it’s still his fault and his fault alone. I don’t want anybody else to blame themselves—or anybody else, for that matter. Please. He’s done enough damage already.”

“We promise, Jim.” Uhura spoke for the first time, and Leo knew she was speaking for everyone.

Slim worried at his lower lip. “Dad, I reckon you oughta go lie down—you look done in.”

Spock studied Jim for a moment, then turned to Leo, who felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. Spock’s eyes were actually full of concern. “Thomas is correct, Leonard,” he said softly. “Perhaps you had best—”

Leo nodded. “C’mon, darlin’,” he said softly, pulling Jim close. “Let’s get you to bed, okay?”

“Yeah—okay.” Jim leaned against Leo for a moment, then looked around the room. “Thank you, everyone. I’m sorry this didn’t work out like you planned, but—thank you.”

“Happy birthday, Jim,” Scotty said, and the others echoed the sentiment.

As Leo started for the door, Chapel pressed something into his hand. “Just in case,” she said under her breath. “I’ll stay and help clean up.”

Leo nodded his thanks, slipping the object into his pocket. He could guess what it was, but he waited until they were back in quarters to examine it. Sure enough, it was a hypo, one that, according to the label, was loaded with one of the sedatives Jim wasn’t allergic to. Quietly, he laid it on the bedside table before helping Jim strip down.

Once they were in bed, Jim curled tightly against Leo’s chest. “What have I done?” he whispered brokenly.

“Nothing, Jim, you didn’t do anything,” Leo said softly, kissing his husband’s forehead. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. Slim’s okay. And he and Chekov are safe now. Finney can’t hurt them anymore. It’s okay.”

“Bones,” Jim whimpered, and then he was crying, sobbing into Leo’s shoulder. Leo held him, rubbing his back and soothing him as best he could, but none of the usual techniques worked. Jim was working himself into a hysterical fit.

Finally, he freed one arm and reached for the hypo. “Jim, I’m gonna give you something to help you sleep,” he said gently, hating himself but knowing it was the only way Jim would relax. “Okay, darlin’? And you’ll be all right. I’ll be right here the whole time. I promise. I will never leave you.”

Still sobbing, Jim nevertheless nodded. Leo flicked off the cap of the hypo and pressed it to Jim’s neck as gently as he could. “I love you, darlin’,” he whispered as he depressed the trigger. There was a faint hiss as the sedative was dispensed, and then Jim went limp against him.

Carefully, Leo set aside the spent hypo, then settled back against the headboard, arms around his husband. There would be no sleeping for him tonight and he knew it, and it would probably make him cranky as hell the next morning, but he didn’t care. He had promised Jim that he would be there for him, and that was where he would stay. He wanted to be awake if the sedative wore off before he expected it to—or if, God forbid, Jim had a bad reaction to it and needed medical care.

What Jim needed most of all was Leo. And he’d be there.

 


	75. The Trouble With Tribbles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. I did not expect this chapter to take as long as it did to write...but I hope it's worth it in the end.
> 
> A few housekeeping notes. First of all, this chapter is based on the episode of the same name, written by David Gerrold. It also contains elements from "Trials and Tribble-ations," written by Ronald D. Moore & René Echevarria. Slim's explanation of the origins of the name of Sherman's Planet is lifted from the Starfleet Core of Engineers novella "Oaths" by Glenn Hauman. The name Fizzgig comes from The Dark Crystal, a Jim Henson film, and credit goes to Ricechex for once again suggesting the perfect name.
> 
> Second, I realized when I started writing this chapter that I screwed up in previous chapters. In the original episode, the name of the space station was K-7, and the fact that they needed the _Enterprise_ to provide security implied that they didn't have guards themselves...but I said K-9, and talked like they would be transferring Finney. Originally I was going to go back and change it, but then I decided to go with the trip to K-7 being a detour. So, sorry, Finney will be on board for a while longer...however, now he has company, so maybe that will make up for it a little?
> 
> Third, I tried something a little new with POV in this chapter...I hope you like it.
> 
> Finally, I would like to state for the record that if my tenth grade pre-calculus teacher had answered the question "When are we ever gonna _use_ this?" with "To accurately calculate how long it would take a starship to get to a specified point at various warp factors," I would have studied a LOT harder.

Word spread quickly on the _Enterprise._ Within two days, everybody on board the ship seemed to know not only that Finney was in the detention cells, but why. The tale had probably lost nothing in the telling up and down the corridors, either, but it didn’t seem to be a prime source of gossip—or if it was, the gossipers were keeping it away from the senior command. Slim had bounced back from the assault quickly, especially since, as he’d pointed out repeatedly, he hadn’t been physically hurt; he’d had a couple of pretty serious nightmares, but they’d settled down. Chekov, now that he was back in Sulu’s arms and Finney was somewhere he couldn’t get at him, was more relaxed than he’d been in weeks. Sulu had taken a bit longer to calm down, especially since his twin was making a point of avoiding him and everybody else, but by the time a week had passed he was his old self. Everything was back to normal.

Everything except Jim.

He put on a good front when he was on duty—it was something he’d learned to do as a boy, to look normal, even cocky, when his world was falling to pieces around him—but in private, he was still a wreck. He was having trouble sleeping, and often at night he would gently slide out of Bones’ arms and prowl restlessly around their quarters, obsessively checking on Slim and Addie to make sure they were all right. Even when he managed to fall asleep, it was restless, tossing and turning and crying out with nightmares he could never remember upon waking. He felt guilty, knowing he was probably keeping Bones up, too, but Bones kept telling him not to be an idiot. He wouldn’t hear of Jim sleeping on the couch, and whenever Jim woke up screaming, Bones was always right there, stroking his hair and soothing him and comforting him. Despite the fact that Bones’ esper rating was as close to normal as possible, he always seemed to know when Jim needed him, and even when they were both on duty, it seemed like Jim barely started feeling the panic rising in his chest before Bones was sauntering onto the bridge to put a gentle, steadying, supportive hand at his back, never saying a word but his very presence serving to calm Jim down.

They were still about two weeks out from Space Station K-9, their next official destination, at least at space normal speed. Several times Jim had been tempted—sorely tempted—to order the helm to increase the speed. If he’d called for warp eight—the highest speed authorized for a starship to maintain for more than a few minutes—on his birthday, they’d have been at their destination in less than two hours. But he’d resisted, for a few reasons. The most important reason was that the ship wasn’t supposed to travel at anything above space normal—about one-tenth the speed of light—unless there was an emergency of some kind. And Jim was pretty sure that getting a bully and a rapist off his ship wasn’t actually considered an “emergency,” depending on what official he drew when they pulled his speed tapes. Besides, “warp” wasn’t just a convenient term. In order to move at those kinds of speeds, a ship had to literally bend space and time around itself, and if they were too close to an inhabited planet, certain speeds of warp could be devastating. Like it or not, he would have to just deal with it for a couple weeks more.

Today, though, he was determined to be as cheerful as he could. It was his day off, and it was also Addie’s birthday. They hadn’t really planned a party for her, but Jim had decided to spend the day with her. Slim was off, too, but Bones had scheduled himself to work, reasoning that it might do Jim and Addie good to have time alone together. Jim didn’t think Addie was having that hard a time; still, he was willing to try the experiment.

It was actually not a bad day, he had to admit. Addie probably didn’t realize it was her birthday; none of them had actually said anything, they were saving that for the family party that afternoon. Still, she was reveling in having her daddy all to herself, Slim having made himself scarce shortly after breakfast. Jim found that he was enjoying himself, too. The last time he’d spent the whole day with Addie and only Addie, she’d been fifteen months old and they’d both been recovering from a serious illness. Today, not only was she older, they were both well enough to have fun. They had played a game of Candyland, read a story, and drawn pictures, then eaten lunch before Addie took her afternoon nap, having outgrown needing two a day. She had just woken up, and Jim was about to suggest they sing and dance together when the communicator on the wall chirruped. “Bridge to Captain Kirk.”

Jim frowned; Spock wouldn’t have commed him, especially not this late in Alpha shift, unless there was an emergency. Swiftly, he crossed to the intercom with an apology to his daughter. “Kirk here.”

“Captain, we have just received a distress call from Space Station K-7. Priority One.”

The hackles on the back of Jim’s neck rose. Priority One was a very serious matter, and that it was coming from K-7 was even more serious. The station was just above Sherman’s Planet, a mostly barren rock but one with strategic importance, a mere three light-years from the nearest Klingon outpost. Both sides had claimed it, but under the Organian treaty, it would go to whichever group could give the best plan for developing it. It was technically off their route, but if there was an issue, it needed to be dealt with. Promptly.

“Red alert status, Spock. I’m on my way. Kirk out.” Jim snapped off the intercom and looked apologetically at his daughter. “Sorry, baby, Daddy has to go to the bridge.”

“Addie come, too!” Addie insisted as the red alert klaxon began blaring.

Jim hesitated. Carol’s quarters weren’t on his way to the bridge, and he had no idea where Slim was spending his day. It would take time to find something else to do with Addie—time he didn’t have. Besides, it was her birthday. “All right, but you have to be very quiet and stay out of the way, okay?”

“’Kay,” Addie agreed happily. She was wearing one of her yellow shirts with black pants and her Mary Janes, so she could pretend she was an officer—if she really wanted to.

Jim swept Addie onto his shoulders and rushed for the lift. This was a bad idea and he knew it; Addie might prove a distraction, and if something went wrong when they got to their destination, she could get hurt. And Bones would probably kill him. But at the same time, there weren’t actually any regulations against it. Civilians in general were permitted on the bridge during red alerts, within reason, unless they were causing trouble. There would probably be regulations against children on the bridge when it became common to have families onboard starships, but as of right now, there were no official regulations whatsoever.

_And after all,_ he thought with a humorless grin, _for an experiment to be truly successful, you need to test all the variables._

“Status, Mr. Spock,” Jim said as he strode purposefully out of the lift, swinging Addie down from his shoulders and setting her on the floor without breaking stride.

Spock stared at Addie. “Captain—”

“Time is of the essence,” Jim interrupted, taking his seat. Addie grabbed a handful of Jim’s pant leg and looked up at him with big blue eyes, but didn’t say anything. “What do we know about the problem at K-7?”

“Nothing, Captain,” Spock said, recovering himself and moving over to his station. “We received only the distress call itself, no details whatsoever.”

“Mr. Chekov, what’s our position?” Jim asked. As Chekov twisted around, clearly prepared to rattle off the coordinates, he corrected himself. “How far are we from the station?”

“Two point eight light-days, Keptin,” Chekov said, promptly and precisely.

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Jim had to suppress a smile at the memory of Bones’ words on Pollux IV: _Jim, Spock’s rubbing off on this boy._ Pushing the thought from his mind, he did some rapid calculations and said, “All hands, secure for warp.” He picked Addie up, put her firmly in his lap, then ordered, “Mr. Sulu, increase speed to warp factor six.”

“Warp six, sir,” Sulu said, pushing up on the helm.

Addie pressed back into Jim as the ship accelerated. Warp six was about two hundred and sixteen times the speed of light; at that speed, they should be arriving in about twenty minutes. If they went any faster, they’d be going so fast that they’d be past their destination before they had time to stop. Twenty minutes would be fast enough. He hoped.

“Space Station K-7 coming up, Keptin,” Chekov said at last.

“Slow to space normal,” Jim ordered. “Be alert, everybody.”

Sulu brought the ship out of warp. Jim braced himself. This close to Klingon space, a Priority One call could mean anything—and probably meant something serious. He had already located a small niche where Addie could curl up if necessary and was starting to beat himself up internally for bringing his daughter up here. Surely he could have spared a couple minutes to—

“There’s—nothing there, Captain.” Uhura sounded bewildered.

Jim did a double-take. She was absolutely right. The viewscreen ahead of them was perfectly clear. Deep Space Station K-7 hung in front of them like a kid’s mobile, peaceful and serene. Beyond it was Sherman’s Planet, which, in all honesty, looked like barren rock, but it was class M and therefore habitable—hence its present status as an object of contention. The only menace—if it could be called that—was a one-man scout ship, which was obviously in parking orbit.

Baffled, Jim said, “Get me whoever’s in charge over there.”

“Commander John Lurry,” Spock supplied, “a human male, age forty-seven, assigned to Station K-7 in—”

“Spock, I don’t need his complete dossier, I just need _him._ Lieutenant Uhura, please hail the station.”

“Hailing, sir.”

A moment later, the viewscreen filled with the image of a thin, worried-looking face. Jim was secretly surprised; despite what Spock had said, the man’s hair was snow-white, his face lined and wrinkled like that of an old man. It was hard to believe he was only a year older than Jim’s own husband. Obviously the years had not been kind.

“Commander Lurry,” he said, hearing the tightness in his voice but not really doing much to combat or cover it, “my name is Captain James T. Kirk of the U.S.S. _Enterprise,_ responding to your Priority One distress call. We are unable to detect any threats in this area. Will you please tell us why you have called us?”

“Willingly, Captain Kirk,” Commander Lurry said immediately. “If you will beam aboard the station—”

“You can explain right now,” Jim said firmly. “I have no intention of beaming into—”

“Captain Kirk, please, I beg of you—”

“—into a situation I know nothing about! If this is some kind of trick—”

“No, Captain, of course not!” Lurry sounded slightly panicky. “I really am sorry for the inconvenience, but I’m afraid I have to insist. The situation is…delicate, and extremely crucial. I need to brief you in person. Please.”

Jim took a deep breath to steady his nerves. “All right, Commander Lurry. We will be aboard in ten minutes.” He gestured for Uhura to cut the signal.

Spock came over to him, frowning slightly. “Captain, under the circumstances, I do not feel you should leave the vessel.”

“On the contrary, Spock,” Jim said wearily. “Starfleet regulations are quite clear in the matter. I’m the only one who _can_ leave the vessel.”

“During a red alert, sir, _no one_ can leave the vessel. The transporters are disabled.”

“Mr. Sulu, drop status to yellow alert,” Jim ordered.

The blaring klaxons died away, although the lights kept flashing. Jim cocked an eyebrow at Spock. “Satisfied?”

“Not in the slightest,” Spock said calmly. “Technically, you are not on duty—”

“During an alert situation, I damned well _am,_ Spock. You have the conn.” Jim pushed himself resolutely to a standing position. “Keep the ship at battle readiness, and for God’s sake, if it comes down to a choice between me or the ship, get the hell out of here. Are we clear?”

Spock didn’t look happy. “Captain, I must disagree. You should not be on that station unaccompanied.”

Jim hesitated. “Fine. You’re coming with me…Sulu, take the conn. You heard my orders to Mr. Spock.”

“Yes, Captain.” Sulu got up from his seat, throwing Jim an anxious look. “Would you prefer Addie remain here, or is she going with you?”

Jim looked down at Addie. “Addie, stay here with Uncle Hikaru. Do _exactly_ what he tells you to. Do you understand?”

Addie threw her shoulders back and brought her hand up to her forehead in a perfect military salute, although she spoiled the effect somewhat by giving him an impish, dimpled grin. “Aye, aye, Cap’n!” she practically shouted.

The tension dissipated somewhat as smiles broke out among the bridge crew, along with a few stifled chuckles. Jim hid his own smile as he saluted back, then turned to Spock. “Transporter rooms, Mr. Spock.”

Within moments, they were aboard Space Station K-7, which certainly bore no indications that there was anything of a sinister nature going on. A transporter technician escorted Jim and Spock to the commander’s office. Lurry was there, seated behind his desk, with two other men whom Jim didn’t know. All three got up when the _Enterprise_ men entered.

Jim ignored the strangers, focusing on Lurry. “Commander Lurry, you have sent out a Priority One distress call,” he said in his most formal voice. “Please state the nature of your emergency.”

“Uh, Captain, please allow me to explain,” Lurry said, wringing his hands nervously. “We in fact have no emergency—yet.”

“Then you are in trouble,” Jim said. _And boy, let me tell you, I know all about trouble._ “If there is no emergency, why did you order the call?”

“ _I_ ordered it, Captain,” said one of the two unknowns.

“And who—are you?” Jim had to physically stop himself from asking _who the hell are you,_ but he was pretty sure everyone could hear it implied.

“Captain Kirk, permit me to introduce Nilz Baris,” Lurry said quickly. “He’s out here from Earth to take charge of the development project for Sherman’s Planet.”

“And that gives you the authority to put the whole quadrant on defense alert?” Jim said tartly. It wasn’t an exaggeration; K-7 and Sherman’s Planet were just on the other side of the Beta Quadrant, most of which was Klingon space, so the little bit of the quadrant that was either Federation space or neutral space had probably received the alert.

“Mr. Baris,” the other unknown said stiffly, “is the Federation Undersecretary for Agricultural Affairs in this quadrant.”

“A position with no military standing, as far as I am aware.” Jim scowled. “And who may _you_ be?”

“This is my assistant, Arne Darvin,” Baris said. “Now, Captain, I want all available security guards to—”

“I’m sorry, what?” Jim interrupted. The fact that all three of these men were answering each other’s questions was not improving his temper, nor was the fact that he hadn’t yet heard an actual explanation.

“I will try to make myself clear,” Baris said. “I want all available security guards. I want them posted around the warehouse. Surely that’s simple enough.”

“It’s simple, but it’s hardly clear.” Jim resisted the urge to rub the bridge of his nose. “ _What_ warehouse?”

“The warehouse with the quadrotriticale,” Darvin replied. He picked up an attache case and placed it on the desk, then popped the lid and extracted a small vial. From this vial he poured several pale tan objects, which he passed to Baris, who passed them to Jim.

Jim stared at the objects in his hand. They were small seeds—or, more accurately, he realized, grains. Superficially, they resembled kernels of wheat—something with which he was intimately, if reluctantly, familiar—but it was a species he’d never seen before. Certainly it didn’t look like anything to write home about, so to speak.

“Wheat,” he said, passing the grains along to Spock. “So what?”

“Quadrotriticale is not wheat, Captain,” Darvin said stiffly. “It is a newly developed form of triticale.”

“That leaves me as much in the dark as before.”

“Triticale is a high-yield per acre hybrid of wheat and rye,” Spock said, studying the grains. “It traces its ancestry back to twentieth-century Canada.”

“Scotland, actually,” Jim corrected him. “And Sweden. Nineteenth century. Canadian scientists just managed to make it fit for human consumption.” In response to Spock’s raised eyebrow, he added, “You forget my mother is a xenobotanist. And I grew up in farm country. I know grain.”

Spock studied the kernels again. “This appears to be a four-lobed rehybridization—a perennial, if I am not mistaken.”

“Uh—yes.” Baris looked startled.

“And it is the only Earth grain that will grow on Sherman’s Planet,” Lurry said.

Jim turned his attention back to the commander, slightly exasperated. “Thank you for _finally_ answering my question about why this is important, but why are you insisting I send over a security team, for pity’s sake?”

“We have a warehouse of it here on the station,” Lurry explained. “It is vitally important that it reach Sherman’s Planet safely. Mr. Baris thinks that Klingon agents may attempt to sabotage it.”

“Nothing could be more likely.” Baris sounded excited. “That grain is going to be how the Federation proves its claim to Sherman’s Planet. Obviously the Klingons will do anything they can to prevent that. It must be protected. Do you understand? It _must_ be protected!”

“So you issued a Priority One distress call on behalf of a warehouse full of grain, because you _think_ there _might_ be a threat,” Jim reiterated. “The only reason I don’t arrest you on the spot is because I want the Federation to have Sherman’s Planet as much as you do.” To cover up what he suspected was an exaggeration—this guy was obviously a fanatic—he added quickly, “Consider yourself lucky. Misuse of the Priority One channel is a Federation offense.”

“I did not misuse—” Baris began indignantly.

“Captain Kirk,” Lurry interrupted, wringing his hands again—he was obviously not a man who enjoyed confrontation of any kind. “Couldn’t you at least post a couple of guards? We do get a large number of ships passing through.”

Jim thought about it for a minute—and then something occurred to him. “Don’t you have security on this station yourself?”

“No, Captain,” Lurry said, sounding a little unhappy. “After all, we are only a small outpost, little more than a…rest area for passing ships. We usually rely on the security officers for the ships themselves to maintain order.”

Jim bit back a groan. He’d hoped to get Finney off his ship as well—which would have provided an excuse to send over security guards—but now he’d have to wait until they got to K-9 after all. He glanced at Spock, who raised an eyebrow slightly, then flipped out his communicator. “Kirk to _Enterprise._ ”

“ _Enterprise_ here.” Sulu’s voice came through clearly.

“Lieutenant Sulu, secure from general quarters,” Jim said. “Then beam over two security guards. Have them report to Commander Lurry.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Also, authorize shore leave on the station for all off-duty personnel. Standard parking orbit crew. Kirk out.” Jim flipped the communicator closed and took the kernels of grain back from Spock.

“ _Two_ security guards?” Baris repeated, sounding torn between disbelief and fury.

Jim whirled on the man, close to the breaking point. “We have problems of our own, Mr. Baris, and this little detour of yours is only going to make them worse.”

Baris, however, wasn’t so easily cowed. “You’re going to hear about this, Kirk. I’m going to contact Starfleet Command.”

“Do that,” Jim said icily. “But before you put in that call, I suggest you pin your ears back. It’ll save Starfleet Command the trouble of doing it for you.” With that, he turned on his heel and strode out of the room.

Spock held his tongue until the two men were back aboard the _Enterprise_ and striding onto the bridge. To Jim’s mild surprise, Slim was there, talking with Sulu and Chekov, who were the only other two people there.

“—where the name came from,” Sulu said, glancing at the viewscreen, which was showing the rocky, barren surface of Sherman’s Planet.

Slim folded his arms across his chest. “There are a couple stories that conflict. It was either to cover an astonishingly huge bar tab, to warn people about a really annoying person living there, or to impress a woman.”

“Oh, come on,” Sulu said in disbelief. “Nobody would seriously believe naming a planet after himself would impress a woman.”

“Maybe he named it after her,” Chekov suggested.

“Who ever heard of a woman named Sherman?”

“Perhaps it was her family name,” Spock said placidly.

All three jumped and turned, Sulu with a sheepish look on his face. “Captain, I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you come in.”

“It’s all right, Mr. Sulu.” Jim smiled wanly. “I came up to make sure everything was under control…why haven’t you called up a relief staff? Don’t you want to go down to the station?”

“Dad, you only issued the order six minutes ago,” Slim pointed out. “The orbit personnel are on their way.”

Jim rubbed his forehead with his free hand. “Time’s playing tricks on me, I guess…everybody else sure got out of here quick.” He looked around. “Where’s Addie?”

“With Uhura,” Sulu said. “She was getting restless—that’s why I called Slim up—but when you lifted the alert and authorized shore leave, Uhura suggested Addie come with her. I don’t know what they’re doing, but whatever it is, Addie was giggling a lot.”

“Zey’re probably going over to ze station,” Chekov volunteered. “If Dr. McCoy says it’s okay.”

“I’m sure they’ll ask you, too, Dad,” Slim added.

“If Bones says it’s okay, I’m not going to argue.” Jim smiled. “Oh, Sulu, we have a new specimen for your greenhouse.” He deposited the grain into Sulu’s hand. “It’s called—”

“Quadrotriticale!” Sulu exclaimed, his eyes lighting up. “I’ve only heard of it!”

“Has everyone heard of this but me?” Jim complained.

“Of course,” Chekov said, a twinkle in his eyes. “It was deweloped in Russia.”

Sulu gave Chekov a good-natured shove. “I’ll get this to the greenhouse before we head over to the station. How long will we be here?”

“I’m not sure,” Jim admitted. “Hopefully not too long. I suspect there are some hot messages shooting across space right about now, and all we’ve got to do is wait for Starfleet Command to clear us to proceed and we can get going.”

Chekov’s smile faded slightly, and he bit his lower lip. “Has—”

Jim understood, and made his voice as gentle as possible. “Unfortunately, the security situation on K-7 isn’t really up for…anything, insofar as it doesn’t exist. They have a lot of ships passing through, but none that can handle a prison transfer. We’ll have to proceed to our original destination of Space Station K-9 for that, and since we’ve detoured out of our way, I think it’ll add another two to three weeks to our travel time.”

“Putting us about a month out,” Slim supplied quietly.

“I’m afraid so.”

Sulu shrugged. “Well, at least he’s somewhere he can’t do too much damage.”

The doors slid open and the orbit crew came onto the bridge. Sulu and Chekov both got to their feet. “Coming, Slim?” the latter asked.

Slim smiled. “I reckon I’ll see if I can find Audra ‘n the others. Meet you in the transporter room in ten?”

“Sounds good.” Sulu turned to Jim. “What about you, Captain?”

“I’ve got to wait for those messages, but I’ll walk down to the transporter room with you,” Jim said. “Spock?”

“As per usual, Captain, I shall remain here.”

Jim nodded and joined his fellow officers and son as they left the bridge.

They separated when the lift stopped, Slim heading towards general quarters in search of his friends, Sulu and Chekov wandering towards the greenhouse where Sulu lovingly tended a variety of plants, and Jim ambling towards the transporter room, thinking he’d keep an eye on the people heading out for a few minutes. A party of eight was just beaming down, including the two security guards, the only ones armed; eight more waited their turn.

“Daddy!”

Jim turned and smiled at the sight of Addie coming down the hall, grinning ear to ear. She had Uhura’s hand on one side and Gaila’s on the other. Carol and Christine completed the group. “Hey, baby,” he said warmly. “Where are you going?”

“I going shopping!” Addie said happily. “It my birf’day!”

Jim pretended to be surprised. “It is? Well, happy birthday!”

“T’ank you, Daddy.” Addie beamed.

Uhura smiled fondly down at the little girl. “We thought we’d have a ladies’ day out, just the five of us.”

Jim caught Christine’s eye and was pleased to see the grin on her face. The crew had held out the palm of forgiveness with a vengeance—accepted her lock, stock, and barrel—and things in general had gotten a lot easier for her once it became widely known that she had defended Slim and taken out Finney. Then, too, Jim had made it as explicit as he could without making a shipwide announcement that he had forgiven her for believing in baseless rumors and considered the matter closed. “Just the five of you, huh?”

Christine chuckled. “Actually, we invited Ensign Cayne to come with us, but she said she wanted to wait.”

“I’m not surprised,” Jim said, feeling a grin tug at his own lips. “Don’t teach my baby girl too many bad habits, now.”

“Jim, honestly, do you think we’re the sort of people who would do that?” Gaila demanded.

“Yes.” Jim raised an eyebrow at her.

Gaila held his gaze challengingly for a moment, then smiled. “Fair enough.”

“Daddy come too?” Addie asked.

“Daddy’s not a lady,” Jim said.

Christine started coughing, loudly and obviously. Carol suppressed a grin. “That’s for sure.”

“Besides,” Jim said, ignoring them both, “I have to wait for a message, I think. But you have fun.”

“Bye, Daddy!” Addie called cheerfully as they entered the transporter room. Jim stood in the doorway, smiling as he watched them mount the platform. The last thing he saw before they beamed down was his daughter’s bright blue eyes.

* * *

Addie stared around her with wide eyes as she walked through the small, crowded common area on the space station with the grown-up women who had taken her with them. She’d never seen so many people in her life, nor so many different species. It was all exciting and new, and she knew that she was only getting to see it all because she was three years old now. She was practically a grown-up herself.

Her little nose twitched as a delicious smell hit it. She raised her chin to sniff the heavenly aroma. “Smell good,” she said, raising her voice to be heard over the chatter of the passing crowd.

Gaila sniffed, too. “Mmm, that does smell good. Anybody else hungry? I overslept and skipped breakfast this morning.”

“I can always eat,” Christine said.

“Me, too,” Carol agreed.

They followed the smell to a small canteen off to one side of the concourse. It was empty except for a man behind a counter and a man standing at it, who had a sack sitting next to him and something cupped in his hands.

“Surely you will want—” the man began.

“Not at that price,” the man behind the counter replied.

Addie craned her head to see. The thing the man was holding had greenish-gold fur, long and soft-looking. She tugged at Nyota’s skirt. “Aunt Yota, what dat?”

The man heard her. He turned and looked down at her with a broad smile and said, “Ah, little lady, this is called a _tribble._ ”

“A t’ibble?” Addie’s eyes lit up. “Like Gottlieb?”

“Gottlieb?” the man inquired.

“She has a stuffed tribble,” Carol explained. “Its name is Gottlieb. I’ve never asked questions.”

“Ah, I see.” The man smiled even more broadly. “Would you like to pet this one, miss?”

“Uh-huh.” Addie nodded.

The man stooped, putting the ball of fur within Addie’s reach. Tentatively, she reached out and began petting it. It was much softer and silkier than her own tribble, which had coarse fake fur over a cloth form. To her intense surprise, the tribble began vibrating, making a sound she’d never heard before. Her eyes widened and she snatched her hand back. “Addie not break,” she said nervously.

“No, of course not,” the man said soothingly. “He’s purring. He likes you!”

Addie smiled and resumed petting the tribble. “Gottlieb not purring. Him not like me?”

“Gottlieb is only pretend, Addie,” Nyota said with a fond smile. “This one is real.”

“It’s so cute,” Gaila gushed. “I’ve never seen one before.”

“There were never very many of them,” Carol said. “Only two or three, I think. There was a line of stuffed toys that sold pretty widely for a year or two after the incident with Khan, because it got out that Dr. McCoy had had one that he’d injected with Khan’s blood, which had led to him saving the captain, but they’re mostly out of production now.”

“Where did Leonard get the tribble from, then?” Gaila asked.

“From Phlox, probably,” Christine said. “He kept a couple in a tank in his office and probably gave Leo one when it died of old age.”

“What did he have them for?”

“Pet food.”

“Shh,” Carol hissed, gesturing at Addie.

Addie didn’t really notice the chatter. She was more concerned with petting the tribble. “Him singing, Aunt Yota!” she squealed as the tribble’s purrs grew louder, rising and falling in pitch.

“He’s singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to you,” Nyota said, tugging lightly at her braid.

The bartender frowned at the tribble. “Well…maybe I’ll buy them off you. One credit apiece.”

“Ten,” the man countered.

“Two.”

“Nine.”

The bartender hesitated. “How many do you have total?”

“I have twenty more in the sack,” the man replied.

“Six credits each, and that’s my final offer.”

“Sir, we have a deal.”

The bartender began counting out credit chips, then slid them across the table. “Here you are. One hundred twenty-six credits.”

“You have miscalculated,” the man said, sliding six credits back at the other. “I have twenty in the sack, and you are welcome to purchase them, but this one is my sample, to do with as I please.” He handed the sack to the man, then turned to Addie. “Hold out your hands, like this.” He brought both his hands together.

Addie complied, holding her hands carefully cupped the way the man had done. The man then placed the tribble carefully in her hands, smiling. “A special gift for a special little lady on her special day.”

Addie’s eyes widened with delight. “Him for me?”

“Yes, indeed,” the man said. He held up a warning finger. “But remember—he is your especial responsibility now. You must take care of him _exactly_ the way you take care of Gottlieb. Can you promise me that?”

“I p’omise,” Addie said, standing up a little straighter.

“What do you say, Addie?” Nyota prompted as Carol ordered a plate of whatever it was that smelled so good.

Addie beamed at the man. “T’ank you, Mister!”

“My name is Jones,” the man said with a smile. “And you’re very welcome.”

“She’s only three,” Christine said cautiously. “Are you sure giving her a _pet_ is a smart idea?”

“Tribbles are very easy to care for,” Jones assured her. “Your daughter will be a wonderful caretaker.”

Christine looked flustered. “She’s not _my_ daughter! Heavens!”

The other women from the _Enterprise_ attempted to explain the situation. None of them noticed Addie as she studied the tribble, then solemnly broke off a piece of warm pastry from the plate—and offered it to her new pet.

* * *

Jim was just raising his hand to his son and his friends when the intercom chirruped. “Bridge to transporter room.”

Signaling for Kyle to hold off on the beam-out, Jim moved over to the intercom. “Kirk here.”

“Captain,” Spock said, his voice at its most formal, “we have just received a message from Starfleet Command that, I believe, requires your immediate attention, as this is something that I may not myself have the authorization to handle.”

That didn’t bode well. Jim rubbed his forehead. “Record and hold, Mr. Spock. I’ll be right up.”

“Yes, Captain. I—” Spock suddenly fell silent.

“Spock?” Jim said sharply. “Spock, what is it?”

When Spock spoke again, it was with a new sense of urgency. “Captain, our sensors have just picked up a Klingon battle cruiser rapidly approaching the station.”

Sulu and Chekov immediately stepped down from the platform, the five engineers following. Jim gave them a grateful nod. “Post battle stations, Mr. Spock. I’m on my way. Kirk out.” Snapping off the intercom, he asked Kyle, “How many have beamed down already?”

“Twenty-one, counting the two guards for the warehouse,” Kyle replied immediately. “The only member of senior command to beam down yet, though, is Lieutenant Uhura. Do you want me to recall everyone?”

Jim hesitated for no more than a second. “They’re probably safer down there. Leave them.” Turning to the ensigns, he added, “Have any of you been trained in communications?”

“I have, Captain,” O’Flaherty said, a little timidly.

“Good. You’re coming with us. Slim, take the engineering panel…Nic’tlarn, Simril, Cayne, your usual battle stations.”

“Aye, Captain.” Cayne took off at a fast lope, Nic’tlarn at her side and Simril bringing up the rear.

The others followed Jim to the bridge, the red alert klaxon blaring. Before he had even seated himself in his chair, Jim said, “First things first. Play the recording from Starfleet Command…O’Flaherty, send a challenge to that Klingon vessel.”

O’Flaherty nodded, twisting the earpiece into his ear as he seated himself. Sulu and Chekov took their places at the console as Spock quietly brought up the recording. Jim bit back another groan as Admiral Nylund’s scowling face filled the screen.

“Captain Kirk, we have just received a communication from Undersecretary Nilz Baris,” he said, his recorded voice clipped and just the slightest bit condescending. “It is not necessary to remind you of the importance to the Federation of Sherman’s Planet. The key to our winning of this planet is the grain, quadrotriticale. The shipment of it must be protected. Effective immediately, you will render any and all assistance which Undersecretary Baris may require. The safety of the grain—and the project—is now your responsibility. Any other planned tasks will wait.”

The recording ended there. Before Jim could give vent to any of the incredibly unprofessional thoughts that flashed through his head, O’Flaherty turned. “I’ve received a routine acknowledgment, Captain, but nothing else.”

“Who’s in command?” Jim asked, frowning a little. If it was someone of note…

“Captain Koloth, sir. The IKS _Gr’oth._ ” O’Flaherty stumbled a little over the pronunciation.

“Oh. Him.” Jim pinched the bridge of his nose briefly. “Sulu, lock every phaser we’ve got on that ship.”

“Phasers engaged, sir,” Sulu replied.

Jim sat in silence, watching the ship approach. As it drew up to the far side of the station, Spock reported, “Captain, sensor sweeps do not indicate that the vessel is arming itself to attack.”

“Of course it’s not, Spock, that would be suicide,” Jim replied. “And Koloth knows that.”

O’Flaherty twisted around. “Sir, we’re receiving an incoming transmission from the _Gr’oth._ ”

“Put it on the screen,” Jim told him.

A moment later, the bridge of the _Gr’oth_ appeared before them. Standing in front of the viewscreen was the captain of the ship, who smiled with what looked like genuine pleasure as he laid eyes on Jim. “Ah, my dear Captain Kirk!”

“My dear Captain Koloth,” Jim said, forcing a smile in return. He didn’t need this crap.

Behind him, O’Flaherty made a small noise of surprise, instantly pressing a hand to his mouth to suppress it. Jim could understand the confusion. Everyone at the Academy had seen images of the Klingons, with their long, coarse hair, prominent cranial ridges, brown skin, and sharp features. But Koloth’s hair was short and—there was no other word for it—fluffy, his forehead smooth, his skin paler than even Jim’s. He was still recognizably Klingon, but not the sort of Klingon most people in the Federation were familiar with.

“So lovely to see you again,” Koloth continued. “I have such fond memories of our last encounter.”

“If you’re looking for a rematch—” Jim began.

Koloth actually looked somewhere between offended and horrified. “Perish the thought! Surely fisticuffs are unnecessary.”

Jim honestly didn’t know if O’Flaherty had turned on the universal translators and that was a literal translation of the somewhat formal Klingon speech, or if Koloth had learned to speak Standard from reading nineteenth-century Earth romances, and he was definitely not going to ask. “Then what _do_ you want, Koloth?”

“You may recall that, under the Organian Peace Treaty, this is considered neutral territory,” Koloth said smoothly. “I and my crew desire nothing more than to claim our right to take shore leave on the station.”

“I—what?” Jim furiously backpedaled mentally. Of all the things he had expected Koloth to ask for, _that_ wasn’t even remotely on the list.

“We have had a long journey,” Koloth said. “Our nearest outpost is only a parsec away, of course, but _our_ journey has taken us nowhere near that point. We have been in space for three standard months, without a break. I am sure you can appreciate the…difficult place this puts me in.”

The thing was, Jim could. The longer a crew was confined to a ship, without shore leave to break up the monotony, the more boredom set in. If left unchecked for too long, it could lead to even worse—space cafard, that dread condition on the line between rage and insanity. Whole crews could be wiped out if they succumbed to it. Jim wouldn’t wish that on anyone, not even a Klingon. And it had to be admitted that Jim felt almost a reluctant liking for Koloth. Certainly they shared certain characteristics, among them a certain cockiness and disregard for conventions and rules—which had been what led to their first encounter, almost ten years previously, both hot-headed young captains on their first deep-space voyages.

“Strictly speaking, it’s not my prerogative to grant or deny you permission,” he told Koloth. “O’Flaherty, patch in Commander Lurry.”

“Aye, Captain.” O’Flaherty dragged his gaze from the viewscreen and focused on the board.

A moment later, Commander Lurry’s face was on the screen. It drained of color as the man caught sight of Koloth. “What—”

“Captain Koloth, please repeat your previous statement,” Jim interrupted.

There was a look of almost malicious glee in Koloth’s eyes as he reiterated his request for shore leave, invoking the Organian treaty again. Lurry looked extremely unhappy, but said, “Under the terms of the treaty—permission granted, Captain Koloth. Your men may have liberty on the station.”

“Just a minute,” Jim said. Now it was his turn to feel a slight pang of mischievous delight in what he was about to say. “I have been given very specific orders from Starfleet Command. There is an area of this station that is under my express protection. In order to maintain the safety of this…area, I am going to impose a restriction on your crew’s liberty, Koloth. No more than twelve of your crew may be aboard the station at any given time.”

“I accept your terms graciously, Captain Kirk,” Koloth said, grinning in reply. “Shore leave will be restricted to twelve members of my crew at a time…tell me, am I included in this number?”

“Yes—unless you are beaming over on official business with myself or Commander Lurry,” Jim replied.

“Very good. Let me see, I have two hundred forty crew, so that is…twenty groups of twelve. Allowing each group to have four hours of liberty, we will therefore be in the vicinity for three days and eight hours. Is this correct?”

Jim couldn’t help but laugh. “Captain Koloth, as I recall from our last meeting, you are every bit as intelligent as I am—if not more. You know as well as I do that your calculations are exactly correct.”

Koloth laughed as well. “I appreciate you equating my mind with your own, Captain Kirk. Very well. I shall prepare my first group immediately.” He pressed his fist to his chest, executed a formal bow, and winked off the screen.

Lurry immediately turned to Jim. “Captain Kirk, I must—”

“I’ll send one security guard over for each Klingon,” Jim interrupted, forestalling Lurry’s protests. “That ought to satisfy Baris. And never fear, I’ll be restricting the number of personnel _I_ allow on the station as well. I thank you for your hospitality, Commander.” He gestured to O’Flaherty to cut the signal.

“Was it wrong of me to find that funny?” Sulu asked.

Jim shook his head affectionately, then pressed the intercom button on his chair. “Bridge to Security. Select ten additional security guards to beam over to Station K-7. Have them report to the warehouse immediately.”

“Aye, Captain.”

“Sorry, Dickenson, your department will have to maintain standard shifts if we’re going to handle things both on the station and here,” Jim said apologetically.

“It’s all right, Captain,” Dickenson said. “My boys are always ready to lend a hand.”

“Thanks, Dickenson. Kirk out.” Jim lifted his finger off the button. “O’Flaherty, cancel red alert…Slim, technically you don’t count in my restricted numbers, you’re a civilian, but I’d rather you not be alone over there.”

Slim nodded. “I’ll probably stick to my original plan, if that’s okay with you.”

“That’s fine.” Jim turned to Spock. “No more than twenty-two personnel permitted to be on shore leave at any one time. Switch to be every four hours. They can come back early, but I want the new groups to go over all at once so we don’t have to keep track of too many different staggers. There are eighteen crew over there right now, not counting two security officers already on duty, but their time starts now.”

“Acknowledged, Captain.”

Jim turned apologetically to O’Flaherty, Sulu, and Chekov. “I’m sorry, gentlemen, I know there were seven of you getting ready to beam over, but even not counting Slim, two of you would have to remain behind…”

“We can wait a while,” Sulu said immediately. “Right, Pasha? The station’s not going anywhere.”

Chekov nodded. O’Flaherty hesitated, looking at Jim. “If you’re sure you don’t mind, Captain…”

“You were the next ones in line,” Jim said with a smile. “Four hours. Go on, go get your friends and get going.”

“Aye, Captain.” O’Flaherty got to his feet.

Slim gave Jim a quick hug on his way to the lift. “See you later, Dad.”

Jim turned to Spock. “Go ahead, Spock, get some rest. I’ll keep an eye on things here for a while. You may even wish to join the next shore leave party.”

“Unlikely, Captain,” Spock said, raising an eyebrow. “However, I will leave the bridge in your capable hands.” He gave a slight nod and exited.

Left alone, Jim slumped back into his chair, rubbing his temples. Politics was not his bailiwick, not in the slightest. He’d come a long way since Organia, when he had told Bones in exasperation that he was _a soldier, not a diplomat,_ and he’d learned a lot. He didn’t quite have Slim’s natural flair for it, but he rubbed along all right. However, he didn’t like it. He’d rather deal with Koloth than Baris any day. At least Koloth was straightforward and honest about his intentions, for the most part. His request for shore leave had probably been genuine, and the fact that he’d agreed immediately and cheerfully to Jim’s impositions spoke volumes. It had to be admitted that things probably would have been different had literally any other starship been in the vicinity, since Jim was the only captain with whom Koloth had had any contact. Peace treaty or no peace treaty, most captains tended to shoot first and ask questions if there were any sentient pieces left over afterward. Partly because he had a Vulcan first officer and partly because of his own nature, Jim disliked unnecessary loss of life—even of the enemy.

An added stress on top of everything else was that Nylund was involved. Jim was in no doubt that the man had read, or directly received, Dickenson’s report on Finney and knew precisely why Jim was so anxious to get to K-9. This was another step in his constant persecution. Jim had no idea why Nylund had decided now to start trying to intimidate him, but it was working. Every time Nylund’s face appeared, his voice oozed over the airwaves, or his name appeared at the bottom of a set of orders, Jim felt cold dread curl through his stomach. He knew from Blume that the man _had_ deliberately set him up to fail on Capella IV, at least, and had probably expected him to fail at every other mission he’d been given since then. Maybe it was a coincidence, but Jim couldn’t help but think that one of these days, Nylund’s orders were going to get Jim, or his crew, killed.

And where would that leave his children?

He was so lost in thought that he didn’t hear the swish of the doors opening and closing. A hand brushed his shoulder and he nearly jumped out of his skin.

“Easy, Jim, it’s just me,” Bones said quickly, gripping his shoulder briefly.

“Bones,” Jim breathed, relaxing. “You scared the hell out of me.”

“I can see that. You didn’t even hear me come in.” Bones nudged Jim over and squeezed into the little bit of space next to him in the chair.

Jim half-rose, half-slid upwards and onto Bones’ lap, wrapping his arms around his husband. Bones cuddled him in response. When they’d been younger, early on in their tours on the _Enterprise,_ there had been a few occasions where they’d been bridge-sitting while the rest of the crew was on shore leave and had engaged in activities that were _definitely_ not Starfleet-approved and had necessitated some quick and creative deep-cleaning of the chair. But they hadn’t done anything like that in more than ten years, for a couple of reasons, the most pertinent of which was that Scotty had come back at precisely the wrong time one day and missed his next shift due to a serious hangover, which he maintained to this day had been medically necessary. Moreover, they were older, and admittedly not as flexible as they once were. And, quite frankly, Jim had never felt less like having sex in his life than he did right then.

“I’m tired, Bones,” he whispered. “I’m so tired.”

Bones rubbed his back gently. “Long day? I reckon keepin’ up with a starship is easier ‘n keepin’ up with a three-year-old.”

“It’s not that. Addie was no trouble—we had fun. It’s just…do you know what’s going on over on that station?”

“Spock didn’t say,” Bones said. “He dropped in to tell me you were staying up here and might need me, and he did say something about Sherman’s Planet and grain, but I figured I’d come ask you.”

Jim sighed, a deep sigh that felt like it came from his toes. “The Agricultural Affairs department of the Federation figured out that the only grain that will grow on Sherman’s Planet is one called quadrotriticale, and if you’ve heard of it, please don’t tell me, because literally everybody else has and I feel stupid enough.”

Bones kissed his temple softly. “I haven’t, Jim, so don’t feel stupid. Keep going.”

“There’s a warehouse full of it down on that station. The Undersecretary of Agricultural Affairs—a real pain in the ass by the name of Nilz Baris—ordered the Priority One call to get us here to protect the warehouse because he’s convinced there’s going to be an attack. I took him to task for misusing the Priority One system, but he contacted Starfleet Command. I figured they’d give him hell, but…guess who he managed to get in contact with?”

Bones groaned. “Don’t tell me. Nylund?”

Jim nodded, curling himself a little tighter against Bones’ chest. “The one and only. He sent us a message ordering us, in no uncertain terms, to protect the grain. He says it’s now our full responsibility, and our number-one priority. And as if that wasn’t enough, the second red alert? A Klingon battle cruiser. Remember Koloth?”

“Vaguely. Pale, skinny, fluffy hair, acted like you were long-lost brothers?”

“That’s the one. He wanted shore leave for his men, that’s all—they’ve been in space three months without a break—but with the orders from Starfleet Command, I told him no more than twelve of his people could be aboard at a time. And I’m sending over one guard per Klingon.”

“He give you crap about it?”

“Actually, no,” Jim said slowly. “It makes me think he meant what he said—he really did just want shore leave for his men, not to cause trouble. But Lurry—the commander of the station—wasn’t too happy about it.”

“Tough shit.” Bones caressed Jim’s cheek lightly with the backs of his fingers. “You did right, Jim.”

“Thanks.” Jim took a deep breath. “I’m just…stressed out. Nylund’s involved, which means this is going to be anything but routine. The last three times he’s given orders about a situation, we’ve all nearly gotten killed. I can’t keep letting him do this to us…but I don’t know how to stop him.” He leaned his head against Bones’ shoulder.

Bones pressed his hand to Jim’s forehead, a worried frown puckering his brow. “Jim, you’re awfully warm. Feels like you’re running a low-grade fever.”

Jim shook his head. “I’m fine, Bones. Probably just stressing too much. I’m okay.”

“All right,” Bones said, sounding far from satisfied. “But if it doesn’t go away in a day or so, come down to Med Bay so I can check you over.”

“Yes, dear.” Jim smiled into his husband’s neck.

“Infant,” Bones huffed, but he did press a kiss to Jim’s forehead. Almost absently, he began running his fingers through Jim’s hair.

The gentle touch, the sound of Bones’ heartbeat under his cheek, helped Jim to calm down. He could feel the tightness in his chest that was the beginnings of a panic attack, but it was gradually loosening under his husband’s tender ministrations. They sat in silence for a while, just taking comfort in one another.

And then the external communications system began chirping.

With a soft groan, Jim dragged himself out of Bones’ arms and stood up, activating the communications system. The dark, scowling face of Nilz Baris filled the viewscreen in front of him.

“Kirk, this station is swarming with Klingons!” he fumed, ignoring all preliminaries.

Jim forced himself to remain calm. “I was not aware, Mr. Baris, that twelve Klingons constituted a ‘swarm.’”

Bones snorted, but Baris was unamused. “It may please you to joke, but this entire project depends on the safety of the quadrotriticale! I told you from the very beginning that a Klingon plot to destroy the grain was not only inevitable but _immanent,_ and you allow them on this station!”

“Under the terms of the Organian Peace Treaty, I had no choice,” Jim said, a little grimly. “I’ve sent over one security guard for each Klingon permitted on the station, and for that matter, there are almost twice that many members of my crew permitted _their_ shore leave over there. I’m doing the best I can.”

“That’s not good enough!” Baris snapped. “So help me, Kirk, I will report you to Starfleet Command—”

Jim’s chest tightened again, but he forced himself to speak without his voice cracking. “For what? For sticking to the terms of the cease-fire? Mr. Baris, if I—what, fire on the _Gr’oth?_ Let’s say I do that, blow the ship into oblivion to keep them from getting aboard the station, and subsequently to the grain. Well, that’s a violation of the Treaty, and the Klingons would be fully within their rights to attack _us._ There would be _war,_ Mr. Baris, bloody and violent war. One of us would lay claim to Sherman’s Planet, the other would attempt to push him off, we’d be constantly scrapping over that barren rock—just like the old days. Is that what you want? Because there’s literally nothing I can do, beyond what I’ve already done, that would prevent that. The choice is yours. We can settle this peacefully—like we’re doing now, by submitting a plan for the development of the planet that will get the Klingons’ plan licked—or violently, in which case the Klingons will more than likely _win,_ because we’ve largely given up the violence of our past and they haven’t. Which will it be?”

Baris gaped at him, then sputtered incoherently, then abruptly vanished from the screen as he, or someone on the station, terminated the call.

“Pompous windbag,” Bones muttered from behind Jim.

Jim exhaled, gripping the arm of the chair to keep himself from collapsing and reminding himself that he couldn’t drop heavily to his seat—Bones was in it and might get hurt. “This is the biggest project of his career, probably, Bones—a career that will probably be on the line if this fails. He’s probably never even seen a Klingon in person, much less had an actual encounter with one. He’s just doing his job.”

“You don’t like him either,” Bones said wryly.

“No,” Jim admitted. “I don’t. But he’s just doing his job.”

He let Bones pull him back onto his lap and curled up against him. They sat in silence for a while, listening to the ambient noise of the idling _Enterprise_ and one another’s heartbeats, with Bones carding his fingers through Jim’s hair. Jim listened to his husband’s steady, even breathing and regained his center, his place in the universe.

“I feel guilty,” he murmured at last.

“In general, or over something specific?” Bones asked, a gently teasing tone to his voice.

“It’s Addie’s birthday and we’re not spending it with her,” Jim said softly. “And by the time they get back to the ship, it’ll be her bedtime.”

Bones paused for a moment. “We’ll have tomorrow. After all, we’re not going anywhere for a while, are we? The station needs us.” He kissed Jim’s forehead. “Tell you what. I know we don’t want to leave the kids alone at night, but maybe Uhura would be willing to pull godmother duty and stay with them for a few hours. Why don’t you and I go over to the station with the next batch for shore leave? We haven’t had a date night off the ship this entire mission.”

It was tempting—sorely tempting—which probably meant that Jim shouldn’t give in, but the more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea. He smiled. “Okay, Bones. You’ve got a deal.”

Uhura proved only too willing to sit with Addie, who was practically falling asleep in Gaila’s arms, something clutched tightly to her chest. Jim assumed it was a birthday present from one of the other women. He gave his daughter a kiss on her forehead, hugged his son—who had apparently discovered a bookstore somewhere on the space station—and joined Bones on the transporter platform. They were over at the station, Jim for the second time, in a matter of seconds.

It was exactly what Jim needed. Managing to avoid Lurry and Baris, not to mention the Klingons, he and Bones explored some of the more out-of-the-way parts of the station, had a late dinner together at a cafe that specialized in variants on sushi made with seafood from various Federation planets, and wound up sharing an ice-cream sundae in a small canteen before their time was up. Jim was smiling warmly as they beamed back aboard the _Enterprise._

When they entered their quarters, Uhura was sitting on the couch with her stockinged feet propped up on the coffee table, reading something off a PADD. She looked up with a smile as they came in. “Have a good time?”

“We did. Did Addie behave?” Bones asked.

“She dropped off almost before I got her pajamas all the way on.”

“I meant on the station.”

Uhura smiled. “She was a perfect angel. Charmed the socks off of everyone she met, minded her manners, even held our hands without arguing.”

Jim started towards her room. “I’ll go check on her…”

“I just did, Jim. She’s fine.” Uhura slipped her shoes back on and stood up. “Goodnight, gentlemen.”

“’Night, Nyota, and thanks again.” Bones saw her out with a smile, then turned to Jim. “C’mon, Jim, let her sleep. Let’s you and me go to bed, huh?”

“Yeah, okay.” Jim couldn’t help but smile in reply. He changed into his sleep pants, crawled into bed and the circle of his husband’s arms, and fell asleep almost instantly, the tension and worry of the day melting away and leaving him relaxed and content.

The peaceful, easy feeling ended abruptly shortly after he woke up.

“Dad?” Slim’s voice floated uneasily out of Addie’s room. Bones was still getting dressed; Slim had gone to wake Addie while Jim waited in the living room for his family to go to breakfast. “How many stuffed tribbles does Addie have?”

Jim frowned. “What the hell kind of question is that, Slim? You know she only has the one.”

“That’s what I thought…”

Something in Slim’s voice made Jim feel uneasy himself as he turned towards the door. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, she’s got—” Slim suddenly broke off in a yelp.

Instantly worried, Jim took a step forward just in time to catch Slim as he stumbled backwards out of the room. “Slim! What’s wrong?”

“It moved!”

“What moved?” Jim was bewildered.

Recovering himself, Slim beckoned Jim to the door of Addie’s room and pointed silently. Lights were at about twelve percent—just enough for Jim to see clearly.

Addie was curled on her side, clutching Gottlieb, or so Jim thought. Then he realized the ball of fur in her arms was smaller and had a greenish-gold tinge to it, as opposed to the stuffed animal Winona had sent Addie after her birth, which was cinnamon-colored. Once he had taken in that, he also took in the smaller balls of fur that littered the blanket around her. As Jim stared, the one in Addie’s arms stirred and let out a soft trilling sound, which set off a couple of the others.

Jim remained perfectly still for a moment, then called without turning his head, “Bones?”

“Yeah, Jim?” Bones called back.

“Why is our daughter covered in tribbles?”

There was a pause. A moment later, Jim felt rather than saw Bones appear at his shoulder. “ _What?_ ”

Jim pointed. “Addie. Tribbles. Why?”

“Where the hell did they come from?” Bones demanded, his voice rising slightly.

Addie’s eyes fluttered open at the sound of Bones’ voice. She smiled sleepily at the tribble in her arms. “G’mornin’, Fi’gig!”

Despite the situation, Jim had to smile. “Fizzgig, huh?”

Addie dimpled up at Jim. “Daddy!” she squealed, sitting up—then paused, a puzzled look on her face. She looked down at her sheets, and her mouth formed a perfect O. “Where they all come f’om, Daddy?”

“That,” Jim said, picking up one of the little furballs, which began trilling in delight or distress or both, “is a very good question.”

Slim dug around in Addie’s small closet and produced a green and yellow basket. “Here…we can put ‘em in this.”

Bones helped Jim to pick up the tribbles and place them in the basket. Jim counted ten of them, no two the same color, all about as big around as Addie’s palm. Addie refused to relinquish her grip on Fizzgig, except as long as it took her to get dressed, and consequently held only Slim’s hand as they headed up to the mess hall for breakfast. With the _Enterprise_ in a parking orbit, there was no real need for the usual duty rosters; the skeleton crew who monitored the various statuses and functions was no more than a tenth of any given department. The only exception this time around was security, which was running fully staffed to handle things on Space Station K-7 as well as the bare minimum it took to maintain the detention block. Consequently, the recreation room was a little more crowded than usual as people lingered over coffee and breakfast.

“What do you have there, Addie?” Uhura asked, seeing the basket looped over Addie’s arm—she had insisted on carrying it herself, and Jim had let her, figuring they were her responsibility anyway.

“Look, Aunt ‘Yota!” Addie set Fizzgig on the table, then placed the basket next to him—or her, Jim amended, since he guessed that his daughter’s pet had given birth to a litter in the middle of the night. “Baby t’ibbles!”

Christine, who was sitting next to Uhura, leaned over her shoulder. Both women cooed with delight at the sight. “Oh, aren’t they adorable!”

“May I hold one, Addie?” Christine asked.

“Uh-huh.” Addie dimpled up at her.

When Jim returned from getting breakfast for himself and his daughter, there was a small group clustered around the table, playing with the little tribbles, all of which seemed happy for the attention. Bones was studying a pure white one with rather more clinical than personal interest. “My question is, where did—uh—Fizzgig come from?”

“Mr. Jones give him me for my birfday,” Addie informed him seriously.

Jim set down a plate of waffles drizzled in honey in front of his daughter. “Who’s Mr. Jones?”

“Mr. Jones!” Addie said, in a tone of voice that implied it should have been obvious. She picked up her fork in her free hand. “T’ank you, Daddy,” she added before beginning to eat, one bite for herself, the second bite for Fizzgig, whose non-face went round with obvious pleasure.

“The pilot of that one-man scout ship,” Uhura explained. “Commander Lurry said his name was Cyrano Jones, of all things. He’s a system locater, down on his luck.”

“Most of them are,” Jim said, a little amused. “Locating new systems this close to Klingon space is a synonym for locating trouble.”

“A most curious creature, Captain,” Spock said, stroking another of the tribbles, this one sandy-hued. “Its trilling would seem to have a tranquilizing effect on the human nervous system. Fortunately…I seem to be…immune.”

At the expression on his first officer’s face, Jim raised an eyebrow and suppressed a smirk, but said nothing.

“Whatever happened to that one you had, Doctor—the one you injected Khan’s blood into?” Carol asked, running a finger through the fur of the tribble in front of her.

“Confiscated,” Bones said shortly. “Along with my notes and the little bit of the serum that was left. And all of it was destroyed at the conclusion of the trial.”

“Shh,” Jim said softly, indicating Addie, who had looked up in mild alarm at the word _destroyed._ His own stomach had twisted at the word _trial._ He still felt incredibly guilty that Bones had come so close to losing everything just to save him.

Bones looked down at Addie and smiled gently. Addie wrinkled her nose back in a smile. “Addie, can Papa have one of your tribbles?”

“’Course!” Addie’s smile broadened. “What you name him?”

“Uh—” Brief panic flashed through Bones’ eyes. There were probably two reasons for that—the first being that he was bad at coming up with names on the spot, and the second being that, Jim suspected, he wanted the tribble to take back to the lab and dissect, to try and learn more about them, which was what he’d intended to do with the tribble he’d had all those years ago and just never gotten around to. “Hermann.”

Addie seemed to accept this, returning to her waffles, but Jim snorted with laughter. “Hermann?” he repeated under his breath.

Bones blushed. “It’s what I called the other one.”

“Hey, Addie, can I have one, too?” asked Gage, who was playing with a tribble the exact color of his hair.

“Sure,” Addie said agreeably.

Gage looked up at Jim, who hesitated. “I don’t have an objection to pets on the _Enterprise,_ ” he said at last. “Within reason. But if these tribbles want to stay, they’d better be a little less prolific.”

“What you name yours, Mr. Gage?” asked Addie innocently.

Jim downed his coffee and made his escape to the bridge, leaving the orderly to wrestle with the complexities of tribble nomenclature.

It quickly became clear that the tribbles, unlike the Klingons, were not responsive to Jim’s conditions. The next morning, when Addie woke up, her entire bed was covered in tribbles, barely leaving room for her to have room to breathe. Addie was delighted. Jim was not.

Not that Baris was pleased that he only had to deal with twelve Klingons, all of whom, it had to be noted, were male—the Klingon equivalent of Starfleet had not yet progressed far enough to allow co-ed starship service; although he’d never had the chance to confirm, Jim surmised from this that homosexuality was all but unheard-of in the Empire—and therefore highly unlikely to breed, certainly not so rapidly. A hasty summons from the bridge about mid-morning brought Jim into contact with the man again. Baris was even less rational than he’d been the day before and had thought up several impractical suggestions about how to neutralize the perceived Klingon threat. The whole thing ended in a shouting match that had Jim heading down to Med Bay, seeking a cure for a serious headache.

He heard the trilling before he even walked all the way into Bones’ office, and when he entered, he saw his husband staring at a box. Jim groaned. “How many of those things do you have?”

“Ten,” Bones said grimly. “Seems to be about the average litter size. I had eleven, but I dissected one.”

“But we only _started_ with one,” Jim protested, rubbing his temples. “How can they be breeding?”

Bones guided Jim to sit on the edge of his desk. “Near as I can figure, they’re born pregnant.”

“Is that possible?”

“No, but it’d be a great time-saver, wouldn’t it?” Bones felt Jim’s forehead with the back of his hand. “Jim, your temperature’s going up again.”

“I’ve been shouting for the last fifteen minutes, Bones. Just give me something for the headache.” Jim waved away Bones’ concern. “So how do these things breed, anyway?”

Bones was still eying Jim with concern, but he reached into his desk for the bottle of small white tablets. “I can tell you this much—at least fifty percent of their metabolism is geared towards reproduction. Do you know what you get if you feed a tribble too much?”

“A fat tribble?” Jim guessed.

“No, you get a lot of hungry little tribbles.” Bones handed Jim the pills. “I don’t know if these things are asexual or intersex or what, but they don’t need another one to reproduce, they can do it all on their own. I used to wonder where Phlox was getting all of his from…he never had more than ten at a time, usually he just had one, but he never really explained much about them. That’s why he gave me Hermann, just before Nibiru…I’d asked him about them, and he said a good scientist never took anyone else’s word for anything and gave me a tribble that had died of old age. I just never got the chance to do anything with it before…”

“Yeah,” Jim said quickly, not wanting either of them to wander down that path just then. “So tell me, how much is ‘too much’?”

“I don’t know,” Bones confessed. “And I’m afraid to tell everyone not to feed them at all, for fear they’ll starve to death.”

“Bones, we can’t keep letting them breed. Addie’s whole bed was full of them, you know that. If they keep increasing in number, where will that leave us?”

“I don’t know that either. I’d go over to the station and check with that Jones fellow, but I’ve already been, and besides, this is an interesting problem. I’d like to solve it myself.”

Jim nodded. “If you want to go on shore leave again…I mean, four hundred thirty doesn’t divide evenly by twenty. I rounded up to twenty-two…there will be open slots.”

Bones cupped Jim’s jaw in one hand, running his thumb lightly over Jim’s cheek. “Don’t worry so much, darlin’,” he said gently. “I understand Scotty went over with the last detachment. He’ll see to it that there’s no trouble…unless, of course, the Klingons start it.”

Jim smiled a little. “You know me so well.”

“I ought to, after eighteen years.” Bones kissed Jim’s forehead.

“I don’t think the Klingons will start anything,” Jim said, returning to the original point of the conversation. “Koloth knows I’ll up the security measures if they do. If he’s really after the grain—and honestly, Bones, I don’t think he is—that’s the last thing he’d want.”

Bones studied Jim for a long moment, then pulled him into a hug.

“ _Koloth_ might not be after the grain,” he said quietly. “But who’s to say someone else on his crew isn’t? Take that first officer of his, now—a real ambitious son of a bitch, as I recall. What’s to stop him from being in on something his captain isn’t?”

Jim shuddered. He may have respected—almost liked—Koloth, but Korax was a different matter. He honestly wouldn’t have put it past him to take secret orders and not tell his captain. “The trouble is, if that’s the case, then this might be the last time we see Koloth as a captain. It means the Klingon Empire is losing patience with the way he handles things—the way he handles _us._ ”

“Remember what I said about not worrying so much?”

“You brought it up, not me.”

Bones laughed and kissed Jim. “Come on, darlin’. I’ll let this be for a while. Let’s go grab lunch.”

“That sounds like an excellent idea to me,” Jim said, relieved.

It wasn’t.

“What the hell is this?” Bones exclaimed, pulling out his selection from the food slots. “I ordered a bowl of tomato soup and a coffee!”

“So?” Jim asked, looking up as he pressed the button to dispense his own selection.

Bones thrust a bowl and a mug at him. “My tomato soup, and my coffee.”

Jim’s eyes widened. Both dishes were stuffed, not with food, but with tribbles, trilling and pulsing in ecstasy. A moment later, the food slots dispensed Jim’s order, too, and it was also filled with tribbles instead.

“They’re everywhere,” Bones said, looking around him. “How the hell are they getting around?”

“Through the ventilation ducts, I suspect,” Spock said, coming up to the two of them with his usual air of stoic calm. “They are on the bridge as well, and I believe them to be all over the ship.”

“I can see that,” Jim said, scooping the tribbles out of his coffee cup. “Get a maintenance detail started…how many of them are there, anyway?”

“Assume we began with one creature—the one Athena brought onboard—with an average litter of ten every twelve hours,” Spock said blandly. “The third generation will number one thousand, three hundred, thirty-one. The fourth generation will number fourteen thousand, six hundred, forty-one. The fifth—”

“That’s already more than enough. I want a thorough cleanup. They’ve got to go. All of them.”

“You’ll get no argument from me,” Bones muttered. “Or anyone else on this ship.”

“I beg to differ.” Spock pointed.

Jim turned—and his face fell. Addie was coming towards them, her face creased in happiness, clutching Fizzgig in her arms. Slim, Cayne, and Simril were behind her, all looking resigned, with their arms full of various-sized tribbles.

“Daddy!” Addie’s smile broadened as she hurried towards him. “Lookit all the t’ibbles!”

“Yes, Addie, I see them,” Jim said gently. He took a deep breath. “But they all have to go away now.”

Addie’s smile disappeared instantly, like the sun vanishing behind a cloud. “Why they have to go ‘way?”

“There’s too many, Addie. They’re getting all over the place. Look, see what happened to Daddy’s lunch?” Jim held out his plate.

“The t’ibbles just hungry, Daddy,” Addie protested.

“Yes, but so is everybody _else,_ ” Jim told her. “There’s not enough food for us _and_ the tribbles. And since they aren’t giving us anything, they have to go. _All_ of them.”

“Not Fizzgig?” Two big tears welled up in Addie’s blue eyes. “Fizzgig stay?”

Jim hated himself, but he shook his head. “No. Fizzgig has to go, too.”

“I take care of him!” Addie cried, her lower lip trembling. “Jus’ like Mr. Jones say! I take good care of him!”

“I know you do, baby, but he can’t stay on the ship. There are too many.”

“One not too many!”

“Yes, but one _makes_ more. We can’t stop him, so the only safe number is none.”

Addie tucked her chin against her chest and looked up at him with big puppy dog eyes, the ones that usually vanquished Jim; he made himself stay firm. “But him my birfday p’esent.”

Jim closed his eyes briefly. “I know, sweetheart. I know. And I know it’s not fair. But it’s got to happen. Fizzgig has to go with all the other tribbles—and they can’t stay here.”

Abruptly, Addie’s mood changed. She scowled, her lips pursing in a petulant sulk. “I hate you!” she yelled at the top of her lungs.

The room fell silent. Every head snapped around to stare at the Kirks, Addie clutching her tribble defiantly and scowling and Jim fighting to stay calm and put-together. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been warned this was coming. He remembered the first time Addie had said _no_ to him, when Bones had warned him that Addie would tell him that she hated him at some point. He also remembered that Bones had promised him she wouldn’t mean it. That was the only thing that kept him from breaking down—at least right now.

“I’m sorry you hate me,” he said quietly. “But Fizzgig still has to go.”

Addie stopped. She actually looked taken aback—like she had expected that shouting that she hated him would enable her to get her way. A puzzled frown puckered her brow as she looked down at Fizzgig, then back up at Jim.

Simril stepped in then. “Tell you what, Addie, you can help us pick up all the tribbles you see. Bet I can carry more than you.”

“Nuh-uh,” Addie said, a challenging glint in her eye, although she still looked unhappy.

Cayne dumped her tribbles on the table and began looking around for a container of some kind. “I reckon we’ll have to open up the food processing machinery an’ do a manual clean-out. Just hope they ain’t gotten into the food storage areas, that’s all.”

Jim stared at Cayne as her words hit him like a thunderbolt. “Storage areas,” he repeated. “Great balls of fire! _Storage areas!_ ”

Dropping his plate, he sprang across the room. “Slim, go find Uhura, tell her to contact Commander Lurry and Nilz Baris, have them meet us at the station mall. Spock, Bones, come on, we’ve got to beam over there—on the double!”

They hit the transporter room at a run. Kyle asked no questions, merely beamed them over quickly. Half a dozen tribbles beamed over with them—which the station absolutely did not need. It was already overrun with tribbles itself, mountains of fur everywhere. Out of the corner of his eye, Jim spotted at least one shopkeeper sitting with his head in his hands, looking close to tears.

Lurry and Baris came running up to meet them. “Kirk, what’s the matter?” the latter panted.

“Plenty, if what I think has happened has happened. The warehouse—quick!”

Baris went white as a sheet. Needing no second bidding, he led them to the corridor where the warehouse lay. Two guards stood beneath a panel in an overhead shaft that led to the warehouse, one that would allow grain to be dispensed, like an old-fashioned silo. Jim pointed to it. “Is that door secure?” he panted.

“Yes, sir,” one of them said. “Nothing could get in.”

Jim didn’t waste breath arguing. “Open it.”

The guard produced a magnetic key and attempted to comply. Nothing happened. “That’s odd, sir. It seems to be—”

The sentence went unfinished. There was a silent explosion as the door slid open. Dozens—hundreds—of tribbles rained down on them. Bones and Spock managed to jump out of the way. Jim got caught full-force by the explosion and knocked to the ground. For a minute he felt a moment of panic. He was drowning—suffocating—he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t find his way to the surface—he was going to die under an avalanche of fur. Then he came to his senses, got his feet under himself, and forced his way upwards. A moment later he burst out of the pile of tribbles with a gasp. There was still a trickle pouring down on him, but not, thank God, a deluge.

“Jim! Jim, are you all right?” Bones tried to get to Jim but was arrested by the mountain of tribbles.

Spock picked up one of the tribbles. “It appears to be…gorged,” he said.

“Gorged! On my grain!” Baris’s eyes almost popped out of his head. “Kirk! I’ll hold you personally responsible! There must be thousands—hundreds of thousands—”

“One million, five hundred and sixty-one thousand, seven hundred and seventy-three,” Spock said precisely, “allowing for the maximum rate of grain consumption and the volume of the warehouse.”

“What does the exact number matter? The Klingons will get Sherman’s Planet now!”

Jim had to admit that the situation looked bleak. Before he could say anything, however, Bones, who had been hastily scooping tribbles aside in an attempt to free Jim, now paused and studied the two in his hands. Quietly, he said, “Jim?”

“Yeah, Bones?”

“Mr. Spock is wrong. These tribbles aren’t lethargic because they’re gorged. They’re dying.”

Jim’s eyebrows shot up. “Dying? Are you sure?”

“I would venture to say that nobody on this station knows more about their metabolism than I do,” Bones said. “Yes, I’m sure.”

“All right,” Jim said, his mind clicking into gear again. He began issuing orders, his sentences punctuated with tribbles dropping from the overhead bin around him. “Bones, take some of them back to your lab, and some of the grain, too. If they’re dying, I want to know why. Then report back to me.” He turned to Lurry. “I’m opening a formal court of inquiry. Commander, I assume we can use your office…I’ll need Darvin, and Captain Koloth, and this Cyrano Jones fellow, too.”

“What good will that do?” Baris demanded. “The project is ruined—ruined!”

“Starfleet regulations demand it. As for the project, that remains to be seen. But first—” Jim grimaced as another tribble fell from the bin, bouncing off of his head and landing in the pile. “Close this damn door.”

Spock unearthed him from the tribbles, then went with him to Lurry’s office. It took some time for the people he had requested to arrive; Jim used the intervening minutes to arrange the room to his satisfaction—a semicircle of chairs next to Lurry’s desk, surrounding an open space where he could pace properly. He had to admit that there was a touch of theatrics to what he had in mind, but after the week he’d had (he allowed himself this slight exaggeration on the grounds of extreme provocation) he felt justified.

The first to arrive, accompanied by one of Jim’s security guards, was a fat, nervous-looking man, who held a tribble in one arm and was stroking it with the other hand, the way Blofeld was always stroking his fluffy white cat in the old James Bond films that were Jim’s secret guilty pleasure, the ones he’d never even told Bones he liked. This, then, had to be Cyrano Jones. Jim said nothing, merely indicating the seats; the man took the one closest to the desk. Lurry arrived next, taking his seat behind the desk; Baris came in immediately afterwards and paced for a moment before sitting stiffly next to Jones.

Four security guards came in next. With them were Koloth, Korax, and another Klingon, one Jim didn’t know. The unknown aide looked more like the Klingons Jim had seen on Qo’noS as a younger man, while Korax resembled Koloth. The biggest difference between them, apart from the cut of their uniforms and the fact that Koloth’s hair was longer and less severe, was that Koloth looked somewhere between resigned and amused, whereas Korax was obviously furious. He sneered disgustedly at the tribble in Jones’ arms. “Why you persist in treating that parasite as though it was something to be _celebrated—_ ”

“Now, Korax,” Koloth chided him, taking the third seat from the end of the semicircle, which nevertheless left space between himself and Baris. “You know that humans think the warrigul to be a repulsive creature to keep as a pet. Besides, that is hardly the issue at stake here.”

Just then, Bones came in, his tricorder slung over his shoulder. He glanced around, then crossed the room to stand next to Jim. “As Hercule Poirot would say, ‘ _Eh bien,_ we are all here,’” he said.

Jim wasn’t sure who Hercule Poirot was, and Darvin wasn’t there yet, but he suddenly decided to start the court of inquiry anyway. After all, Koloth had given him the perfect opening. “Actually, Captain Koloth, the tribbles _are_ the issue at stake here, at least in part.”

“Oh?” Koloth’s eyebrows shot upwards.

In a few simple sentences, Jim explained the situation. Koloth’s face creased in mingled confusion and concern, but Korax snorted in disgust. “I had heard that you Earthers were sentimental about these… _parasites…_ but this is carrying things a bit too far. On behalf of my captain, I demand a personal apology from you, Kirk, addressed to the Klingon High Command. You have restricted the shore leave of m—of our men, harassed them with uniformed snoopers, and now you summon us here like common criminals. If you wish to avoid a diplomatic incident—”

“Don’t do it, Kirk!” Baris burst out, leaping from his seat in agitation. “That’ll give them the final wedge they need to claim Sherman’s Planet!”

“I regret to point out, sir, that it would appear that issue was already settled—or at least that the Empire will be able to carry out her plan for development of the planet before the Federation will,” Koloth said mildly. “And by the way, Korax, I do not need you to speak for me. I am, after all, right here.”

“One step at a time,” Jim said, although he noted with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that Korax had slipped, referring to the crew of the _Gr’oth_ as _his_ men. “Our present job is to find out who is responsible for the tribbles getting into the quadrotriticale. The Klingons, you’ll pardon my saying, have an obvious motive.”

“No pardon is necessary, Captain Kirk. We do.”

“On the other hand,” Jim continued, whirling on Jones, “it was Cyrano Jones who brought them here, apparently with a purely commercial motive. There’s no obvious connection.”

“I beg your pardon, Captain,” Jones said in a slightly nasal whine, “but a certain amount of the blame must lie in ignorance of the little creatures. If you keep their intake down below a certain level a day, why, they don’t breed at all. That’s how I control mine.”

“Did you explain that to anyone?”

“No one ever asked. Besides, any man with common sense should know that it’s bad to feed little creatures too much.”

“How about a small child?” Jim asked, raising an eyebrow. “You gave the first one, as I understand it, to my daughter.”

“And I told her to take care of the tribble in precisely the same way she would take care of her stuffed one,” Jones protested. “Logically, I assumed that her parents would take charge of its feeding, and I thought—”

Jim couldn’t hold back a groan. “You’ve never dealt with children, have you? She’s _three._ Do you know how many times a week we have to wash her stuffed animal’s fur to get syrup, jelly, or tomato sauce out of it because she tries to ‘share’ her food with it? And you gave her an animal that can _actually_ eat the treats she gives it.”

Jones’ face turned pale. Ignoring him for the moment, Jim turned to Koloth and Korax. “Let’s forget that for a moment. We also need to find out what killed the tribbles. Was the grain poisoned? And if so, who poisoned it?”

Koloth opened his mouth to speak, but Korax, smirking slightly, beat him to it. “I, obviously, had no opportunity. Your guards watched me too closely.”

“You would not have done so anyway,” Koloth said, his voice taking on a sharp edge for the first time since Jim had encountered him. “Poison and subterfuge is not the Klingon way. I—” He paused, looking over at the tribble. “Captain, I apologize, but before we continue, would you mind removing that thing?”

Jim could empathize. He had seen enough tribbles to last him a lifetime. He nodded to the nearest guard, who gingerly lifted the creature out of Jones’ arms and started for the door. Just as he reached it, it slid open as Darvin arrived at last, a preoccupied look on his face.

The tribble went berserk. It reared up, every hair standing on end, and hissed and spat at the man, who recoiled momentarily.

Jim stared. “I’ve never heard that noise before.”

“Odd,” Jones said, frowning. “It did that in the canteen, too, when I offered it to our friend here.” He indicated Korax, a little nervously.

Crossing the room, Jim took the tribble from the guard. “Let’s try something,” he said, half aloud, half to himself.

Walking over to Korax, he held out the tribble. Korax drew back, but the tribble reacted the same way it had around Darvin. It did the same thing when Jim showed it to the unknown Klingon.

“He doesn’t seem to like you gentlemen,” Jim said pleasantly. Avoiding Koloth for the moment, he walked over to Bones and held out the tribble. It purred delightedly. When he showed it to Spock—or showed it Spock—it went into throes of ecstasy, practically wiggling out of Jim’s hands; evidently Vulcans emitted something that tribbles particularly liked. Its calm, contented reactions to Jones and Lurry solidified his thoughts. “He likes everyone else, though.” Holding it up to Baris, hearing the trilling, he added, “He even likes _you,_ Mr. Baris. Well, there’s no accounting for taste.”

Bones snorted, but Jim walked over to Koloth. “My apologies, friend,” he said, holding up the tribble. It hissed and drew back, although perhaps not as violently as it had reacted to the others. Jim withdrew it quickly. “He only reacts like this…around Klingons.”

The room was quiet as Jim crossed back to where Darvin still stood with slow, deliberate steps. He stared at Darvin, then thrust the tribble at him abruptly. The little furball hissed and reared and spat.

Bones was at Jim’s side almost before he could think his name, running his tricorder over Darvin twice. “It figures, Jim,” he said. “Heartbeat’s all wrong, body temperature—well, never mind the details.” He let the tricorder fall back against his hip. “He’s a Klingon, all right.”

The security guards surrounded Baris immediately. Jim smirked slightly, tucking the tribble under his arm. “I wonder what Starfleet Command will have to say about this? Bones, what did you find out about the grain?”

“Oh.” Bones started. “It wasn’t poisoned. It was infected.”

“Infected,” Baris said dully. He sounded as if he had gone past anger and into the stupefaction of shock.

“Yes. It had been sprayed with a virus that practices metabolic mimicry.” Bones ran a hand through his hair. “The molecules of the nutriments the body takes in fit into the molecules of the body itself—like a key in a lock. The virus mimics the key, but isn’t a nutriment itself. It blocks the lock so the proper nutriments can’t get in—like putting a toothpick in a keyhole. That’s a very oversimplified explanation, but it serves the purpose.”

Jim grasped the meaning of what his husband was saying. “They starved to death,” he marveled. “In a warehouse full of grain…they starved to death. Would that have happened to a man who ate it?”

“To any warm-blooded creature,” Bones said quietly. “The virus is very catholic in its tastes—like rabies.”

“I observe another possible consequence,” Spock said, speaking for the first time since entering the room. “Dr. McCoy, could the virus be killed without harming the grain?”

“I believe so.”

“In that case, Mr. Darvin’s attempt at mass murder has done us all a favor, and so have Mr. Jones’ tribbles.”

Jim frowned at his first officer. “I don’t follow.”

“A simple logical chain, Captain.” Spock clasped his hands behind his back, looking for all the world like Slim about to answer an examination. “The virus without a doubt prevented the tribbles from completely gutting the warehouse—fully half the grain must be left. On the other hand, the tribbles enabled us to find out that the grain was infected without the loss of a single human life.”

“I don’t think that will count much in Mr. Darvin’s favor in a Federation court,” Jim said with a slight smile, “but I agree it’s a gain for us. Guards, take him away.”

The four guards escorted Darvin out. Koloth rose from his seat and approached Jim, regardless of the adverse reaction of the tribble he still held. “Captain Kirk, I hope you understand that something so sneaky and underhanded is _not_ an act that would ever be sanctioned by the Klingon Empire. At least…” Something flickered through the Klingon’s eyes, and he turned slowly to look at Korax. “At least…not the Klingon Empire… _I_ know.”

“I quite understand, Captain Koloth,” Jim said softly. He recognized the look on Koloth’s face only too well. Turning to Korax, he spoke louder. “Now then, about that apology—you have six hours to get out of Federation space.”

Stiffly, Korax withdrew, the aide in his wake. Koloth paused long enough to hold out his hand. “Goodbye, Captain Kirk,” he said sincerely. “It has been an honor and a privilege to know you.”

Jim clasped Koloth’s hand, regret tinging his smile. “The honor and the privilege are both mine, Captain Koloth. _Chaq taH ben law' batlhmey batlh je lutebjaj._ ”

Koloth’s eyes crinkled upwards in a smile. To Jim’s surprise, he pulled him in for a quick, friendly hug before letting go and heading out the door.

“I hate to say this,” Bones said wryly, “but you almost have to love tribbles for the enemies they make.”

Jim suppressed a smile. “Now, Mr. Jones. Do you know what the penalty is for transporting an animal proven dangerous to human life? It’s twenty years.”

“Ah, now, Captain Kirk,” Jones said, almost in tears. “Surely we can come to some kind of mutual understanding? After all, as Mr. Spock pointed out, it _was_ my little tribbles that tipped you off to the infection in the grain—and they proved a most useful Geiger counter against the Klingon agents.”

“Granted,” Jim said in his most serious manner, although he couldn’t keep the twinkle out of his eyes. “So if there’s one task you’ll undertake, I won’t press charges, and when you’re done, Commander Lurry will return your scout ship. If you will remove every single tribble from the station…”

Jones paled. “Every one? But, Captain, that could take years!”

“Seventeen point nine,” Spock said, “to be precise.”

“Think of it as job security,” Jim suggested.

“It’s either this—or charges?” Jones blinked in tragicomic despair. “Ah, Captain, you’re a hard man—but I’ll do it.”

Jim allowed himself to smile, then turned to Baris. “Mr. Baris, I don’t believe our services are needed here any longer. I wish you the best of luck with Sherman’s Planet. With your permission, I’ll gather my crew, restock my ship to the best of our ability, and take off.”

“Unfortunately, Captain, I know what you need to restock on, and it won’t be possible,” Lurry said ruefully. “We have sufficient food to sustain those of us who usually live on this station until our next resupply, but we don’t have any to spare.”

“Then if you’ll allow us an hour to take inventory, we’ll be out of your hair.”

“Thank you, Captain Kirk.” Baris spoke as though the words him some effort.

Jim decided not to ask whether he was being thanked for saving the grain or for getting out of Baris’ hair. “You’re welcome, Mr. Baris. Spock, Bones—let’s get out of here.” He flipped out his communicator. “Kirk to _Enterprise._ Three to beam out.”

The three men were silent as they returned to the ship. They encountered no tribbles on their walk to the lift, which was a pleasant change. As they ascended to the bridge, however, Bones asked quietly, “What was it you said to Koloth, Jim?”

“It sounded familiar, but I do not know the translation,” Spock said.

“It’s an old Klingon blessing,” Jim said, his voice soft. “‘May glory and honor go with you on your journey.’ The Klingons may be our enemies, technically…but I don’t think Koloth is.”

Bones slipped an arm around Jim’s waist. “Every revolution starts with one man,” he murmured. “Maybe he’ll be that man.”

Jim looked up at Bones in surprise. The words were the same ones he had said to Spock in the mirror universe, right before they beamed back to their own universe. He’d been sure that Bones hadn’t even heard him, let alone remembered—or wanted to, considering what he’d gone through.

“Maybe,” he said softly.

There was not a single tribble anywhere on the bridge. Jim couldn’t help but be surprised—and pleased. “You got them off the bridge!”

“And off the ship,” Sulu said. “Every last one.”

“Even Fizzgig,” Chekov put in. “Zat was a fight.”

“How did you do it?” Jim asked.

“Well, Slim promised Addie zat—”

“No, not Fizzgig. All of them. How’d you do it?”

Chekov stuttered. “Well, it was Sulu who—”

“Oh, no,” Sulu said quickly. “Lieutenant Uhura said—”

“I didn’t do anything,” Uhura interrupted, her eyes wide. “Mr. Scott was the one.”

Jim turned to his chief engineer, who was contriving and failing to look innocent. “Mr. Scott,” he said, seating himself in his chair. “How did you do it?”

“Oh, I just had the cleanup detail pile them onto the transporter platform,” Scotty stammered.

“But—Scotty, you didn’t just transport them out into space, did you?” Jim asked, suddenly worried.

“Captain! I’m a kindhearted man!” Scotty looked seriously offended. “Besides, Addie would have my head if I did that. I gave them a good home, sir.”

“Where? Spit it out, man!”

Scotty looked at the other four, then took a deep breath. “With the Klingons, sir. Just before they warped off, I had the whole kit and kaboodle beamed over into their engine room—where they’ll be no tribble at all.”

Jim burst out laughing, the tension of the entire experience melting away. The others joined in. Even Spock allowed himself a smile.

As the laughter subsided, Jim became aware of the presence of a crew member next to him, holding out a PADD for his signature. He turned to take it, expecting Yeoman Rand or Mears with the latest duty roster. Instead, to his surprise, he saw a man in a gold shirt with lieutenant’s stripes, definitely not a yeoman of any kind. More importantly, he was a man Jim had never seen before.

“What’s your name, Lieutenant?” he asked, frowning a little.

“Sisko, sir. Lieutenant Benjamin Sisko,” the man replied in a deep voice. “I’m on temporary assignment with the _Enterprise._ ”

Jim looked at him for a moment. Involuntarily, his lips quirked upwards in a smile. “Nice try. I know every crew member on this ship, temporary or otherwise, and I know we haven’t taken on any new personnel in several weeks.” He drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair briefly. “But I appreciate your ability to lie without hesitation. Now, suppose you tell me who you really are, and what you’re really doing here.”

Sisko—if that was actually his name—looked mortified. “I have temporary command of the _Defiant_ —it’s the smaller craft parked on the other side of the station—and when we realized you were in the area…well, sir, it’s been a dream of mine to meet you for quite some time.”

“And this is?” Jim asked, indicating the PADD in Sisko’s hand.

“Uh—I may have faked a duty roster for you to sign,” Sisko admitted. “I mean—for my son. He collects autographs.”

Jim chuckled. “I can respect that.” He pulled the PADD towards himself and located the blank line on the false roster. Out of habit, he ran his eye down the list, noting with a grin that none of the names matched any crewman known to him, with the exception of his senior command. “What’s your son’s name?”

“Jake.”

“How old is he?” Jim scribbled his name.

Sisko rubbed the back of his neck. “Eighteen.”

“Joining Starfleet?”

“Uh…no. He isn’t interested in it. I kind of gave up asking after a while.”

“Shame. I was going to ask if he’d keep an eye out for my son when he starts in a couple of years.” Jim handed the PADD back to Sisko. “There you go. And if you’re ever looking for a transfer, send word. You’d be a good addition to the _Enterprise._ ”

Sisko stared at Jim. A slow smile spread across his face. “You have no idea how much that means to me, sir.”

“We’ll meet again, Lieutenant Sisko, I’m sure,” Jim said with a warm smile. “Better get back to the _Defiant_ for now, though—she needs her commanding officer.”

“I will, sir.” Sisko hesitated, then held up his hand in the _ta’al._ “Live long and prosper, Captain Kirk.”

Jim returned the salute. “You as well, Mr. Sisko.”

Bones frowned after Sisko as the lift doors closed behind him. “Something odd about that man, Jim.”

“I could run a check on his service record, if you wish,” Spock offered. “It should be easy to determine if he spoke the truth or not.”

“Don’t bother,” Jim said, turning back to the viewscreen. “How’s the inventory of our supplies? Specifically our food supply?”

Spock walked over to his station. He stared at the reading for a long moment, then looked up, his face carefully blank.

“What? What is it?” Jim asked sharply.

“Mr. Chekov, from our current position, how long will it take us to arrive at Space Station K-9, traveling at space normal speed?” Spock asked.

Chekov looked confused, but answered, “Four weeks, Mr. Spock.”

Spock looked up at Jim again. Jim knew the expression well—it was the look of total blankness that indicated, paradoxically, that Spock was in the grip of some strong emotion. “Captain…we have precisely enough food to provide the bare minimum of adequate nutrition for the entire crew, plus Thomas, Athena, Finney, and Darvin, for _two_ weeks.”

Jim’s stomach gave a violent twist. He gripped the arms of the chair tightly to keep himself from falling into a flashback. Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to speak calmly. “That is unfortunate. However, the whole purpose of the inventory was to determine the minimum speed we would have to go in order to arrive at our destination before supplies run out. After all, the rules state we can’t go any faster than strictly necessary. Mr. Sulu, set course for Space Station K-9, warp factor one.”

“Warp one, Captain.” Sulu turned to the helm.

Bones covered Jim’s hand with his own. “How long will it take at this speed?”

“Little under three days,” Jim answered. He brought Bones’ hand to his lips and kissed it lightly. “We’ll be okay.”

“I hope so, Jim.” Bones’ voice was so soft that only Jim could have heard it.

Jim sighed heavily, allowing the weariness to seep back into his body. “Yeah,” he said just as softly. “Me, too.”

 


	76. Spaceballs the Filler Chapter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys, I am so freaking sorry this chapter has taken me so long. I just...I kept getting stuck, and my writing time kept getting taken away from me, and when I'd go to write I would have inspiration for everything BUT this story. Work's been a little hectic and I've had a couple of bad days that have resulted in panic attacks, which has meant even less inclination to write.
> 
> The fact that this chapter is so short only makes it worse, in my opinion.
> 
> That being said...I will not be posting the next chapter of this story until **June 1.** I am determined that I will finish at LEAST two more chapters before then, but either way, I'm taking a _planned_ hiatus in the hopes that I'll actually reestablish my buffer and get this plot moving. So enjoy this chapter!

It was another one of those days that they all had off, but unlike most days, they had no clear plans for what to do. A big part of that had to do with the fact that they hadn’t known they were going to have the day off very far in advance. Three days of planetary orbit had thrown the usual duty rotas into disarray, and new schedules had come out almost before they had cleared Sherman’s Planet. Slim was pretty sure that his father—or Spock—or both—had finagled it so that Slim and his friends were off…but he wasn’t sure why.

The seven of them sat around a table in the rec room, not saying anything, picking idly at the remains of their meals and not saying anything. Chekov was leaning his head on Sulu’s shoulder; Kelly kept absently rubbing at her stomach, which was beginning to show a soft swell, as Nic’tlarn threw her anxious glances every so often. Audra and Slim sat close to one another, not touching—they were still feeling out their boundaries—but close enough that Slim felt as though electricity was arcing between the two of them.

Porter, on the other hand, was stabbing viciously at his eggs. His jaw was clenched so tightly that he was on the verge of breaking it, and he was scowling at the table—no, he was _glaring_ at it, like he expected it to attack him, with stormy eyes.

Finally, Sulu broke the silence. “‘You seem to regard that poor fruit as an enemy, Captain.’”

“‘A rival,’” Chekov said softly.

Slim smiled slightly. “‘My dear Esteban is forever thrusting at this and that.’”

“What are you three talking about?” Kelly asked, puzzled.

“It’s a movie,” Audra said. “ _The Mark of Zorro._ But I think they’re talking about you, Port.”

“What about me?” Porter snapped.

Sulu held up both hands, palms outward. “You’re edgy as hell. We just want to make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m fine.”

“Considering you said that with the same tone of voice that Klingon used when he told Jones to get the tribble out of his face, you’ll forgive me if I don’t buy it,” Sulu said flatly. “What’s with you, Port? Is it Finney?”

“That’s not helping,” Porter growled.

Before Slim could say anything, he heard footsteps coming towards them and looked up to see Chitose Sulu come in. She threw a scowl at all of them—particularly at Chekov, who flinched—stalked over to the food slots, grabbed a plate, and stormed off.

“I’ll be glad when she’s off the ship,” Sulu said under his breath. “We never wanted to serve on the same ship anyway, but it’s just getting worse.”

“Which one of you is the elder?” Nic’tlarn asked, obviously just looking for something to say.

“We’re twins. It doesn’t matter.”

Porter gave a bitter laugh. “So you’re the younger one, too.”

Sulu looked startled. “I’m sorry?”

“Whenever anyone asked me that question, I always gave the same answer, but whenever they asked Allyn, she’d immediately answer that she was.”

Slim suddenly realized what was going on. He pushed aside the remains of his plate sharply. “Son of a—Port, it’s your birthday, ain’t it?”

Porter sighed, passing a hand over his eyes briefly. A lot of the anger and bitterness seemed to leech out of him, leaving him more sad than anything. “Yeah. My twenty-fifth.”

A silence fell. Slim felt horrible. The previous year on his birthday, Porter had just avoided all of them…but he’d still been largely a loner at that point and they hadn’t noticed anything odd. His friend knew when his birthday was, but he’d never asked when Porter’s was. And twenty-five was a milestone still. Porter had obviously been looking forward to spending it with his twin sister, and it hadn’t been two years yet since she’d been snatched from him. No wonder he was so grouchy.

“I wish you’d told us,” Audra said softly.

Porter shook his head impatiently, dashing at his eyes with the back of his hand. “I’m sorry. I’m just in a really lousy mood and I’m taking it out on you guys. I need to put this case of the mean reds somewhere. Let’s go watch an old sci-fi film and make fun of the crappy ‘futuristic’ technology.”

“What do you have in mind?” Nic’tlarn asked, pushing back from the table as xe spoke.

“I don’t care. Anything.”

Audra and Slim looked at one another. Slim saw the sparkle in her eye and felt a grin stealing over his face as he asked, “You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?”

“Reckon so, but where would we find that much Irish butter?” Audra got to her feet.

“What?” Chekov looked terribly confused.

Slim couldn’t help but laugh. “C’mon, y’all.”

The seven of them made their way to Slim’s family quarters. His father had made it clear that he didn’t mind Slim bringing his friends over, so they made themselves comfortable while Slim accessed the video menus. He paused, glancing over his shoulder. “Have you seen _Star Wars?_ ”

“Slim, everyone’s seen _Star Wars,”_   Kelly informed him.

“They have a marathon at the Academy every year,” Nic’tlarn said. “An all-day event.”

“Chronological order or production order?” Slim asked, scrolling hastily through the list.

“Neither. They show it in the order that makes the most sense,” Audra said. “Four, five, one, two, three, six, seven, eight, nine.”

“I never understood why they show it at all,” Nic’tlarn confessed. “Or at least not on that particular day.”

“Hundred twenty-fourth day of the year,” Kelly said. “In old Earth reckoning, the fourth of May. As in ‘May the Fourth be with you.’”

“Is that what we’re watching? You can’t really make fun of _Star Wars,_ ” Porter said, although he looked a little less grumpy.

Nevertheless, Slim grinned. “Nope. Just needed to know for context.” He stopped at a movie title and pressed play before anyone could really register what it was.

The old MGM lion roared, and then the title came up, accompanied by epic music. Porter frowned. “ _Spaceballs?_ What’s that?”

“Just watch.” Slim settled back against the sofa, stretching his arm along the back of it.

Just like with _Star Wars,_ words began crawling their way up the screen. Porter, Chekov, and Nic’tlarn all furrowed their brows, trying to read the description and understand the point. Abruptly, new words appeared at the bottom: _If you can read this, you don’t need glasses._

Kelly giggled. “Oh, God, this is gonna be great.”

Audra leaned, almost unconsciously, against Slim’s side as the ship began traveling slowly from one side of the screen to the other. Kelly settled against Nic’tlarn; Chekov was practically on Sulu’s lap. Porter sat alone on the armchair but didn’t seem to mind.

“Good Lord, how long is this damn ship?” he grumbled.

“Wait, there’s—” Kelly broke off in giggles again as it was revealed that the ship had words emblazoned on the back of it.

The initial dialogue had them all chortling, except for Porter, who was at least beginning to unbend a little. And then the evil Dark Helmet walked onto the screen, and Sulu lost it. “He’s got a _necktie_ on his suit. A _necktie._ What is he, an evil executive?”

“No, he’s coming up later,” Audra answered.

“Oh, this is fabulous.” Sulu laughed at the expressions on the faces of the “Spaceballs.” When Dark Helmet lifted his visor, however, revealing a weedy, nerdy man with big round glasses and a breathing problem, all six of them burst out laughing. Even Porter smiled, just a little.

“Where did he get that ring? Out of a cereal box?” Kelly demanded.

“Probably,” Slim replied.

Everyone but Audra winced at the demonstration of Dark Helmet’s power, but they cracked up when, the next two times Dark Helmet got angry, everyone around him covered their groin.

“Is he talking to us?” Porter demanded.

“Fourth wall? What fourth wall?” Audra said.

King Roland was delightfully clueless and Princess Vespa was incredibly bratty and all of the engineers, who had all studied the history of technology, got a kick out of Dot Matrix’s name. And then Princess Vespa ran out on her wedding, complete with commentary, and nobody could hold back the laughter.

“What the hell?” Porter exclaimed as a ship, or a rough approximation thereof, hove into view. “What is that supposed to be? And why is there music blaring off of it? Sound doesn’t travel in space!”

“Just watch,” Audra chided him.

Slim suspected that a lot of the jokes in the movie—names, mostly—were lost on them; after all, nobody had used a dot matrix printer for centuries, so there were probably other jokes that went right over their heads. But Pizza the Hutt was still a delightfully grotesque character, and even Nic’tlarn seemed to appreciate the “Pizza will send out for _you”_ joke. And when the Leia-esque “honey-bun” hairdo on Princess Vespa turned out to be headphones, Chekov almost fell onto the floor.

“Ah, is this the evil executive?” Sulu asked.

“Yep, that’s him,” Slim confirmed.

When Commanderette Zircon asked if “Snotty” should beam the president down, they all lost it. And while both Slim and Chekov turned brick red at the obvious sexual innuendo, everyone else just laughed harder.

“What the hell is a Star Trek?” Porter demanded.

“Some ol’ television show from the nineteen-sixties, I think,” Slim said. “It didn’t last long.”

“Well, if it predicted beaming technology, how bad can it be?”

Sulu let out a whoop of surprised laughter at the result of Scroove’s beam-down. “Oh, God, don’t let Dr. McCoy ever see this movie, he hates transporters enough as it is…”

“Microconverters? In a transporter? Who wrote this, first-graders?” Porter asked, but he was obviously having trouble keeping a straight face, and when Snotty counted off with “lock one, lock two, lock three, Loch Lomond,” he couldn’t hold back a burst of laughter. Slim and Audra exchanged pleased grins.

“I think Dark Helmet is my favorite character so far,” Nic’tlarn confessed as the evil villain ordered the Assholes to continue firing.

“Mine, too,” Slim admitted.

“Oh, look, jamming radar, we’re doing actual science,” Porter said sarcastically.

“Wait,” Audra giggled.

“ _What the hell?”_ Porter shouted.

Slim doubled over with laughter. And all of them cracked up at the radar technician who kept making his own sound effects, but Porter was still bewildered by the jam. “What is—what— _no, that is not how this works! That’s not how any of this works!”_

“Suspension of disbelief, Port, suspension of disbelief,” Sulu told him.

“Dark Helmet just got knocked out by ze camera,” Chekov pointed out. “Zis is not a realistic movie at all.”

Porter sighed, sitting back in the chair with a smile as Barf knocked on the roof of Princess Vespa’s Mercedes. “I’m starting to be okay with that.”

When Dark Helmet walked in to where the princess’s ship had been taken, Kelly went off in a fit of giggles. “He’s wearing _bloomers!”_

“What is a Winnebago?” Nic’tlarn asked.

“Um…that,” Slim said, gesturing to Lone Star’s ship.

“ _Hyperactive?”_ Porter cried. “Not hyper-drive, _hyperactive?_ What is _wrong_ with these people?”

“It’s supposed to be a joke,” Slim said. “Like _Zorro: The Gay Blade.”_

Kelly rubbed her chin. “I wonder how fast Ludicrous Speed actually is? Warp Eight?”

“Faster, I reckon,” Audra said.

“That—that’s not how this works!” Porter cried.

“Zey must have forgotten to disengage ze external inertial dampener,” Chekov said innocently.

“You know, you can sleep on the couch,” Sulu said, but he was smirking.

Porter gestured helplessly at the screen, laughing so hard it was obviously hard for him to breathe, as the ship distorted space and time until it was plaid. Slim had always found it funny, but now that he understood the physics behind faster-than-light travel—and had friends to watch with—it was even funnier.

The crash landing scene had them all tense, even as ludicrously fake as the external shots were, but immediately they were laughing again at the arguments between Vespa and Lone Star. It was obvious that they were going to end up together by the end of the movie, even though they spent the next ten minutes shouting at and insulting each other. Chekov smiled. “Zey remind me a bit of ze keptin and Dr. McCoy. Back in ze early days.”

Slim smiled. “That tells me a lot about them when they were younger, I gotta say.”

Dark Helmet drinking through his mask was good for a giggle, and the inane conversation about “now” and “then” that followed was hilarious. As soon as they returned to the planet’s surface, however, and Porter saw the campfire, he said, “Is this the sappy romantic bit?”

“Yep,” Slim confirmed.

“ _The cold never bothered me anyway…”_ Audra sang.

Even the funnier bits in the ensuing dialogue, however, didn’t make them laugh as hard as the other bits. Audra leaned closer to Slim, Chekov curled against Sulu, and Kelly and Nic’tlarn twined their fingers together. Porter ran his thumb against his jawline, his expression softening.

And then the alarm started blaring.

“What the—” Porter yelped, leaping backwards and accidentally jabbing his nail into his chin.

Slim, who had been expecting it, cracked up, even as he blushed at the line “It’s programmed to go off before _you_ do.” And the desert montage was funnier than it had any right to be, especially the unnecessarily loud _whumph_ noise Lone Star made when he face-planted into the sand.

“Are these supposed to be the Jawas or the Seven Dwarves?” Sulu demanded as little figures in copper-colored robes marched over the tops of the dunes.

“Yes,” Slim and Audra said in unison.

Kelly went off into another fit of giggles at Dark Helmet’s desert outfit, and when the four main characters began walking into the underground chamber, Chekov sang quietly, “ _We’re off to see ze Wizard…”_

“How many Indiana Jones references can they cram into this movie, anyway?” Sulu asked, laughing.

“Same producer, I reckon,” Slim said. “I mean, the same man did _Star Wars_ and _Indiana Jones._ ”

“Is that the same actor as President Scroove?” Nic’tlarn asked as Yogurt the Wise walked out from under the statue.

“Sure is,” Audra said cheerfully.

“I want one of those dolls,” Kelly said.

Nic’tlarn kissed her cheek, almost shyly. “I’ll see if I can find you one at K-9 when we get there.”

“You’re too sweet.” Kelly kissed xyr cheek in reply.

“I hope your dad doesn’t walk in now,” Sulu said, covering his eyes at the scene that awaited them in the president’s room.

“Me, too.” Slim’s face was brick red again. So was Chekov’s.

When the princess was captured, Sulu tensed slightly, wrapping his arms a little tighter around Chekov, but said nothing. Slim could understand that; he, too, was a little upset at the thought of something like that happening to Audra. It was probably the sequence in the movie that was closest to the source material, too, at least up to that point. But the tension disappeared, to be replaced with laughter, when the scene switched to Dark Helmet playing with his dolls.

“ _Why_ are they still using number-based codes?” Porter cried, spreading out his hands in dismay. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my life!”

“Hey!” Chekov blurted as the screen went blank. “What happened?”

All of them burst into giggles at the dialogue. “This movie has no fourth wall whatsoever.”

The rescue sequence was hilarious, although Porter still found time to criticize the weaponry. Slim had to admit that, if the guns were on the same principle as phasers, what went on made no sense. And it had always bothered him that the doors closed so slowly. But when the soldiers discovered that they had captured the main characters’ stunt doubles—including Vespa’s, a long-haired main with a cigar in his mouth—everyone burst into laughter that rattled the shelves. And Vespa’s badass moment of mowing down the Spaceballs had them all cheering.

Spaceball One hove into view again, accompanied by a pattering noise, and then the president ran in. Dark Helmet’s lack of respect towards Scroove reminded Slim of Jim, and all of them giggled at the Kafka reference. The ships transformation, however, left them all spellbound and breathless—at least until it was revealed that the timpani in the soundtrack was actually being played by a man on the ship.

“He shouldn’t be breathing that rapidly,” Kelly observed calmly. “It’ll just make things worse.”

They cheered again when Lone Star used the Schwartz to reverse the airflow, even though Porter was still shaking his head at the illogic of the whole thing, but the cheers gave way to giggles when the three officials started panicking.

“This sequence isn’t as funny as the rest of the movie,” Sulu said with a slight frown.

“Gotta have some serious bits,” Slim pointed out, watching as Lone Star descended the ladder, hand over hand, and slipped through the emergency exit door…which began blinking .

Porter’s eyebrows shot upwards. “They knew about the Vulcans when this movie came out? I thought first contact wasn’t until 2063!”

“It wasn’t,” Slim said with a frown. “Never thought about that before…”

“Time travel?” Audra guessed.

“Must be.”

“He’s good at ze nerve pinch, zough,” Chekov said.

Kelly and Nic’tlarn both gasped as Dark Helmet confronted Lone Star…but then it turned into dick jokes, which made them giggle. Porter laughed when Dark Helmet accidentally took out someone on the camera crew, and everyone except Nic’tlarn and Audra winced, even while they laughed, when the two combatants got their “Schwartz twisted.”

“No!” Chekov cried, sitting bolt upright and almost falling off of Sulu’s lap as Dark Helmet took Lone Star’s Schwartz ring.

“Easy, Pasha.” Sulu caught him and pulled him back.

“He’s the hero, he’s got to win,” Kelly said, but even she sounded a little uncertain.

Slim had to admit that the fight was choreographed to make things tense, and even though he knew how it ended, he still watched breathlessly—at least until Yogurt started communicating with Lone Star through the Shwartz.

“I _knew_ it! I knew he got that ring as a prize!” Kelly half-shouted.

“You were talking about Dark Helmet’s ring,” Nic’tlarn pointed out.

“Same difference.”

Porter cracked up as Dark Helmet hit the Self-Destruct Button. “That’s the politest damn self-destruct message I’ve ever heard.”

“How many have you heard?” Sulu pointed out.

For a scene that was probably supposed to be tense, Slim and his friends giggled way too hard at the evacuation sequence. The obnoxiously catchy song about Spaceballs didn’t help.

“And there’s the one ‘fuck’ allowed in the movie,” Sulu said, laughing.

“This computer is sarcastic as hell!” Porter was laughing so hard tears were rolling down his cheeks.

“Reminds me of Eddie from _The Hitchhiker’s Guide,_ ” Slim agreed.

Audra frowned as the diner scene began. “I’ve always wondered about this. You ever seen a place like this?”

“I have,” Kelly said, surprising all of them. “There’s a place in Disney World like this. We’ll have to go together when we get back to Earth.”

“Yeah,” Slim said softly.

Chekov gave a surprisingly high-pitched shriek when the alien popped out of the man’s chest, which for some reason was even funnier than the subsequent “Hello, My Baby” sequence. Slim and Audra quickly grew serious, though, knowing what was coming, and at Lone Star’s expression as the ship flew through space, Slim felt Audra’s hand creep into his. Sulu and Kelly both lit up at the subsequent revelation, though, and all of them were smiling as Barf dumped a can of Liquid Schwartz into the emergency fuel tank.

“What, no complaints that ‘that isn’t how it works?’” Sulu asked, grinning mischievously at Porter as Lone Star pulled a U-turn.

“You know…I almost don’t care anymore,” Porter said, sounding genuinely surprised.

The wedding scene was kind of funny, but all of them were grinning with too much excitement at the resolution of the love story they’d all hoped for. And when Vespa and Lone Star said _I love you_ for the first time, Chekov gave a little sigh of happiness and sank back against Sulu.

“It’s a perfect ending,” he sighed.

“‘No,’” Audra said with a smile, altering her voice as though she was quoting someone or something. “‘It’s a perfect beginning.’”

“ _Anastasia,_ ” Chekov guessed.

Audra’s eyebrows shot upwards. “You’ve seen that movie?”

“It’s about Russia. Of course I’ve seen it.” Chekov shrugged. “Not zat it was wery accurate, but…”

Slim checked the chronometer. “It’s barely 1000 hours. Y’all wanna watch another movie?”

Kelly drummed her fingers absently on her stomach for a moment, then broke into a grin. “I have an idea. May I?”

“Sure.” Slim handed over the control.

Kelly flipped rapidly upwards, then began scrolling more slowly until she had highlighted a movie with a single-word title: _Airplane!_ Looking at the others, she said, “Remember on Christmas, when the captain complimented me for getting a reference? This is the movie.”

“There are two of them,” Sulu said, indicating the movie below it.

“We’ll watch both, if you want,” Kelly said. “But you have to start at the beginning or it won’t make sense.” She paused. “Actually, it won’t make sense anyway, but…”

“Good. I like movies that don’t make sense,” Porter said, settling back in the armchair with his hands behind his head. “Hit it, Ensign.”

Kelly threw him a look, but she pushed play.

Slim glanced over at Porter as the old Paramount logo appeared on the screen. The big, burly ensign was looking relaxed—if not normal, at least calmer and less upset than he had earlier. The laugh lines were even beginning to pop out around the corners of his eyes again. The cheesy movie had done some good, it seemed, and Slim was not without hope that the other two would also do some good.

Smiling, he settled back into his seat, let his arm drape around Audra’s shoulders without thinking, and prepared himself for a good time.

 


	77. As It Wakes Me From the Dark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I know I said June 1...and I meant to have this posted yesterday, really I did. But I have a good reason for not posting it. Thursday evening, I unexpectedly received an invitation to a graduation. The boy who tendered the invitation was in the first preschool class my mom taught--and I taught him French when he was in late elementary school--and now he's a high school graduate. I didn't get in until late last night and I wasn't able to get the chapter posted. But here I am now! This chapter starts out very feels-y and then gets fluffier towards the end.
> 
> The next chapter is _mostly_ written. I'm going to try to go back to updating on Wednesdays again...it helps me to have a set deadline and a schedule. And thanks to the lovely Sarah, I actually have a plan for the next FOUR chapters! So let's hope we can get this show back on the road.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who's been supporting me since I started writing this, and especially in the last few months. It means a lot to me. <3

Leo’s eyes snapped open in the darkness. At first he couldn’t have said what had awakened him—but then he heard it again, the high, soft sound coming from right next to him. A sound of brokenness, of pain.

Jim. Jim was having a nightmare.

“Jim! _Jim!”_ Leo gripped Jim’s shoulders, anchoring him to reality, and shook him as hard as he dared. “Wake up, darlin’. Wake up!”

Jim clutched frantically at Leo’s hands as his eyes snapped open, wide with fear and pain, gasping for air. His eyes locked on Leo’s, and for a minute, he didn’t seem to recognize him. Then, abruptly, he lunged for Leo and clung to him tightly, burying his face in his shoulder.

Leo wrapped his arms around his husband, murmuring soothingly as he rocked him gently, one hand cupping the back of Jim’s head, the other resting in the small of his back. He felt the hot tears soak into his shirt and closed his eyes to fight his own tears.

Outside of their bedroom, when anyone else could see them—even their children, even their closest friends—Jim was the captain, brash, confident, cheerful, keeping the ship running smoothly and everybody’s mind on their tasks. Even when it was just the two of them, when he could relax a little, he kept up a good front. But this wasn’t the first nightmare he’d had, not by a long shot. In fact, he hadn’t slept through the night since his birthday.

A couple of times, Leo had considered giving him a sedative, but both he and Jim were wary of the possibility of a chemical dependence. More importantly, Leo honestly wasn’t sure it would work. The sedative he’d given Jim that first night had put him to sleep, all right, but he’d still had nightmares. The only trouble was that Leo hadn’t been able to wake him from them, so he’d been trapped in the violent, terrifying world of his mind and all Leo had been able to do was hold him tightly and try not to panic. Jim’s heart couldn’t take that kind of strain. And Leo refused to lose anyone else he loved to heart problems.

Surreptitiously, Leo pressed the back of his hand to Jim’s forehead. Dammit, it was warm again. Jim had steadfastly resisted all efforts to get him into Med Bay for a decent check-up, but ever since they’d arrived at Space Station K-7 nearly a week previously, he’d been running a low-grade fever off and on. Either he was stressing so much that his body was reacting as though he’d picked something up, or he was actually coming down with something. Either way, Leo resolved that he would get Jim into Med Bay as soon as he could.

“Bones,” Jim choked out.

“Shh,” Leo said softly, rubbing Jim’s back in slow, soft circles. “I’ve got you, darlin’. It’s okay. You’re safe now.”

“He was after you,” Jim whispered brokenly. “He was after you…I c-couldn’t stop him, he was going to—”

“Shh,” Leo said again. He was glad Jim couldn’t see his puzzled look. He was about as far from Finney’s preferred victimology as it was possible to get. “It’s okay, Jim. Finney’s locked up, he can’t—”

“Not Finney.” Jim turned his head so that his cheek rested against Leo’s pectoral muscle, his ear close to Leo’s heart. Leo knew from long experience that the sound comforted him.

For his part, Leo was even more confused. He stroked Jim’s hair gently, teasing the silken strands lightly. “Who was it, Jim? Tell me about it.”

Jim curled, if possible, even tighter into Leo. “We were…w-we were on Pleione VI.”

Hastily, Leo racked his mind for which trouble spot that had been. Gideon came to mind, which didn’t make sense until he realized. “That planet we had the picnic on, couple weeks after Slim’s fifteenth birthday?”

“Yeah,” Jim said hoarsely. “It was—it was just you and me. We were sitting by the lake, on a blanket…we’d just finished our picnic, and I was lying with my head on your lap…and you asked me if I wanted to go swimming. So we struck out for that rock in the middle. We were neck and neck and then I pulled ahead and touched the rock, but when I looked back…”

“Go on, Jim,” Leo prompted gently when Jim stopped, although he felt a sinking feeling in his chest.

Jim took a deep, shuddering breath. “Nylund was there.”

“Nylund!”

“He was—he wasn’t walking on the water, that’s ridiculous, but he was hovering just above the surface. You were swimming, you were almost to me…I was trying to call out to you, but—but Nylund caught you first. He stood on your head and you went under…”

“Jim…”

“You came up,” Jim continued, the words coming faster now, like he was trying to get them all out before he lost his nerve—which he probably was. “You were g-gasping for air, but you came up, and…you were reaching for me, you were trying to get to me…I was reaching for you, but I couldn’t let go of the rock, I couldn’t say anything…and Nylund was right there, he—oh, God, Bones, he going to get to you first, and I c-couldn’t—”

“Jim,” Leo said again, tightening his arms around Jim. “It’s okay, darlin’. I’m here, I’m safe, and so are you. It’s okay. We’re together. It was just a dream.”

Jim shook his head. “Bones, I—I don’t know what to do. He can order us wherever he wants and I can’t stop him. If I say no, he writes me up for insubordination, I lose my command, I lose the _Enterprise._ Or worse, he takes it out on someone else. He could block Sulu from ever getting a command of his own, no matter how deserving he is. He could knock Spock down a rank or two. He could get _you_ transferred off the ship…oh, God, Bones, the things he could do to Slim and Addie…”

Leo knew that reassuring Jim would do no good. Among other things, his husband was perfectly right. Nylund could make all kinds of trouble if he wanted to, and he could do it legally and completely within his power. In fact, he could do _worse_ things than what Jim had just suggested. Jim’s fears were real and they were valid, and Leo had no idea how to calm him down.

“We’ll be all right, Jim,” he said at last. “We’ll figure something out together. We’re all behind you, you know that. Nylund can try to hurt you, but he’ll have to go through all of us first.”

“I don’t want that,” Jim whispered. “I’ve seen that too much in my life. I don’t want anyone else to get hurt trying to protect me.”

“Tough,” Leo said bluntly. Jim actually looked up at that, his blue eyes wide with surprise and wet with tears, the latter of which made him soften his voice before he continued. “Because that’s what love is, Jim. Being willing to give up everything for someone else, even die for them if necessary. You’d do the same for any of us. And, yeah, maybe I’m selfish, maybe I haven’t learned to love you like you deserve—”

“Bones—”

“—because I don’t know that I can let you, Jim. Actually, screw that, I _know_ I can’t let you. I couldn’t before. That’s why I brought you back from the dead. I knew why you’d done it, but I couldn’t accept that that was _it._ You’re important to me. I don’t want to lose you.” Leo tangled his hand in Jim’s hair again. “That’s the ultimate love, I think—not just to be willing to die for someone, but to be willing to _live_ for them. Make their sacrifice worthwhile. I’m not sure I could do it.”

“You could,” Jim insisted. “If you had to. Me, I…I can’t. I know I can’t. I shut down after Sam died…I’d be worse if anything happened to you. I’ve told you from the beginning…you keep me grounded. Without you, I’m…I’m lost.” He closed his eyes, let his head fall back against Leo’s chest, and murmured, as if half-asleep, “‘No one’s ever stuck with me so long before. It’s there, I know it is, because when I look at you, I can feel it. And—and I look at you, and I…and I’m home. Please…I don’t want that to go away. I don’t want to forget.’”

Leo’s heart dropped into the bottom of his stomach. He remembered watching that movie with Jim for the first time, right after they’d started dating, one night when Jim was having a bad day. Jim had nearly fallen apart when they’d reached that scene and Leo had done his best to reassure him. He just hadn’t realized that Jim was still identifying with Dory, fifteen years later. God, had it really been that long?

“Jim,” he said, as gently as possible. “I promised you fifteen years ago that I would never leave you. I meant it then. I’ve meant it every time I’ve said it since. And I mean it now. Do you really doubt me, after all this time?”

Jim was silent for a moment. When he spoke, his voice, though quiet, was at least steady. “I try not to. I really do. And most of the time I know you’re not going anywhere. Spock told me how hard you fought to find me and get me back when I was missing on Gideon…and when I was trapped in the interphase, during our encounter with the Tholians. You’re always there when I need you, sometimes even before I know I need you, even though I kind of always need you. But…on my bad days, my really bad days…I remember Yonada.”

And there was really no arguing with that. Leo knew exactly what Jim meant, and if he could go back in time and slap his younger self, he would have. “Jim…it wasn’t like that. I wasn’t—”

“I know,” Jim cut him off. “We weren’t—I mean, we were serious, but we weren’t married. Not like when I—with Edith—” He swallowed hard.

“No, Jim, that’s not what I mean,” Leo interrupted, pulling Jim tighter. “I said yes to Natira’s proposal because I thought I was dying. I _was_ dying. Xenopolycythemia…it’s hell, Jim. It’s a nasty and painful way to die, and I—I didn’t want you to watch that. If it had been something that would have killed me quickly, or if I could have stopped the pain…I wouldn’t have wanted to leave. But I didn’t want you to have to see that. And then, when we were in that damned ship…dammit, Jim, the Oracle was going to have you and Spock both killed. Somebody had to do something, and the only thing I could think of to do was to accept Natira’s request for marriage and tell her that I wouldn’t be happy with her if you died—which was true, by the way. I didn’t love her, not like that, and I never would have left you if I’d thought there was any other way. You know that.” He frowned, worried, when he realized that Jim’s breathing had suddenly gotten shallow. “Jim? Jim, darlin’, what’s wrong?”

“I—I didn’t know,” Jim whispered. “All these years, I thought…”

Leo was suddenly having a little trouble breathing, too. “Good God, Jim, you mean I never told you any of that?”

Jim shook his head. The tears were rolling down his cheeks. “I think…I think there are a lot of things we’ve never said, things we just assumed the other knew. I _should_ have known, dammit. I should’ve known you’d never—” He gulped. “But I didn’t. I thought…God, Bones, can you ever forgive me?”

“Can _I_ forgive _you?_ ” Leo repeated dumbly. “I’ve let you believe for more than ten years that there’s been one goddamned moment since I met you that I’ve loved anyone else and you think _you’re_ the one that needs forgiveness? Christ, Jim, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” He felt the tears well up in his own eyes as he kissed the top of Jim’s head as tenderly as possible. “I love you. I love you so goddamned much.”

“I love you, too, Bones,” Jim sobbed.

They held each other in the darkness for a long time, neither one saying anything. Leo was beginning to think Jim might have relaxed enough that he’d be able to get back to sleep when—

_Beep-beep-beep! Beep-beep-beep!_

“Christ, is it that time already?” Leo said a little roughly, rolling over without letting go of Jim and squinting at the chronometer. Sure enough—0700 hours, time to start getting up and getting ready for the day.

Before he could sit up, Jim stopped him with a light hand to the sternum. “Bones…thank you. For being there for me.”

Leo paused, looked down at Jim, and kissed him, deeply and tenderly. “Jim, I will _always_ be there for you,” he murmured against his husband’s skin.

Jim held him for an extra second or two before releasing him to get out of bed.

The sound of giggling came from the living room as they straightened each other’s shirts—unnecessarily, but it was one of those things. Leo smiled at Jim encouragingly. “Sounds like a party out there.”

“It’s too early for a party,” Jim said with the ghost of a smirk.

“Hey now, that’s my line.” Leo kissed the tip of Jim’s nose and led him into the living room.

Slim was chasing Addie around the coffee table. It was obviously not a serious chase, because she was giggling and he was grinning ear to ear. As the bedroom door closed behind Leo and Jim, Slim caught up to his sister, grabbed her around the waist, and swung her high over his head. She shrieked with delight, kicking her feet.

“I have you now!” Slim declaimed in a deep voice.

“Daddy, help!” Addie shrieked, the plea’s impact lessened somewhat by the fact that she was still giggling.

Slim lowered Addie to chest level and rubbed his nose against hers playfully before hoisting her up to sit on his shoulder. He turned to Jim and Leo, a little flushed but grinning and breathing easily. “Morning, Dad. Morning, Pa.”

“You’re in a good mood this morning,” Leo said dryly, smiling.

“We’re due at Space Station K-9 this shift, which means Finney will be off the ship for good in less than twenty-four hours. I am in a _fantastic_ mood.”

Leo and Jim looked at one another. Somehow, they had both forgotten that. Jim actually began to smile as he asked, “Slim, what’s our ETA?”

“1345,” Slim answered unhesitatingly.

“Well, then.” Jim clapped his free hand on Slim’s shoulder. “Let’s go make sure we’re sufficiently nourished to get there.”

The entire senior command was at breakfast that morning, along with Gaila, Chapel, and Carol. Gaila waived cheerfully as they came in. “Come and join us. I was just having a conversation with Christine about how you can’t trust ducks.”

“And as much as I would love to know the context of that—” Leo rolled his eyes in affectionate exasperation. “I’ll be right back.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Carol grab Jim’s arm and whisper something in his ear. Jim turned pale for a second, then smiled and nodded before hurrying to catch up with Leo.

“What was that all about?” Leo asked under his breath.

Jim smiled brightly in a way that didn’t fool him in the slightest. “Tell you later.”

Before Leo could press him, he grabbed his meal and Addie’s, then headed back to the table. Leo heaved a silent sigh and followed him, carrying Slim’s meal, since Gaila had grabbed him and refused to let him go. As he reached the table, he heard Uhura say exasperatedly to Gaila, “You’ve lost your marbles!”

“I still have all my marbles,” Gaila said defensively. “They’re just asymmetrical and roll funny.”

Slim smothered a laugh. “Dad, you want me to take Addie today?”

“Please…Addie, you’ll be good for Slim, right?”

“Yes, Daddy,” Addie said obediently, but there was an impish twinkle in her eye that made Leo raise an eyebrow.

Slim must’ve caught it, too, because he touched Addie lightly on the top of her head. “If she doesn’t, no story at naptime.”

“I be good,” Addie said immediately, her eyes widening.

“That’s my girl.” Leo leaned over and kissed her cheek.

As promised, Addie behaved well over breakfast, licking oatmeal off her spoon and listening to the conversation around her. Finally, Spock glanced at his chronometer and rose. “We must report for our shift.”

“Go on, y’all, Addie and I can get the dishes,” Slim said, beginning to stack plates and bowls. “Right, Addie?”

“I carry silverware,” Addie said, reaching for the fork Slim had been using. Leo noticed, with a surge of delight, that Addie had finally started getting the hang of doubled consonants.

“Be good, lassie.” Scotty ruffled Addie’s curls. “Come on, Ensign, let’s get to work.”

Leo fell into step behind the others as they headed out. Before they had gone very far, though, Jim stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Bones…unless there’s an emergency, come up to the bridge later? I want you there when we get to the station.”

“Of course, Jim.” Leo leaned over—not very far, he was only an inch taller than Jim—and kissed him gently. “Have a good morning, darlin’. I’ll see you later.”

Chapel was on Alpha that day—she’d taken over as a relief nurse, covering for whatever shift someone was off—so she and Leo went down to Med Bay together. Leo was glad to see the nurse getting along with the rest of his staff, especially Gage, whom the others teased mercilessly. Smiling to himself, Leo kept one ear attuned to the banter as he went about his work.

The morning was fairly routine, with no more than the usual allotment of minor on-the-job injuries and easily treatable illnesses. Leo took the opportunity to tidy up his files. O’Flaherty, presenting female that day, came in about noon for her weekly checkup, and Leo was pleased to be able to tell her that everything was progressing normally.

“I can check for sex, if you want,” Leo offered. “It’s a pretty simple blood scan that’ll show you the chromosomal arrangement.”

O’Flaherty hesitated, then shook her head. “No, thank you. We’d prefer to be surprised.”

Leo couldn’t help but smile. “‘We’? You and Nic’tlarn are taking this pretty seriously, aren’t you?”

“As seriously as you and Captain Kirk do,” O’Flaherty said, flushing slightly.

“Fair enough.” Leo helped her off the table—she was coming up on the end of her first trimester, her stomach beginning to swell and make things a little awkward—and clapped her on the back. “Go on, O’Flaherty, and remember what I said about leafy greens. Have you been having any cravings lately?”

“Rutabega,” O’Flaherty said sheepishly. “I used to hate it, but for the last couple of days, I’ve been eating it just about every meal. And rhubarb.”

“Rutabega and rhubarb,” Leo repeated. “Well, it could be worse. When my mama was pregnant with my sister, she wanted onions covered in brown sugar.”

O’Flaherty looked a little green. “That sounds _disgusting._ ”

Leo laughed, ruffling her hair. “Take care, kid.”

“Yes, sir.”

By the time he’d taken the time to update O’Flaherty’s medical records, it was past 1300 hours. Striding out into the main part of Medical Bay, Leo spotted Chapel and McCall chatting and walked over to them. “Dix, Christine, I’m heading up to the bridge. Comm me if there’s an emergency, but I don’t think there will be.”

McCall nodded. “Something up?”

“No, I just promised Jim I’d join him later. We’re coming into Space Station K-9 within the hour.”

“We’re going to resupply, right?” McCall tapped the PADD next to her. “We’re running low on most of the staples.”

“That’s our second priority,” Leo assured her.

McCall frowned. “What’s the first?”

“Getting Finney and Darvin off the ship, I’d imagine,” Chapel said, leaning her hip against the counter. “And into Federation custody. The sooner they’re somebody else’s problem, the better.”

“You’re damn right,” Leo said, scowling briefly. He’d forgotten about Darvin. “And there will probably be a lot of red tape to sort through. After all, Darvin basically committed treason, and Finney’s a sex offender. The transfer will probably have to be handled extremely carefully.”

“Go.” McCall made a shooing motion. “Be with your husband. He needs you.”

“Try to keep Gage from setting my Med Bay on fire,” Leo requested with a wink as he headed out the door.

When he stepped onto the bridge a few minutes later, Jim was just handing a PADD and stylus to Yeoman Rand—probably the duty roster. He glanced up at the sound of the door and smiled, his whole face lighting up in the way Leo loved and had so seldom seen in the last few weeks. “Hey, Bones. Everything all right?”

“Everything’s fine.” Leo crossed over and bent to give his husband a quick kiss. “No major illnesses or injuries to report, nobody who needs to be taken off-duty. And O’Flaherty and the baby are both healthy.”

“That’s good to hear.” Jim relaxed visibly.

Leo let his hand rest on Jim’s shoulder briefly. “Everything all right up here?”

“No problems at all,” Jim said with an easy smile. “As a matter of fact…” He turned back to the viewscreen. “Mr. Sulu, take us out of warp.”

“Taking her out of warp, sir,” Sulu said, easing back on the helm.

Outside the _Enterprise,_ space resumed its normal dimensions, and a typically-shaped space station popped into view in front of them. Leo couldn’t help the exhalation of relief at the sight of it. “Thank Christ.”

Jim squeezed Leo’s fingers briefly before turning to Uhura. “Lieutenant Uhura, open up a ship-wide broadcast channel.”

“Yes, Captain,” Uhura said. After a moment, she turned around and nodded. “Channel open, sir.”

With a nod in reply, Jim straightened up, going into what Leo called his “captain’s posture” behind his back. “Attention, _Enterprise._ This is your captain speaking. We are approaching Space Station K-9 as we speak and will be arriving within fifteen minutes.” He glanced up at Leo, then over at Spock, before continuing. “Our primary purpose in reaching this station is to transfer the two prisoners we have aboard the ship into Federation custody. Our secondary purpose is to resupply and restock. Owing to the…unfortunate nature of events that transpired at Space Station K-7, resupply will take some little time. We will therefore be at the station for thirty-six standard hours.” He drummed his fingers against the arm of his chair for a moment. “Once the prisoners are secured and resupply has begun, all off-duty personnel will be authorized for shore leave on the station if they so desire. Please remember, however, that there are to be _no pets_ brought aboard the _Enterprise._ ”

Sulu gave a soft groan, earning a light giggle from Chekov. Jim winked at them both. “Beginning our final approach now. Kirk out.”

“We will be within docking range within four minutes, Keptin,” Chekov reported.

“Thank you, Mr. Chekov,” Jim said. “Uhura, hail K-9 and ask for permission to dock.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Leo took a half-step closer to Jim’s chair. “Thirty-six hours and this will all be over.”

Jim looked up at Leo and smiled softly. “Thank goodness for that.”

“Damn right.” Leo bent down and gave Jim a kiss.

 


	78. From This Moment On

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, it's Wednesday and here I am with the update I promised! Yay!
> 
> There's a lot of wordbuilding and backstory in this chapter, and I should probably apologize for that but I'd like to think people have been wondering about the Zathros for a while. (To quote _The Nightmare Before Christmas,_ "If you haven't, I'd say it's time you begun.") Nic'tlarn is a fun little character and I never expected to do as much with xem as I've done, so I'm glad y'all seem to like xem...

Technically, Jim should have stayed on the bridge. There was still an hour to go in Alpha shift, and he was the captain; it behooved him to set a good example. On the other hand, because he was the captain, he, like all the other senior officers, had a little more flexibility about where to spend his shift, since there was technically never a time when he  _wasn’t_ on duty. And his mind was buzzing with a thousand thoughts and worries, amplifying and expanding until he thought his head was going to explode. When he was on Earth and got like that, he usually needed to get away—to go to a park, or a vacant field, or an empty beach, or (on one memorable occasion) a cliff at Yellowstone, and look at the expanse of nature around him and the breadth of the sky above and allow—no,  _dare_ his thoughts to try and fill them. He would imagine them spreading, extending, stretching out nebulous fingers as they attempted to fill the fathomless spaces until they spread themselves thin and dissipated on the wind.

That wasn’t an option on a starship. In theory, he could have gone up to the observation deck, but he had long ago learned that it didn’t have the same effect when he was actually  _in_ space—as though his thoughts refused to go beyond the viewscreen. Instead, he let his thoughts communicate themselves into restless energy and paced the ship.

The  _Enterprise_ was two hundred and eighty-nine meters in length, ninety-four meters in width, with twenty-one decks in all. Jim knew every inch of her, every rivet and seal, every circuit and crystal, every scratch and scuff. He could have found his way anywhere he wanted to go if he was blindfolded in the dark. He also knew which decks were most deserted at which times and where the best places were to get lost, so to speak. Had he intended to, he could have paced for the next two days and not seen anyone.

But he didn’t direct his steps, not consciously. He wandered aimlessly, paying no attention to his surroundings, trying to get his thoughts organized and his head cleared.

Most pressing were his personal worries. Carol wanted to tell her closest friends herself before Jim made an official announcement, if he made such a thing, but she had heard back from the research facility the day they’d arrived at Space Station K-9, and she had gotten the position as its director. She would be meeting the shuttle in a little less than two months and heading back to Earth. Jim was happy for her, really he was, but at the same time, it was an added stress. He had promised on the first day that nobody would be responsible for Addie…but he really hadn’t considered the impracticality of trying to raise a child when both her parents were senior officers, nor had he thought about the fact that Slim might start taking on responsibilities involving the ship itself. And now there was going to be a new baby—he was still waiting to hear back from Starfleet Command about that one, not that he was going to throw O’Flaherty or the baby off the ship—and someone would need to watch it, too. If families on starships were to become a thing, there would need to be an official position for childcare.

He couldn’t stop worrying about Finney, either. Jim had thought that having the man off the ship would alleviate that worry, anyway, but it hadn’t. A small, paranoid part of him wondered just how  _long_ he would stay in Federation custody. He was cunning and crafty…and he’d been attempting to get a message to the Federation about Nero when he’d gotten blown off-course, which might count for sympathy votes if he drew the right judge or jury. He could be free in a matter of weeks. He could  _already_ be free. Jim would never allow him on the  _Enterprise_ again, not while he could draw breath, but he could run into them on a space station or something. How did one prepare for everything?

Jim was still having nightmares, too. Not every night, not like he had been, but at least two or three a week. He was afraid he was going to wake Addie or Slim up one of these nights, but Bones kept telling him not to be ridiculous. He held him, soothed him, comforted him as much as he could, and usually after a few minutes Jim was able to relax enough to fall back to sleep. But it was starting to tell on both of them, he knew it was, and he didn’t know how much longer he would last.

As the thought crossed his mind, he looked up to see that he had arrived at the door of Med Bay. He decided to stop in and see his husband. If nothing else, the brief respite might do them both good.

Stepping through the door, he didn’t see Bones in the main room, but he did see McCall and the two orderlies chatting, leaning on either side of the counter. DeSoto was the first to look up and spot him. “Everything all right, Captain?”

“Everything’s fine,” Jim said with an automatic smile, wondering just how true it was. “Is Dr. McCoy in his office?”

DeSoto shook him head, which surprised Jim until he said, “Exam Room B. O’Flaherty’s in for his checkup.”

“Oh, thanks. Guess I’ll go in and bother him then.” Jim winked at the other three.

“He’ll be glad to see you,” McCall said shrewdly.

Raised voices drew his attention. Worried, Jim strode across the floor, wondering what was going on that was upsetting them—and just who was upset with whom.

“—trying to help,” O’Flaherty was saying as Jim reached the exam room’s doorway.

“Well, xe’s doing a damn poor job of it!” Bones snapped.

Nic’tlarn shrank back, xyr eyes wide with what Jim had no trouble identifying as fear. “I’m sorry,” xe said softly.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Jim asked.

Bones looked up crossly. “I don’t need my methods questioned.”

“I was only—” Nic’tlarn bit xyr lip. “I’m sorry.”

Jim instantly felt sorry for the ensign—for both of them. “Nic’tlarn,” he said gently, “why don’t you and I go up to the observation deck for a talk, huh? O’Flaherty, you can come meet us there when you’re done.”

“All right, Captain.” O’Flaherty nodded and looked at Nic’tlarn, his expression softening. “Go ahead, Nico. I’ll be fine.”

Nic’tlarn touched the back of O’Flaherty’s hand lightly, then followed Jim out of the room.

Jim kept his silence until they had reached the deck, where he led Nic’tlarn over to the bench in the corner where he usually sat. Nic’tlarn took the seat Jim indicated, twisting xyr fingers nervously and staring out at the stars unseeingly. It didn’t surprise Jim to see tears standing in the corners of xyr luminous amber eyes.

“Ensign, what happened?” he asked softly. “What did you say that upset Dr. McCoy so much?”

Nic’tlarn didn’t answer at first, making Jim wonder if xe had heard him, but then xe spoke in a voice even raspier than usual. “I didn’t mean to, Captain, honestly. But…I worry about Kelly. Carrying a child is so dangerous…and Dr. McCoy did say from the beginning that he considers it a high-risk pregnancy. Kelly’s body was never designed to carry a child. I—from the very beginning I’ve worried that—” Xe swallowed hard.

Jim nodded in understanding. “I know, it’s scary to watch someone you care about go through something you can’t help them with, but—”

“But that’s just it. I  _should_ be able to help Kelly with this. On Zathros, he would never—I would—” Nic’tlarn stuttered over xyr words for a moment, then looked up at Jim. “Captain, if I may—how much do you know about Zathros?”

Jim tried to recall everything Ten’tol had ever told him, then decided to just be honest. “Not a lot. I know you have three genders—male, female, and—”

Nic’tlarn bit xyr lower lip. “That isn’t— _precisely_ accurate, sir. The Federation officials who made first contact with Zathros made…assumptions based on their universal translators, which were not quite up to our language at the time.”

Since Jim knew that first contact with Zathros had been almost a century previously, he was more than prepared to believe that the translator technology—developed jointly by humans and Vulcans—hadn’t been equipped for a society not based on a standard gender binary. “Please accept my apologies, Ensign. A friend of mine at the Academy tried to explain once, but we were both drinking at the time and I’m afraid I missed a lot.”

“No apologies are necessary, Captain.” Nic’tlarn smiled faintly. “You’ve tried to understand and that’s more than most senior officers ever do. Most are content to accept that  _khat’ram_ means ‘male’ and  _g’kana_ is ‘female.’”

“I guess it’s easier for them not to have to think,” Jim said. “What  _is_ the exact translation?”

“ _Khat’ram_ translates to ‘life-giver’ and  _g’kana_ most closely translates as ‘craftsman,’” Nic’tlarn said slowly. “But…it’s more subtle than that. I don’t want to lecture—”

“Please do, Ensign. I really want to know.” Jim was genuinely fascinated by other cultures and always had been, but more importantly, he felt like he ought to know everything he could about his crew. He could recite facts about most Terran or Terran-based cultures until he was blue in the face, he had a fairly decent grasp of Vulcan history—despite the fact that there was only one Vulcan in all of  _Starfleet_ , period—and he even knew at least as much as an elementary-school child on Orion would, but he knew nothing about Zathros beyond a few bits of trivia, which appalled him.

Nic’tlarn twisted xyr fingers nervously. “Well, the  _khat’ram_ are—and then the  _g’kana—_ ” Xe stopped, obviously flustered. “I don’t know where to begin.”

“How about at the beginning?” Jim prompted gently. “How does reproduction work among the Zathros?”

“To start with, it is only possible with a bonded pair,” Nic’tlarn answered. Xe visibly calmed as xe spoke. “A bonding—there is an elaborate ritual, and the higher placed the  _g’kana,_ the more elaborate the ceremony, but it’s mostly pomp and circumstance. The important thing is the actual bonding, which is…difficult to explain. There is a mystical element. The nearest equivalent in Standard would be ‘magic.’”

Since Vulcans had a similar process, Jim had no difficulty believing that. “Go on.”

“Once a pair is bonded, then they can have a child. The  _khat’ram_ and the  _g’kana…_ I’m afraid I don’t know exactly how it works, but from the little I overheard—and what I have learned since leaving Zathros—I think it is very similar to the human concept of sexual intercourse.” Nic’tlarn brushed unconsciously at xyr thighs. “Whatever the…mechanics involved, once the mating has been completed, the  _g’kana_ is in possession of—” Xe hesitated again. “Our word is  _we’lin._ I believe the literal translation is ‘potential,’ but…it isn’t a child, but it will grow into a child…”

“A fetus,” Jim suggested. “Or—a seed?”

“Something like that,” Nic’tlarn agreed. “At any rate, it’s here that the  _h’ftenga_ comes in. The  _g’kana_ places the  _we’lin_ inside the  _h’ftenga._ Or…plants it. Yes, I think that’s the closest word. The  _h’ftenga_ then hosts the child until its birth.”

Something about everything Nic’tlarn had said nagged at Jim’s mind, but he wasn’t sure what. Instead, he asked, “That’s why you’re so worried about O’Flaherty carrying the baby, then? Because he both created the—the seed—and is growing it?”

“No…it’s odd to a Zathros, of course, but it has worked for humans for millennia, so it doesn’t worry me.” Nic’tlarn looked down. “No, it’s simply that…I know what it is like to lose a child, and I fear for him should that come to pass.”

Jim stared at the ensign. It was difficult to know how old xe was, but Jim had always assumed Nic’tlarn had entered the Academy at about eighteen or so, like most other cadets. “You were—are—” he hesitated—“bonded?”

Nic’tlarn shook xyr head. “No, no. The only ones who have to be bonded to create a child are the  _khat’ram_ and the  _g’kana._ Any  _h’ftenga_ will do.” Xe looked up again, and there was a haunted look in xyr eyes. “The explanation I gave you was…biological. There’s a cultural aspect as well.”

“Tell me,” Jim requested softly. “Please.”

Nic’tlarn was silent a moment longer, then began speaking in a low rasp. “A bonding cannot be forced or coerced, Captain. It must be freely entered into by both parties, with their whole hearts and minds and souls, else the…magic…will not take and there will be no bond. The  _g’kana_ and the  _khat’ram_ must be…in love. But for a  _h’ftenga_ to host a child…as I said, any  _h’ftenga_ will do. It is true that most bonded pairs choose a single  _h’ftenga_ who will bear all of their children for them, but that’s because  _h’ftenga_ are…not rare, exactly, but less common than either  _g’kana_ or  _khat’ram._ And our society is…” Xe swallowed hard. “The Triarch, and those who are in the position of greatest power, are all  _g’kana._ We revere them because they have the ability to form the seed that will be new life, and because  _they_ are the ones who implant the child in the  _h’ftenga._ The  _khat’ram_ are below the  _g’kana,_ but they are still well-respected, because without their—without them, there is no life in the  _we’lin,_ only a cold, empty stone that, if it grows at all, will only be an empty husk that seldom lasts more than a few hours, days at best. But the  _h’ftenga…_ we are at the bottom. We’re forbidden to work, to own property, to live independently.” Xyr eyes flooded with tears. “And many believe that we don’t feel love.”

Jim touched the back of Nic’tlarn’s hand lightly, then withdrew instantly when the ensign flinched. “I don’t believe that. Not for a second. I’ve known since the day you came on my ship that you cared about O’Flaherty, and I’ve only seen that love deepen as the months have gone by.”

“Thank you,” Nic’tlarn whispered. Xe wiped xyr eyes, then took a deep breath. “You asked about…me. Zathros…we are able to…produce children by the age of fifteen standard years at the latest, but it is considered taboo for a  _g’kana_ to be bonded before the age of twenty-five, and for a  _khat’ram_ before the age of twenty. But for the  _h’ftenga—_ ”

“You’re encouraged to start as early as possible,” Jim guessed, swallowing back a surge of bile.

“It’s more complicated than that.  _H’ftenga_ are…a liability. We can’t help support the family financially, so we’re considered a drain on resources until we begin carrying children. And…although we do not contribute any genetic material to the children we carry, because of the…nature of the process, it is an unbreakable taboo for a  _h’ftenga_ to carry for anyone we share genes with, be they parents or siblings or even cousins. So the best option, from the parents’ standpoint, is for the  _h’ftenga_ to leave home as early as possible.”

“And since you can’t live on your own…”

Nic’tlarn nodded. “Zathros is unified under a central government, of course—the Triarch rules from the North Pole, and really, our planet is only about twenty-nine thousand square miles—but the villages still tend to be separated from all their other neighbors by twenty miles in all directions, so each village has their own customs for how to find the  _h’ftenga_ a suitable family. My village had a local marketplace, and once a month, any families with  _h’ftenga_ who had reached their fifteenth year, or were about to turn fifteen, brought them to the center of town and attempted to barter with newly bonded pairs who were looking to start families of their own. Twice a year, though…all the  _h’ftenga_ who had not yet been purchased—”

“Purchased?” Jim blurted, then bit his tongue. It was important to respect other cultures, even if it seemed barbaric. At the same time, slave trade was officially outlawed in the Federation. “I’m sorry, Nic’tlarn, I’m sure it’s—not like that.”

“But it is,” Nic’tlarn said softly. “Some pairs are—they consider the  _h’ftenga_ an equal partner in raising the children, something more than just an incubator. Others will allow their  _h’ftenga_ to act as…nanny, I suppose, allow them to mind the children and be…involved in their upbringing, even though they don’t have any actual authority. But some—most—won’t even allow them to see the children after they’re born, unless the children are also  _h’ftenga_ . That was how my parents were. Whatever the circumstances, though…we don’t belong to ourselves. We belong to our parents, and then once we’re sold, we belong to the bonded pair.”

Jim swallowed hard and made a mental note to see what he could do about that. “I’m sorry. Please continue. Twice a year…”

Nic’tlarn twisted xyr fingers together again. “There are…festivals, of a sort, on the grounds of the Palace.” Xe pronounced it with a capital P. “On the longest day of the year is the Summer Festival, and on the shortest is the Mallow Fair. All the Zathros attend, except the  _h’ftenga_ who are already purchased or who are too young to bear children. There is music and laughter, games and sports, but the most important part of it is the marketplace, where bonded pairs try to find the perfect  _h’ftenga_ to start their own families.”

“Is that where you ended up?” Jim asked gently.

“No. I was…an exception.” Nic’tlarn swallowed. “In a lot of ways. You see…having many children is always a priority for Zathros, especially having  _g’kana._ It can be dangerous, however—for the  _h’ftenga_ —and one day, the  _h’ftenga_ who had been the Triarch’s was found dead on the grounds of the Palace. Since the Triarch was not done having children, the logical solution was to travel with her  _khat’ram_ until they found a  _h’ftenga_ that…appealed to them. They came through our village in their search, and—my parents were deeply honored when they chose me. They offered quite a large sum for me and took me to the Palace immediately.” Xe bit xyr lower lip. “I was just fourteen at the time.”

Jim’s stomach lurched. “What happened then?”

Nic’tlarn stared at the space in front of xem, as if seeing back to those days. “For the first few days, I was pampered and petted and made a good deal of. It was the first time I had ever been…noticed, really, and I admit I rather enjoyed it. At the end of my first week there, the Triarch’s personal physician came to examine me. It was a very  _thorough_ exam—it was very invasive, and…it hurt,” xe admitted in a low voice. “A lot. But at the end of it, she declared that I was ready to host a child.”

“Physically, anyway,” Jim murmured.

“I—I wanted a child,” Nic’tlarn said. “I always wanted to have a child to care for…and I thought that, as the Triarch was always so busy, I might be able to tend to the children I bore them. So I didn’t mind. That night…instead of going to the chamber they’d given me, a little room off of their chamber, I was told to kneel on a cushion outside the door. I could hear them…creating the child, and it took a long time. I was tired and a little sore, but I was forbidden to sleep. Finally, they called me into the room. The Triarch had the  _we’lin_ in her hands, and…they told me that now it was my turn. They—” Xe broke off, tears filling xyr eyes again as xe looked up at Jim. “Please, I—I’d rather not—”

“Of course not,” Jim said immediately, making his voice as soothing and non-threatening as possible. “You don’t have to go into details. They implanted the  _we’lin._ ”

Nic’tlarn nodded. “They did. The  _we’lin_ should have grown inside me for a standard year, then been delivered. But…after nine weeks, I suddenly felt an intense pain in my abdomen. The physician was called in quickly, but—it was too late. I lost the child.” Xe wiped xyr eyes. “The Triarch and her consort forgave me, and that night they began to try again. It took two days to produce a suitable  _we’lin_ this time, but at last it was implanted. This time I carried for twelve weeks before the same thing happened—I woke up in pain and the child was gone. This time…they were not so forgiving. I was beaten.”

“It’s not your fault,” Jim said indignantly. “Of course it wasn’t your fault. Things happen.”

“That is not so readily understood on Zathros,” Nic’tlarn said softly. “At least not where the  _h’ftenga_ are concerned. Our sole purpose is to bear children, and if we fail at that, we must be punished. The Triarch warned me that this would be my final chance, and this time they took care to ensure that the  _we’lin_ would be perfect. It was worse than before…I was in pain from the very beginning, but I bore up as well as I could. At first we thought all was going well, but after five months, the physician became concerned that I had not grown larger and conducted an examination. I was already in so much pain I didn’t think I could experience more…I was wrong.” Xe swallowed hard. “And afterwards, the physician informed the Triarch that the  _we’lin_ had died, probably within a week or two of the planting. I swear I didn’t know, but the Triarch didn’t see it that way. The Mallow Fair was coming up at that time, so she brought me before the entire population and publicly declared that I had lied to her, that I had hidden a dead  _we’lin_ to cover my failure, and that I was…useless.”

Jim wanted to hug Nic’tlarn, but xe was so jumpy that he couldn’t risk it. At least now he knew why. “You’re not useless, Nic’tlarn. I promise.”

Nic’tlarn shook xyr head. “To the Zathros, I am. I’m—I can’t carry a child. For whatever reason. It’s almost unheard of among  _h’ftenga._ One child, certainly, but three…”

“There’s no other explanation?” Jim asked gently.

The look Nic’tlarn gave him told him that xe understood his question perfectly. “Under any other circumstances, there would be, but to suggest that the Triarch and her consort are not truly in love…it’s treason. Besides, they have other children.”

_People change,_ Jim wanted to say, thinking of Jocelyn, but he didn’t. “What happened then?”

Nic’tlarn rubbed a hand over xyr shoulder. “I was beaten again, this time publicly, and…very severely. At the end of it, I nearly couldn’t move. The people—they cheered…” Xe closed xyr eyes briefly. “And then I was given a choice. Death or banishment.”

“Seems obvious to me,” Jim said dryly.

“Not so obvious as you may think,” Nic’tlarn said softly. “To most Zathros…we are a Federation protectorate, but we are still…isolated. And after all, Captain, like most  _h’ftenga,_ I received little to no education. I could read and write, but that was about it. I was taught from an early age that my only use, my only marketable skill, was my ability to bear children. With it known that I could not do that—what was there to live for? Most  _h’ftenga_ who are given the choice choose death. To them, it seems more merciful. But…I asked for banishment. I thought that—perhaps somewhere in the Federation there was a doctor who could cure me, who would make me able to…fulfill my purpose. So I left Zathros on the next shuttle.” Xe swallowed. “The pilot dropped me at a spaceport. I spoke very little Standard, and I was still very young…I was lost and confused and scared. And then…then I heard someone speaking Zathros to me. I looked up and there was a  _khat’ram…_ and he wore the strangest clothes I had ever seen. He offered to buy me a meal, and when I told him that I could never repay him he told me he didn’t expect me to, that it was a gift from one expatriate to another. So I went with him. Over the course of the meal, I told him my story, and he listened. Then he told me about Starfleet. He said that there were fewer than a hundred of us in Starfleet, so I would likely never meet anyone who would know me, and I would never have to tell if I didn’t wish to. And most of those who are in it are bonded pairs who didn’t want children…that’s unthinkable to most Zathros, so they chose to leave the planet and take their chances elsewhere. There are only a handful of other  _h’ftenga,_ all ones who can’t bear children and chose exile over death, no more than ten. And with only three exceptions, myself included, all the other Zathros in Starfleet are enlisted rather than Academy graduates. He made all the arrangements and gave me a shuttle ticket and wished me luck.”

“Did you get his name?” Jim asked.

“His name was Ten’tol, and I had heard of him before. He was from the nearest village to mine, and he was rather infamous. Remember how I said many believe that  _h’ftenga_ do not feel love? Well…Ten’tol truly didn’t. He refused to find a bondmate and left the planet—the only non-bonded  _khat’ram_ to ever do so.”

“I know Ten’tol,” Jim said with a smile. “He was in the class below me at the Academy—he’s the one who tried to explain to me.”

Nic’tlarn smiled in reply. “I owe my Starfleet commission to him…but I owe my profession to Kelly. I had learned to speak Standard by the time I arrived, but I had no idea of what I wanted to major in. I was thrown to room with Kelly because neither of us were male or female, and he took a shine to me. Since he was an Engineering student, I went for it, too. I do fairly well…”

“You do better than ‘fairly well,’” Jim said warmly. “Mr. Scott says you’re one of his top engineers.”

“Thank you.” Nic’tlarn blushed. “But…it still isn’t what I really want. I love the  _Enterprise…_ and I love Kelly…but truthfully, if I had my choice, I would love to have a career where I took care of children. A daycare provider, or a teacher.”

An idea began to form in Jim’s mind. “Ensign,” he said slowly. “What if I were to offer you that chance?”

Nic’tlarn looked up, surprised. “Sir?”

“Dr. Marcus is leaving us shortly,” Jim said. “She’s accepted a position back on Earth. Addie needs someone to look after her when Dr. McCoy and Slim and I are all working. And when Ensign O’Flaherty has the baby, someone will need to take care of it—especially if O’Flaherty goes back to Engineering, which he seems to want to do. I realize it’s asking a lot of you, especially since at that point I’d be asking you to look after a newborn  _and_ a three-year-old, but…would you be interested in becoming Addie’s caretaker?”

Nic’tlarn brought a trembling hand to cover xyr mouth. Xyr eyes were wide with shock…and something else, too. “Do—do you mean it? You’d really trust me to watch her?”

“Of course I would,” Jim said softly. “I’ve seen you with her. You answer her questions in a way she can understand and you’re good at keeping her out of trouble. She adores you, and she respects you. You’re a Starfleet officer, and I won’t force you to be a baby-sitter against your will, but—”

“I’d—I’d love to,” Nic’tlarn whispered. “Captain, thank you so much…”

“I’ll have to talk to Mr. Scott to make sure he’s okay with it,” Jim warned xyr. “But I don’t think he’ll have a problem. And I’m the one that should be thanking  _you._ You’re helping me out of a very tight spot here. Of course you’ll still get your Starfleet salary…”

“I’d do it for free,” Nic’tlarn said. “If it’s all right with you…I would be honored.”

Jim held out his hands, palms up, for Nic’tlarn to take if xe wanted to. The ensign stared at them for a moment, then up at Jim, then suddenly—to his surprise—launched forward and hugged him tightly around the neck.

“Thank you,” xe whispered again.

Relaxing for what felt like the first time in weeks, Jim hugged xem back. “Thank  _you,_ ” he whispered in reply.

After a few moments, Nic’tlarn pulled back, wiping xyr eyes and looking embarrassed. “I’m sorry, I—I’m not usually so physical.”

“After what you went through, I’m not surprised,” Jim said. “And you don’t need to be sorry. I went the opposite way you did…I’ve always been a very tactile person. Ask Dr. McCoy. Even before we were dating, I’d find myself hugging him, holding his hand, leaning my head on his shoulder while we were watching old movies, that kind of thing. I guess I just hoped if I gave—and received—enough positive touches, it would erase the memory of—of what I went through when I was younger.”

“Did it?” Nic’tlarn asked.

Jim smiled slightly. “No—but it made the memories easier to handle.”

Nic’tlarn smiled back. Before xe could say anything, however, the sound of the door swishing open came to them from across the deck. Jim looked over his shoulder to see O’Flaherty coming towards them, his eyes anxious.

Instantly, Nic’tlarn’s smile vanished. Xe got to xyr feet and moved hurriedly around Jim. “Kelly—are you all right?”

O’Flaherty relaxed. “I’m fine now. I didn’t see you at first.” He held out his hands for Nic’tlarn to take. “Everything is going just fine, Nico, I promise. I’m just a little more tired than I expected. Dr. McCoy is going to recommend that I switch to a more administrative support position starting with the next duty rota, but that’s only a week earlier than he originally thought, so honestly, everything is all right.”

Nic’tlarn’s shoulders relaxed as well. “I’m sorry, Kelly. I know I worry a lot, but I…” Xe broke off, shook xyr head, and pulled O’Flaherty into a hug. The red-haired ensign looked surprised but far from displeased.

The wall intercom whistled just then. “Bridge to Captain Kirk.”

Jim jumped, then moved over and pressed the appropriate button. “Kirk here.”

“Captain, you have a message from Starfleet Command. For your eyes only.”

“I’ll be right up, Uhura. Kirk out.” Jim snapped off the switch and smiled at the two ensigns. “I think I know what that’s all about. I should be back in a few minutes with news for you.”

Nic’tlarn and O’Flaherty scarcely seemed to hear him, but Jim took satisfaction in knowing that he had at least made an attempt to let them know. As he walked up to the bridge, he sent up a quick prayer to whatever deity might be listening that the admiral who had sent the message was not Nylund.

Ten minutes later, he walked slowly back to the observation deck, feeling as though someone had pulled a plug somewhere inside him. The admiral hadn’t been Nylund—in fact, it had been Hackett—but that had just made the words all the worse, because there was no getting around them or cheating them. The decision was final.

He entered the deck to find Nic’tlarn and O’Flaherty still seated on the bench, holding hands and talking quietly. Nic’tlarn was the first to notice Jim’s approach; xe jumped to xyr feet quickly. O’Flaherty rose also. “Captain? Is everything all right?”

Jim wanted to gesture for the ensigns to sit down, but he knew if he tried to sit himself, he’d probably collapse. “I just heard back from Starfleet Command,” he said quietly. “After much debate over the issue…they’ve decided that, for this  _particular_ experiment, there need to be as few variables as possible.”

“Captain?” O’Flaherty looked puzzled and worried.

Taking a deep breath, Jim explained, “The official word…is that you can’t stay on the ship once the baby is born. It would be different if you were married—that would be permitted—but because you’re single…I’m sorry, Ensign. I tried.”

There was a moment of absolute silence as both ensigns stared at Jim wordlessly. At last, Nic’tlarn gave a slight shrug and turned to O’Flaherty. “That is a problem easily solved. Will you marry me?”

O’Flaherty looked startled. “What?”

“I know we’ve spoken about this.” Nic’tlarn took both of O’Flaherty’s hands in xyr own. “I know that people like me—we don’t bond, or marry, or anything like that. I know that your family never rated marriage particularly highly. I know we both said that it made no sense to get a legal document and a fussy ceremony when we were going to spend the rest of our lives together anyway. But I love you, and I want you to be happy. And I know that what will make you happiest is to stay on the  _Enterprise,_ with your—with  _our_ family. And if the only way for that to happen is for you to be married…well, maybe we have a reason for all that pomp and circumstance after all. I’m willing to try if you are.” Xe got down on xyr knees without letting go of O’Flaherty’s hands and repeated, “Kelly O’Flaherty, will you marry me?”

Tears flooded O’Flaherty’s eyes. Suddenly, he half-leapt, half-fell onto Nic’tlarn, who straightened quickly, catching him and wrapping xyr arms around him. “Yes, God, yes, Nico,” he whispered. “Of course I will.”

Nic’tlarn closed xyr eyes, looking as though xe could scarcely believe xyr luck. Jim couldn’t help the broad smile that crossed his face. “Congratulations to the both of you.”

Nic’tlarn glanced over at Jim. “Captain, will you…?”

“Of course,” Jim promised. “Whenever you like.”

O’Flaherty and Nic’tlarn looked at one another. “We’ll have been aboard the ship for one entire year in exactly thirty-seven days. Is that too far away?”

Jim’s grin broadened. “That’s perfect. I’ll leave it to the two of you to decide who you want to come…do you have any particular service you’d like me to perform?”

“I don’t think either of us have any traditions,” O’Flaherty admitted. “We trust you, Captain. You decide.”

Something Jim had read years before floated into his head. He nodded slowly. “I think I can do that for you.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have...started the next chapter. It's going to be an episode adaptation, but as most of you have probably figured out by now, I'm following a pattern in regards to point of view and the next chapter is from Slim's. And since he's still not allowed to go on away missions...yet...I'm trying to figure out how to make this as exciting as possible from the bridge of the _Enterprise._ I'll get it, though, I'm sure. See you all next Wednesday...


	79. Bread and Circuses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is based on the episode of the same name written by Gene Roddenberry and Gene L. Coon. I'm a little sad that I wasn't able to include my favorite exchange from this episode ("But suppose you landed somewhere with a pitchfork..."), but it just didn't work with the point of view. This chapter does contain some moments of imminent peril, but I promise everything works out in the end...
> 
> Incidentally, one thing I learned while writing this chapter is that it is extremely difficult to describe a fake 1960s-style car commercial, or even a real one. The ad for the Jupiter 8 is based on an ad for the Pontiac GTO starring Petula Clark.  
> The line about "a whole lot of cruelty under a thin veneer of kindness" is from _The Son of Neptune_ by Rick Riordan.

Slim exhaled as he pushed aside his PADD. Spock had started giving him practice tests, similar to those he would be taking sometime in the next year to get into the Academy, and he’d just finished the ones for that day. They would be automatically fed into a grading rubric, the results transmitted to Spock, who would study them at some point in the next twenty-four hours and determine what Slim needed to work on more. So far, his scores were pretty consistent—or, as he thought on his worse days, he was more or less equally awful in all subjects. He hoped he’d be able to do well enough to get in, but he figured he needed all the practice he could get.

The practical part he had down. Working in Engineering every other day meant that he was getting lots of practice in with the warp core. He and Nic’tlarn were alternating days for the moment, but as soon as Carol left in about a month, Nic’tlarn would be Addie’s full-time caregiver. Slim would still be alternating days, though, and he knew that was stretching a point. Starfleet regulations were pretty explicit. There were provisos for officers—sort of—but in order to enlist, one had to be eighteen. Him being on the roster at all was an unofficial thing, and they couldn’t put it in actual writing, lest someone pull the records and make trouble. Still, it at least meant Slim would know his way around an engine and be able to ace that part of the examinations.

But now he was restless and bored. Carol had Addie for the day—he’d been taken off of caring for her completely as soon as Nic’tlarn had agreed to be her full-time sitter, which gave him time for the studying—and all of his friends were on duty, even Kelly, who was working the Engineering panel on the bridge. Slim let one thought lead to another and, almost before he knew it, he was heading for the lift to the bridge.

Kelly was the first to look up and notice him step out of the lift, and she tipped him a wink. Jim glanced over his shoulder and smiled. “Finished with your practice tests?”

“Yes, sir,” Slim said, lifting his eyebrows a fraction, seeking permission. At Jim’s slight nod, he crossed the bridge and stood next to the chair. “I ain’t sure how well I did, but I finished, and I double-checked everything.”

“Good boy.” Jim’s smile broadened.

“Captain,” Sulu said, leaning back to speak over his shoulder without taking his eyes off the screen. “Sensors are picking up some debris straight ahead.”

Instantly, Jim was completely serious. “Take us as close as you can, Mr. Sulu, and let’s get a look at it.”

Sulu eased the helm forward. Slim watched the viewscreen intently as they drew closer, wondering what was going on. Barely had the thought crossed his mind when Jim looked up. “Slim, the S.S. _Beagle_ disappeared in this sector six years ago. Nobody’s heard from her since. We’re looking to see what we can find.”

Slim couldn’t help the half-smile that tugged at his lips. “What are your psi scores like, Dad?”

Jim chuckled. “You’re my son. It doesn’t take a genius or a psychic to guess that you’re curious about what’s going on but not willing to ask.” He tilted his head slightly, and Slim read the unspoken comment in his eyes: it wasn’t so much that he wasn’t _willing_ to ask as it was that he was still a little afraid to. That was something else they had in common—a fear of being punished for not knowing the answer.

“Coming up on the debris, sir,” Sulu reported.

Jim returned his attention to the viewscreen as the debris came into view. Slim’s breath caught in his throat briefly. Mingled with fragments of instruments and twisted bits of metal were personal belongings—the remains of a picture frame, some kind of exotic knickknack, a torn and charred quilt.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt, sir,” Kelly said quietly from her station. “Those antimatter nacelles are from a Class Four stardrive vessel.”

“You’re right, Ensign,” Jim agreed. “Mr. Chekov, compute present drift of the wreckage.”

“Computed and onboard, Keptin,” Chekov said with barely a pause.

The figures popped up on the viewscreen. Jim glanced at them, then stood up and crossed over to Spock, standing by his computer. “Mr. Spock, assuming that that stuff has been drifting at the same rate and direction for the past six years…?”

Spock opened his mouth to answer, paused, then turned to Slim. “Thomas?”

Jim turned to look at Slim, who froze momentarily. Usually when he worked out problems like this, he did it on a PADD, longhand. However, a voice in the back of his mind prompted him, _If you’re in Engineering, you might not have time to do it longhand. Learn to do it in your head, and do it fast._

Quickly, he scanned the numbers on the screen. His lips moved unconsciously as he rolled his eyes upwards, attempting to calculate as quickly as possible. _Let’s see, velocity by time plus one-half of acceleration by time squared…_ At last, he ventured, “One-sixteenth of a parsec?”

Spock nodded, and the corners of his mouth twitched upwards in a brief smile of approval. “Well done, Thomas. Planet four of Star System Eight Nine Two, straight ahead.”

“We can be zere in a few seconds, Keptin,” Chekov called from his station.

“Standard orbit around the planet, Mr. Chekov,” Jim instructed. “There may be survivors there.”

Slim glanced up at the debris as they skirted it, heading for the planet. “What was the _Beagle_ doing out here?”

“Routine survey work,” Jim answered. “First survey of this star sector.”

“She was a small craft,” Spock said, reading information off of his computer, “carrying a crew of forty-seven. The captain was…” He paused. “I believe you knew him, Captain. R.M. Merrick.”

Jim frowned. “Doesn’t ring any bells.”

“I doubt you took down his name at the time,” Uhura said dryly from her station. “He was one of the cadets you got into a fight with at that bar in Riverside, the night Pike convinced you to join up.”

Jim turned white as a sheet. Slim was about to ask him what was wrong, but he spoke calmly. “Do you know what happened to him after that?”

“I know he dropped out of the Academy later that year—which was odd, it would’ve been his last year—but I don’t know why. Gaila might know.”

Without responding, Jim turned back to the viewscreen. Slim joined him, staring as the pinpoint of light coalesced into a solid orb, with green landmasses surrounded by blue oceans. Clouds scudded through the atmosphere, ice capped both poles, and it was even possible to discern the direction of the air currents.

“It’s a lot like Earth,” Jim mused. “Except the continents and the oceans are a lot different.”

“In shape only,” Spock said, shaking his head. “The proportion of land to water is exactly the same as that of your home planet. Density five point five…diameter 7917 at the equator…atmosphere seventy-eight percent nitrogen, twenty-one percent oxygen…”

“In other words, exactly like Earth,” Slim completed. He knew there were trace amounts of other gases in the Earth’s atmosphere, but they were hardly worth mentioning.

“Precisely,” Spock said with a nod, looking up. “And I picked up indications of large cities.”

“Development?” Jim asked.

“No signs of atomic energy yet, but advanced enough for radio communications, power transportation, and an excellent road system.”

Uhura suddenly spun from her board. “Captain! I think I can pick up a visual signal—it looks like a news broadcast of some kind, on what I think they used to call ‘video.’”

Slim glanced at his father, then said, “If it’s being broadcast, it ain’t— _isn’t_ video, exactly. Video is what’s on the tape. The word is ‘television.’”

“I stand corrected.” Uhura flashed Slim a friendly grin.

Jim, too, managed a smile. “Put it on the screen, Uhura.”

The picture took a while to come in. Slim half-thought he could hear a faint voice grumbling—the voice of the _Enterprise_ —but he dismissed it as a coincidence, or an overactive imagination. His gift, or whatever it was, only worked when he was actually in physical contact with a machine and concentrated. They didn’t just talk to him out of the clear blue sky. Certainly not to complain about inefficient operators doing the technological equivalent of pounding a square peg into a round hole with a five-pound rubber mallet.

Then again, he couldn’t help but remember their encounter with the mirror universe, when the _Enterprise_ had spoken about Scotty as though he was a lover.

After a few moments, the picture of the planet dissolved into that of a city street. Except for a few minor differences, it could have been any Earth street in the 1960s. Several people in the clothing of the period stood watching the police round up a group of men in loincloths, which puzzled Slim. Was it some sort of weird protest movement?

“And in the Forum District today, police gathered up another group of dissidents,” the announcer was saying, his voice having a tinny, filtered quality. “Authorities are as yet unable to explain these fresh outbreaks of treasonable disobedience from well-treated, well-protected slaves.”

A shocked silence fell over the bridge. Slim stared at the screen, wondering who in their right mind could fail to grasp the reasoning. Well-treated or not, well-protected—whatever that meant—or otherwise, a slave was still a slave, and naturally a slave would at some point come to resent his lot. But _treasonable disobedience?_

The announcer’s bland voice, however, went on, as though he had said nothing unusual. “And now, turning to the world of sports, we bring you taped reports of the arena games last night…”

The picture changed, showing two men wearing nothing but leather aprons, helmeted and carrying oblong shields in one hand, swords in the other. They advanced warily—and then one attacked. Slim was hardly an expert, but he’d been fencing with Sulu for close to three years now— _gods of Olympus, had it really been that long?_ —and he could see that neither man knew anything about swords other than “aim the pointy bit at the other person and try not to stab yourself in the shin.” They were sloppy, unrefined, and the only reason the defender was successful was that the attacker had no technique whatsoever. The announcer continued, “The first heat was between two amateurs, a pair of petty thieves from the prisons. Conducted with traditional weapons, however, it provided amusement for a few moments.”

The attacker saw his chanced. He lunged forward and stabbed his opponent in the heart—off-balance but otherwise just like one of Slim and Sulu’s fencing matches, except that the point entered his opponent’s heart and protruded out the back, and when he pulled it free, it was covered in red. The other fell to his knees, dying or already dead, as the crowd jeered in the background and the victor raised his bloody sword in salute to the arena galleries. The announcer’s voice spoke over the cheers. “The winner will meet another contestant in tonight’s games. In the second heat, however, we bring you a more professional display in the spirit of our glorious past, as gladiator Claudius Marcus killed the last of the barbarians, William B. Harrison, in a brilliant example of—”

There was a burst of static, which sounded to Slim’s ears almost like profanity, and the picture dissolved. Uhura looked appalled and horrified, but gathered herself. “Sorry, sir, transmission lost. Shall I try to get it back?”

Jim didn’t answer, still staring in shock at the viewscreen. After a moment, he spun to face Spock. “Slaves and gladiators? Some kind of twentieth-century Rome?”

“No,” Slim said positively. “It’s some kind of _modernized_ Rome. Ancient Rome with more technology. It ain’t twentieth-century Rome.”

“Poor choice of words,” Jim agreed. “I meant a twentieth-century Roman empire.”

Kelly swallowed, twice, before saying softly, “I think Slim’s description is still more accurate, sir. It’s twentieth-century technology with third-century morality.”

“Well put, Ensign,” Spock said, his face unusually grave. “Captain, the man described as the ‘barbarian’ is also listed here—Flight Officer William B. Harrison of the S.S. _Beagle._ At least there _were_ survivors down there.”

“A landing party,” Jim muttered. “Nothing else for it…we’ll have to go down there.”

Sulu twisted around anxiously. “Sir…”

“No, it has to be done, Mr. Sulu.” Jim rubbed his forehead. “Ready the transporter room…c’mon, Spock. I’ll call for Bones on the way—I have a feeling we might need a doctor. And someone get Scotty up here.”

“I’m here, as it happens,” Scotty said, stepping off the lift in time to hear the end of the sentence. “What is it, Jim?”

Jim jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the viewscreen, which was showing the planet rotating innocuously. “Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy, and I will be beaming down. You have the conn, Mr. Scott. We’ll be in touch.”

“Aye, sir.” Scotty nodded and crossed over to stand between the chair and the Engineering panel. As the lift doors slid shut behind Jim and Spock, he turned to Slim and added, “Since you’re here, laddie, explain to me what the hell is going on.”

Slim did his best to explain. Scotty’s face got progressively longer as he spoke. At last, he shook his head. “Gladiators and slaves and barbarians? I don’t know what kind of world this is, but I tell ye, I’m no’ too pleased with them being down there.”

“Let’s hope this doesn’t take too long,” Sulu said quietly.

“Aye,” Chekov agreed fervently. He turned around, looking worried. “Mr. Scott…what happens if zey get captured?”

“I can’t begin to guess,” Scotty muttered. “Not sure I want to, either.”

They were silent for a while, but the tension was palpable. Everyone tweaked uselessly at their boards, nobody speaking, all of them anxious. Slim kept his eyes on the viewscreen, willing his father to contact them, but as the minutes stretched on, he began to get seriously worried.

Almost an hour after they had beamed down, the communication system suddenly crackled to life, Jim’s voice exploding onto the otherwise silent bridge. “Kirk to _Enterprise._ Come in…”

Scotty lunged for the chair and made a visible effort to sound normal. “Scott here, Captain.”

“Lock in on our location. Scan us.”

“Scanning, sir,” Scotty said, nodding at Sulu to begin the scan. Slim crossed his fingers behind his back, hoping against hope that his father was about to order a beam-out.

“Including ourselves, how many people are in this cave?”

Scotty counted the blips on the screen, then answered, “Twelve, Captain.”

There was a brief pause, and Slim could hear the smile in Jim’s voice when he spoke again. “Maintain scanning, Scotty. We’ll keep checking in. Kirk out.”

Slim felt the knot in his stomach loosen, just a little bit. “So it’s all right then?”

“Looks like,” Scotty said, cautiously. “I’ll be staying on alert until I hear from them again, but it seems to be all right for the moment.”

“How long do you think it’ll be before we do?” Slim asked. He wasn’t meaning to nag, but he was worried.

“Standard procedure is once an hour, once a pattern of checking in has been established,” Scotty said slowly. “But…knowing the captain, he’ll call sooner if he can.”

Slim glanced at the chronometer. “I hope he does. I ain’t sure I can handle waiting much longer.”

“I don’t think any of us can,” Chekov said softly.

Sulu reached over and laced his fingers with Chekov’s, then looked over his shoulder at Slim. “You’ve been studying, Slim. Which three are ours?”

Slim couldn’t help but grin. “Give me a hard one. Crew shows up as green blips, hostiles as red, unknowns as yellow.”

“Right. So out of twelve people in that cavern…?”

“The three from the _Enterprise_ —I’d guess that’s Dad, wandering around.” Slim pointed to the one green blip, a dash with faint numbers that could be called up and expanded if necessary, that was wandering around the cavern. “There aren’t any hostiles—any _known_ hostiles,” he corrected himself, “and the rest don’t carry communicators. Therefore they show up as unknowns.”

“What makes you think the wandering indicator is the captain?” Sulu asked.

“In the first place, because I know him,” Slim answered. He knew what Sulu was doing—both distracting him from his worries and testing his knowledge, his ability to read a sensor scan. “Mr. Spock is a more passive observer, and Dr. McCoy takes his time when he’s looking around, but Captain Kirk takes an interest in everything, and he likes to get right up to people he’s trying to understand. Second, in an unknown situation, with three senior officers involved, most captains will either keep the party together or be the only one moving around. Standard procedure.”

“Then here’s a harder one. Without calling up the specific numbers, which of the two green blips is Mr. Spock?”

It took Slim no more than a second to point. “That one.”

Sulu’s eyebrows shot up. “The one the captain just walked up to? Why wouldn’t that be the doctor?”

“Because the captain left a conversation with an unknown to join him. Dr. McCoy wouldn’t have interrupted, and if he’d been hurt or taken ill or something, the captain would’ve gone to him a lot faster. But he walked calmly to join him, which undoubtedly means Mr. Spock found something ‘fascinating.’”

From her board, Uhura let out a bark of laughter at Slim’s accurate mimicking of the first officer’s intonation. Sulu grinned, too. “Well done, Slim. Full marks.”

“You’re gonna ace the exam,” Kelly said encouragingly.

“That part, anyway,” Slim said under his breath.

Scotty punched his shoulder lightly. “Why d’ye doubt so much, laddie?”

“Goes with the name,” Slim deadpanned.

“It’s not as bad as everyone makes it out to be.”

The unexpected voice made Slim nearly jump out of his skin. He turned quickly to find Yeoman Rand grinning encouragingly at him from beneath her towering, intricate hairdo. She so seldom spoke while on duty unless spoken to that he’d completely forgotten her presence, although he’d be prepared to swear she hadn’t been there a few moments before. Not that that was particularly unusual; the yeomen were always in and out of the bridge, especially when the captain was off the ship. Rand had her PADD tucked in the crook of her arm, the stylus tucked behind her ear, and had obviously been there for a few minutes, at least.

“The test,” she elaborated, either misunderstanding or willfully misinterpreting Slim’s expression. “Everybody always goes on about it like it’s the academic equivalent of facing off against the entire Klingon military force armed with nothing more than a stick and a loincloth, but it’s not really that difficult. They’re not expecting you to be able to solve Hilbert’s sixteenth problem or construct a fully functioning 1:3900-scale replica of a _Federation-_ class starship using toothpicks and dental floss. It’s more along the lines of ‘can you tie your own shoelaces without outside assistance.’”

“Hey, now,” Sulu said, turning from his station with a mock-frown. “Yeoman Rand, that is a _wholly_ inaccurate assessment of the Starfleet Academy entrance exams.”

“You’re right, Mr. Sulu, I shouldn’t have implied that there was a question on the entrance exams about shoe-tying,” Rand said with a straight face. “After all, Slim is the only person on this bridge whose shoes _do_ tie, isn’t he?”

Scotty looked down at his feet, then at Slim’s before looking back at his own. His expression was so comical that Slim couldn’t help bursting out laughing. Chekov cracked up, too. Even Sulu was fighting down a fit of giggles.

“What’s going on?” Kelly asked suddenly.

Slim was about to ask how she’d missed the joke when he caught sight of the scanners. The yellow blips were clustered off to one side of the cavern, and the three green blips were alone a little ways away. He frowned slightly, worried. “A conference?”

Scotty nodded slowly. “I hope they’re not—”

At that moment, two of the yellow blips broke away from the group and rejoined the three green ones. A third approached a moment later, more tentatively. Slim was beginning to have trouble breathing when the comms crackled to life. “Kirk to _Enterprise._ ”

“Scott here,” Scotty barked, stabbing at the buttons on the chair. “Captain, are ye all righ’?”

“We’re fine, Mr. Scott.” Jim was speaking quietly, probably so that the other people in the cavern wouldn’t overhear too much. “Just updating you on the situation. It seems Merrick may be here—they seem to know of a man named Merikus, they call him the First Citizen, whatever that means. One of the men here will be escorting us into the city. It’s…complicated, too complicated to explain right now. Just keep monitoring us, would you?”

“Of course, Captain. If you need—”

“If we need—transportation—we’ll call you,” Jim interrupted. “We’ll be in touch again, Scotty. Kirk out.”

The line died. Scotty sighed and ran a hand through his sparse hair. “Right,” he muttered. “The _Beagle_ was doing the first study of this sector. Prime Directive still in effect.”

Rand nudged Slim. “What _is_ the Prime Directive?”

“‘No identification of self or mission; no interference with social development of said planet,’” Slim quoted automatically. He’d read over the directives at least fifty times; most of them he would have had to struggle to recall, but the Prime Directive—one could almost hear the capital letters whenever anybody said it—had been in large, bold letters and had imprinted itself on his brain, which he guessed was the idea.

“See? You’ve already got an edge over most Academy applicants. They don’t even teach that until second term of your first year.”

“They’re moving out, Mr. Scott,” Sulu reported.

“Follow them, then,” Scotty said. “I’ve a bad feeling about this…”

“Aye, sir.”

Sulu keyed instructions into the console, changing the sensors from a passive sweep of a localized area to actively following the three green blips indicating the _Enterprise’s_ men. As the blips began crossing the grid, Slim felt rather than heard a hum travel up through the soles of his feet. He bit his lower lip briefly.

Scotty frowned. “Ensign, what the devil was that?”

Slim looked up, startled that the hum hadn’t been in his mind—most of the time when he communicated with a machine, it was all in his head. Kelly turned from her board with a bewildered look on her face. “I don’t know, Mr. Scott. All readings are perfectly normal, there was no change in anything on the ship—just that odd hum.”

Chekov twisted around to look at Slim. “Was it ze _Enterprise?_ ”

“Of _course_ it was the _Enterprise,_ Mr. Chekov, what else would it have been?” Scotty said impatiently.

But Slim understood what Chekov meant. He looked up at Scotty. “Sir…there ain’t nothin’ wrong with the ship, but…she doesn’t like this.”

“Oh. That’s what—” Scotty turned to Slim in surprise. “What d’ye mean, she doesn’t like this?”

“This—” Slim gestured at the screen. “The whole situation. She…I can’t really explain it, sir, but what she just said was that she thinks we should beam them back aboard, right now.”

“The ship is sentient,” Rand said, raising one eyebrow in skepticism.

“Not exactly, Yeoman, but she talks to Slim,” Scotty told her. He took a deep breath. “I wish we could, too, but we can’t. Tell her the Prime Directive is in effect, an’ they’ve got a man from that planet with them—presumably. We can’t beam them aboard until the captain gives the say-so.”

A spark of static electricity leapt from the back of the captain’s chair to Scotty’s elbow, making him jump. Slim couldn’t help the brief smile that crossed his lips. “She understands you just fine, sir.”

Scotty rubbed his elbow, trying to scowl, but the smile was fighting its way through. “I don’t need backtalk from you, lassie.”

Slim let his gaze return to the viewscreen. Along with the single yellow blip, the three green blips were advancing cautiously across the terrain, zig-zagging back and forth, probably taking advantage of cover that they could see but the watchers on the _Enterprise_ couldn’t. At last they came to a halt, grouping fairly close together.

“Are they at the city, then?” Slim asked.

Sulu shook his head, pointing to the extreme edge of the sensor sweep, which was practically a solid wall of seething, pulsating yellow. “They’re on the outskirts. Probably waiting until dark before they go in.”

“Because they’re not dressed for the culture,” Slim guessed. “And Spock’s ears…”

“Well, that, too. But if they’re trying to sneak into the city for whatever reason…they said Merrick might be the First Citizen. That sounds important.”

Slim glanced at Kelly. “You’re the expert…”

“I’m the expert on the gods,” Kelly corrected him. “More the Greek than the Roman, anyway. The Roman history dork is Porter. I think I remember reading a short story once where they mention the First Citizen…it was a historical mystery of some kind, but—”

Rand nodded. “Decius Metellus, right? The First Citizen is the only title he would agree to use for Augustus. He wouldn’t call him Emperor.”

“The Emperor of Rome?” Uhura’s eyebrows shot up. “Bob _Merrick?_ ”

“Mr. Scott!” Chekov cried.

Slim whirled around to see six yellow blips rapidly converging on Jim and the others. Scotty balled his hands into fists. “Let’s hope they’ve seen them.”

Five of the blips formed a loose semicircle around the green blips, while the sixth stepped forward. Slim’s heart leapt to his throat as the yellow blip that had led them out of the cage surged forward, only to stop abruptly next to another blip. One of the yellow blips approached one of the green blips, and Slim momentarily forgot how to breathe. A minute later, they were all being shepherded in the direction of the city.

“Stay on them, Mr. Sulu,” Scotty said sharply, gripping the back of the chair so hard his knuckles turned white. “Full power to the scanners!”

Sulu reached for the controls. Slim could sense the _Enterprise’s_ anxiety as the sensors sharpened…but the second the group reached the edge of the city, they were swallowed up by the crowds.

“Mr. _Sulu!_ ” Scotty shouted.

“I’m trying, sir, I’m trying.” Sulu’s face was pale, sweat beading the back of his neck as he furiously worked the controls. “Dammit, is there _anything_ I can do?”

“Even I can tell she’s straining herself to the limit,” Kelly said, watching the lights on her console flickering rapidly. “I don’t think there’s any finding them.”

“Not until they communicate with us,” Uhura said softly. “Until we have their comm signals to lock in on, we can’t pinpoint them.”

Scotty heaved a sigh and spoke through clenched teeth. “Ease up on the sensors, but keep sweeping. We’ll find them.”

Slim’s eyes searched the sensor screen anxiously, hoping to spot something, but it was all a blur to him, especially to his untrained eyes. Time stretched like an elastic until it seemed the whole atmosphere would snap from the tension. Uhura kept trying to hail Jim and the others, but got no response; Sulu and Chekov worked the helm like a pair of musicians playing a four-hand piano piece as Kelly tried to help them by boosting and diverting power. Scotty, like Slim, stood perfectly still, his eyes fixed on the screen.

It was almost an hour later when Jim’s voice suddenly exploded onto the bridge. “Captain to bridge, come in…”

Scotty stabbed violently at the button, the relief in his voice evident. “Bridge, Scott here. Go ahead, sir.”

“If you have a fix on us, Scotty—” Jim began, then stopped.

Sulu was tapping rapidly at the console when Jim’s voice came back on, managing to sound somehow tense and exhausted at the same time. “Stand by, Engineer…”

“What? Captain!” Scotty shouted.

Uhura turned around. “It’s no use, sir, he’s closed communication.”

Scotty’s hands curled into fists. “Something’s wrong.”

“Sir, I’ve pinpointed their location, but there are at least a half-dozen other people in the same area,” Sulu said, turning around, his face worried. “Should I beam them up anyway?”

Scotty hesitated. “No, we’ll wait. It may be nothing’s wrong. Those men may be from the _Beagle._ The captain said ‘stand by,’ so he means to be in touch again. We’ll wait,” he repeated.

Slim held himself perfectly still, hardly daring to breathe, counting the seconds between heartbeats. After a few moments, Jim’s voice came back in. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Scotty.”

“We were becoming concerned, Captain,” Scotty said, keeping his voice steady with a visible effort. “You were a bit overdue.”

“That’s an understatement,” Sulu said under his breath.

When Jim spoke a moment later, it was in a voice infused with sudden strength. “Condition green. All is well. Captain Kirk out.”

Scotty’s face was a picture of misery. Slim looked up at him. “That ain’t in any of the books I’ve read…”

“It wouldn’t be,” Scotty said unhappily. “’Tis one of our private codes. ‘Condition green’ means trouble, but forbids the taking of any action.”

Slim had to grab the back of the chair to keep himself from passing out. “I—I guess those men ain’t from the _Beagle,_ then,” he managed.

Scotty patted Slim on the back. “We’ll keep trying, laddie. We may not be able to act, but we can find them. They’ll be in touch sooner or later.”

Slim smiled weakly, but he wondered who it was he was trying to convince.

Again came that agonizing, stretching length of time. Slim remembered from his studies that, as good as the sensors were, the color-coding depended on communicators. Federation technology could pick out Klingon technology fairly well, and even Romulan technology; anyone carrying a communicator at those frequencies would show up red. Yellow blips were really just anyone not carrying an active communicator, and if they were prisoners, the Romans (it was easier to think of them that way) would have confiscated everything on them immediately. For all intents and purposes, they were blind, Jim and Leo and Spock alone on the planet.

After what seemed like forever, Scotty strode over to Uhura’s station. “Lieutenant Uhura, are you _certain_ there’s no contact?”

“None, sir, except the message you just received.”

“Mr. Chekov?”

“Nothing, Mr. Scott.” Chekov sounded close to tears. “Sensors lost zem when zey entered ze city, and without ze communicators…”

“There’s got to be _some_ way of finding them!” Kelly cried.

Slim forced himself to think. Obviously, there was no way to contact them; however Jim had been able to communicate while surrounded, that option was no longer available. The area was confounding the sensors—too many life signs to pick up, and even though Spock’s were subtly different than a normal human being’s, it would be too difficult to pick out in the middle of a crowd. There was the possibility of a reconnaissance party, but with the “condition green” order, Scotty wasn’t about to risk lives—or Jim’s inevitable wrath—to send anyone down…

“The television!”

He hadn’t even realized he had spoken aloud until he felt every pair of eyes on the bridge on him. He blushed hotly, even as Scotty repeated, “The television?”

“What do you mean, Slim?” Uhura asked gently.

Slim rubbed the back of his neck and tried desperately to explain. “We’ve got two possibilities here. Either they’re prisoners or honored guests, from the same land that produced the ‘First Citizen.’ If they’re guests, there’ll be a news report about it, a festival of some kind. An’ if they’re prisoners, he’ll have to have ‘em killed in a big, fancy show. Whichever it is, if we can get that broadcast, we can find ‘em.”

“He’s right,” Chekov said, pale but suddenly energized. “At least zere’s a chance.”

“All right, then,” Scotty said, rubbing absently at his bald spot. “Uhura, get that broadcast back.”

Uhura spun back to her console. There followed nearly fifteen minutes’ worth of frantic work, which nevertheless produced nothing but angry static. Slim frowned. “Hold on…”

He walked over to Uhura’s side, watched for a minute, then placed his hand on the side of her board. Closing his eyes, he did his best to send a calming message to the ship. _I know you don’t want to see that. I don’t want to, either, really. But it’s the only way to find them and bring them home._ Please, _girl, stop blocking the signals._

The console juddered slightly, then seemed to relax. Slim opened his eyes and stepped back. “Try it now.”

Uhura slid one of her knobs. There was another crackle of static, fainter this time, and then a picture began to coalesce on the screen. She looked up. “It worked. What did you do?”

“I told the _Enterprise_ to quit blocking the signals,” Slim admitted sheepishly. “I was watching what you were doing and it should’ve worked, so I reckoned the ship was fighting you for some reason.”

“Well, whatever it was, it did the job.” Scotty’s eyes were fixed on the screen.

Bright, catchy music washed over the bridge as the picture solidified into a flapping banner, purple with a laurel wreath surrounding the letters SPQR picked out in gold. Slim glanced briefly at the chronometer; it was the top of the hour, which meant, he guessed, that the broadcast was just beginning.

The banner slid to one side and revealed an amicably smiling man, holding what Slim could tenuously identify as a microphone and standing above a sandy floor. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Live from the City Arena tonight and in living color, we bring you ‘Name the Winner!’ Brought to you by your Jupiter Eight dealers from coast to coast. In a moment we’ll bring you tonight’s first heat, but first, a word from our sponsors.”

The man’s face vanished, replaced with something vaguely resembling the General Lee but painted a less garish color, with a fence of shiny chrome on its front end. Two hands drummed on the big headlight, then the chrome, then the top of the vehicle. Four men in horrendously tacky suits with ludicrously fake sideburns played instruments, beat on the car, and sang back-up for a woman with a hairdo that defied gravity and a filmy, short dress who kept talking, as near as Slim could pick out, about the rhythm of the car. Chekov’s face probably would have been funny if they hadn’t all been so tense about the news broadcast.

A fanfare played, and then the announcer’s face reappeared, still smiling blandly. “And first tonight, a surprise ‘extra!’ In the far corner, a pair of aggressive barbarians with strange ways I’m sure will be full of surprises.”

Slim couldn’t hold back a ragged gasp as the camera angle changed to show Spock and Leo in one corner of the arena, wearing gray t-shirts and pants, each holding a sword in one hand and a shield in the other. Spock held both with confidence, his shoulders squared and his face impassive, but Leo was clearly ill at ease. Even though Slim had been expecting to see them, he still hadn’t been prepared for exactly what he would see.

“Facing them,” the announcer went on, “your favorites and mine from previous matches—Maximus Achilles and our noted Flavius!”

The camera panned to the other end of the arena, showing two big, muscled, well-oiled men in short leather aprons, also carrying shields and swords. One’s face was blank, impassive, looking as though it had been chiseled out of stone; the other man looked marginally uncomfortable. Nevertheless, it was obvious both of them knew their way around the arena, and around the weapons they held as they moved into the arena.

Again, the announcer’s face filled the screen, and there was a texture of gleeful anticipation to his voice. “Victory—or death? And for which of them? You know as much as I do at this moment. Ladies and gentlemen, this is _your_ program! _You ‘Name the Winner!’”_

“Where’s ze keptin?” Chekov’s voice was full of dread.

Before anyone could answer, the camera angle shifted again, and this time everyone on the bridge gasped. What they had all taken to be a wall behind the announcer was in fact nothing more than a velvet hanging, part of a box draped in purple and gold. There were three chairs in it. On one of them sat a plump man in a white suit with a purple shirt and gold tie, a goblet in one hand, smiling lazily but with malice. In another sat a man in a very loud sports jacket, who kept casting slightly uneasy glances at the third chair.

The third chair contained Jim.

Still in his command gold uniform, looking incredibly out of place even among the bizarre mix of twentieth- and first-century clothing, Jim didn’t seem to have been harmed. His face was stoic, almost Vulcan in its calmness, betraying nothing. However, it was obvious to everyone that he was a prisoner, that his hands were bound behind him.

“That’s him!” Uhura gasped. “That’s Robert Merrick—the one in the checked jacket!”

Nobody responded. The other man raised his goblet, and the camera shifted back to the arena floor. Spock’s feet were positioned in almost the exact correct position, his sword hefted the way Slim and Sulu held their fencing foils—which was wrong, Slim thought vaguely, you didn’t fence with that kind of sword—and the shield gripped in his non-dominant hand. Leo’s stance, however, was awkward, his grip too tight and too high on the sword’s hilt, and he clearly had no idea what to do with the shield.

There was a flourish of trumpets. One of the two men, the impassive one, suddenly struck out at Spock, who dodged backwards out of the way. Leo faced down the other, and Slim saw, with some relief, that this man seemed reluctant to come to grips. Maybe things would be all right for him.

A whip cracked into view just off-screen, and a distant voice shouted, “Begin!”

The man attacking Spock was clearly a professional, and Spock, running true to form, was simply defending himself as the gladiator bore down on him. The other man made a halfhearted swing at Leo, who instinctively raised his sword to defend himself from the blow. Slim could immediately see that the only reason he was managing to block the blows was that the gladiator wasn’t really trying.

“Flavius is getting off to a slow start,” the announcer was saying, “but he’s never disappointed us for very— _there’s a close one! The barbarian with the pointed ears is in trouble!_ ”

“He doesn’t know Spock very well,” Uhura said, her fists clenched tightly on her lap as she watched the huge gladiator—presumably Maximus Achilles, since Flavius was said to be off to a “slow start”—drive Spock into a corner. It had to be admitted that, if one didn’t know what Spock was capable of, one would probably believe he was close to finished. Spock’s lips were forming words, but the camera wasn’t picking them up.

The camera panned the crowd momentarily—hundreds of jeering faces—then to the purple-draped booth for a reaction shot of Jim, Merrick, and the man who had signaled the start of the bout. Jim, his face white, his forehead beaded with sweat, had tried to stand and been obviously pressed back into his seat by one of the two gun-wielding men behind him. Merrick leaned over to say something to him, and Slim felt the knot in his stomach tighten.

The view went back to the arena just in time for a concerted cheer as a whip crashed hard across Flavius’s back, shouting, _“Fight, you two!”_

Flavius turned on the man, sword raised, for a brief moment, then turned back to Leo and aimed a more powerful blow at him. Leo staggered backwards as it clashed against his sword.

“This doesn’t seem very entertaining to me,” Kelly said in a small voice.

Scotty’s face was hard as he stared fixedly at the screen. “Aye, an’ it doesn’t seem to be their idea of entertainment, either,” he muttered. “These folks want a bloodbath, they want menace and slaughter. Instead they’ve got one man who can’t fight and one who _won’t_ fight, both of whom are somehow keeping the professionals from landing a blow.”

“Do you think ze network will stop it?” Chekov asked hopefully, half-turning in his seat.

Slim shook his head. “No. They’ll try to make it more exciting.”

The camera panned up to the purple box again, focusing on Jim’s face as the announcer said, “The barbarian’s chieftain seems distressed! Does he know something the rest of us don’t?”

“Yeah,” Rand snapped, as if the announcer could hear her. “He knows that there’s a starship overhead with the firepower to reduce your entire ‘civilization’ to rubble.”

“But the orders not to, Yeoman,” Scotty reminded her.

Back in the arena, the whip cracked across Flavius’s back again; Slim flinched with remembered pain as he saw the welt appear on the man’s muscular back. The crowd booed, which seemed to anger the gladiator further. He shouted something at Leo, who shouted back, then lifted his sword and swung at the man, nearly overbalancing himself. Flavius parried it easily.

The hisses and boos grew in volume as Spock continued to back away. The gladiator shouted at him, loudly enough that the cameras picked it up: “ _Stop running! Fight!”_

Spock turned the next blow, then moved closer to Leo. It appeared they were having a conversation, but it couldn’t be heard. It was obvious, however, that Leo was angry at whatever Spock was saying—or maybe he was just angry in general. He went into a flurry of wild, unformed lunges.

“No…” Sulu muttered, tensing more than he already was. “Doctor, what are you _doing?_ ”

“Fighting back?” Scotty suggested.

“Not like that! Even if his technique was correct—which it’s not, he could seriously hurt himself doing that—he’s just going to make that guy angry, and—”

Chekov and Kelly let out screams of terror, and Slim had a moment of being unable to breathe. Flavius had suddenly gone on the attack, vicious and savage, striking and slashing at Leo in a way that made all the anger drain out of his face immediately, to be replaced with fear. Sulu’s prediction had come true. Leo had provoked Flavius into a murderous fury that was likely to destroy him in a matter of seconds.

Spock saw the peril in the same instant. He lashed out at Maximus with speed and efficiency, leading to astonished gasps and cries from the crowd, but Slim couldn’t help but wonder if it was too little too late. One of Flavius’s blows knocked Leo to the ground; the next struck the exact center of his shield, making him drop it. He managed to parry the next blow, but the one after that sent the sword spinning from his grip.

“ _Help him, ye mad green-blooded bastard!_ ” Scotty bellowed, his composure breaking for the first time.

It was as though Spock heard him. Casting aside both sword and shield, he felled his opponent with a knife hand strike to the neck, then dashed across the arena to where Flavius was raising his sword for the killing blow. He grabbed the gladiator, spun him around, and applied pressure to the point where the neck met the shoulder. The man dropped like a stone.

Slim gave a sigh of relief—for about two seconds. Cries of “Foul!” echoed throughout the arena as armed guards rushed in and grabbed Spock and Leo, pinioning their arms behind their backs. The camera panned up to a shocked announcer, who was facing the purple-draped box, where Jim, Merrick, and the still-unknown third man were all on their feet. “A clear foul, Proconsul! Your decision?”

The galleries were shouting, clamoring for immediate death, but the third man—who had to be Proconsul—turned to Merrick and spoke. Merrick replied with obvious difficulty, and the other man turned to Jim and asked a question. He didn’t give Jim a chance to answer, however, merely said something with a malicious smile before stepping forward and shouting into a microphone. “Master of the Games, take them back to their cage!”

Cheers mingled with boos as Spock and Leo were led away, swords ringing their necks. The still obviously-stunned announcer managed to say, “An exciting, if irregular, first heat! We’ll be back with the second heat after a word from our—”

“Kill the transmission, Lieutenant,” Scotty said curtly. “We’ll get no more from this.”

The picture vanished, replaced with the view of the planet, which no longer seemed Earth-like and calming to Slim. He suddenly remembered Hazel’s description of the school she’d attended during her first life in New Orleans: _Just like its name, the place masked a whole lot of cruelty under a thin veneer of kindness._ The peaceful, planet-wide community of equals Slim had left behind bore as much resemblance to the blighted empire before him as Camp Jupiter had to St. Agnes’. They probably excused a lot of the brutality and savagery they had just seen with “but that’s how it’s always been done.”

Kelly’s arms were wrapped protectively around her rounding stomach, her eyes wide and filled with tears. “What are they going to _do_ to them?”

“I saw what that man in the middle—Proconsul?” Sulu asked, turning around, his face ashen.

“It’s a title, I think,” Rand said uncertainly.

“I saw what he said to the captain,” Sulu said quietly. “He asked his opinion, then said, ‘Kill them now—and you’ll gladly accept whatever happens to you. I wouldn’t relish that. But you almost tricked me into depriving myself of real pleasure.’”

Slim’s blood ran cold as a single word popped into his head. The word was _crucifixion._ He was vaguely aware that it was the ultimate punishment in Roman society, but he’d be damned if he could remember what it entailed. He guessed, however, that it was the _real pleasure_ the Proconsul had referred to.

“Right, that’s it,” Scotty said abruptly, but when Slim looked up at him, he was regarding the younger two with a gentle expression. “Ensign O’Flaherty, you’re off shift, lassie. Go get something to eat, and get some rest. You need it. Slim, go with her, make sure she eats something, and you eat something, too. You’re young, you need your strength.” He hesitated, then added, “Once you have…come back up here. You’re on that panel until the crisis is over.”

Relief washed over Slim, strangely enough. He knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep, not knowing where his parents were, and having something to do would help. He saluted, then pulled Kelly to her feet and led her to the lift.

Audra, Porter, and Nic’tlarn were already seated at the table where they usually congregated, and all three looked up with welcoming smiles as Slim and Kelly approached. Kelly took one look at them and burst into tears.

“Kelly, what is it, what’s wrong?” Nic’tlarn was instantly on xyr feet, reaching for Kelly in obvious alarm.

Kelly threw her arms around Nic’tlarn’s neck and buried her face in xyr shoulder, sobbing. The only words audible were “captain” and “Rome” and a word that might possibly have been “gladiators” but might just as easily have been random noises. Nic’tlarn tried to comfort her, shooting a bewildered glance at Slim.

Slim held up a finger, darted over to the food slots, and returned with two plates. One had one of the preprogrammed meals Kelly was supposed to be eating to encourage a healthy pregnancy, while the other had a grilled cheese sandwich and a bowl of tomato soup, his comfort food. Setting them down and taking a seat, he said quietly, “That planet down there…it’s like the Roman empire carried over into the twentieth century without adopting twentieth-century morality. They still have slaves, gladiator games…only they’re televised. Dad—the captain an’ Dr. McCoy an’ Mr. Spock beamed down there and got captured. We just watched the doctor an’ Spock fightin’ for their lives in an arena. Only reason they’re still alive now—they won the match, but only ‘cause Spock karate-chopped his opponent an’ used the Vulcan nerve pinch on Pa’s—is because the folks in charge wanna make ‘em suffer. Dad, too.” Despite his resolve, he’d switched halfway through from talking like they were ship’s officers to talking about family, but he couldn’t really bring himself to care.

“ _Dii immortales._ ” Porter gave a low whistle.

“It ain’t like New Rome in the books, that’s for sure.” Slim prodded at his sandwich.

“Kelly, sit down and eat,” Nic’tlarn begged.

Still crying quietly, Kelly sat down and automatically began eating her meal. “It’s so _awful._ The whips and—and the swords—and everybody _cheering_ for Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy to get hurt—and that horrible man, saying he didn’t want the captain to accept whatever happens—”

“Mind filling in the blanks there?” Audra asked Slim, her face pale.

Slim did his best. By the end of it, Kelly was the only one who was still eating. Porter was shaking his head long before Slim had finished. “It doesn’t fit. You said that this Merrick was the First Citizen—the Emperor? He ought to be the one making those kinds of decisions, not the Proconsul.”

“What _is_ a Proconsul?” Audra asked, methodically tearing the lettuce from her sandwich into confetti.

“A governor, basically. They’re in charge of one little province, in the name of the Emperor. Even if that man is the Proconsul of the main city, he still should theoretically not have more authority than the First Citizen.” Porter rubbed his chin reflectively. “On the other hand…something like barbarian captives cheating in a fight _would_ be too petty for the Emperor to deal with. It isn’t as though they were senators, or patricians, or even Roman citizens at all. Still…it seems to me that from what you’ve described, the Proconsul is taking more than a few liberties with his Emperor. Maybe it’s because this First Citizen was born a barbarian.”

“You seem pretty familiar with Ancient Rome,” Nic’tlarn observed, still casting anxious glances at Kelly.

Porter shrugged. “I got interested when I read the Percy Jackson books—not in the gods, in the culture. So I started reading. It was a bit of an obsession for a while. I even considered majoring in anthropology at the Academy, but the lure of Engineering was too strong. I thought I told you guys that.”

Slim hesitated, then asked the question he really wasn’t sure he wanted the answer to. “What’s a crucifixion?”

Porter’s face turned ashen. “Who said anything about a crucifixion?”

“Nobody…exactly. But…that’s the word that keeps goin’ through my mind. I reckon that’s what the Proconsul has in mind, an’ I ain’t sure what it involves.”

“It…it comes from the Latin,” Porter said slowly, reluctantly, casting a worried glance at Kelly. They were all trying to be careful not to unduly upset her, knowing that the stress would be bad for the baby. “The word _crux…_ it means…”

“Port,” Kelly said softly, setting down her fork and lacing her fingers protectively over her stomach. “Just spit it out. I’m not going to break.”

Porter took a deep breath and said in a rush, “It’s a slow, painful method of execution. It involves tying or nailing someone to a cross and leaving them there until they die…it can take hours or even days to work. It’s agonizing—that’s where the word _excruciating_ comes from—and it’s also humiliating. I, uh, I don’t think it’s what they’re planning…it wouldn’t be much of a TV program. It’d be like watching paint dry.”

“So, what, they’re going to throw him to the lions?” Audra asked, her brow furrowed.

“It’s a possibility, I guess,” Porter admitted.

Slim stared down at his sandwich, his stomach doing flips. “I hope they’ve got a plan, that’s all.”

Kelly spooned up the last of her mashed rutabega. “Slim, you’d better eat…Mr. Scott’s expecting you back on the bridge and if you pass out from hunger, he’ll kick your ass.”

“You pulled bridge duty?” Audra looked at Slim in surprise. “How’d you manage that?”

“I ain’t sure. Reckon Mr. Scott just wants to keep an eye on me.” Obediently, Slim picked up his sandwich.

Half an hour later, Slim stepped onto the bridge and slipped into his place at the Engineering panel. Scotty nodded at him over his cup of coffee. “We’re still scanning, laddie. Nothing’s coming up. See if you can figure out how to circumvent that.”

Slim nodded. “Aye, sir.” Cracking his knuckles, he got to work.

He lost all track of time as he pressed, toggled, slid, and manipulated every button, knob, switch, and lever on the panel. Reluctant to use his gift more often than necessary, he tried his hardest to do what he could without asking the ship for help, but nothing worked. As minutes stretched to hours, he rubbed at his eyes and kept doggedly pressing on.

Rand appeared at his side, handing him a cup of coffee, which he accepted gratefully. Ordinarily he didn’t drink coffee at all, but he didn’t think he’d make it through the night if he didn’t try it tonight. He took a swig, tried to keep himself from choking on the dark, bitter brew, and kept working.

“How long since we had word?” Scotty asked. He wasn’t speaking loudly, necessarily, but it was the first time anyone had spoken in a while, so Slim couldn’t help but jump.

“Nine hours and forty-two seconds,” Uhura said, startling Slim for the second time. He honestly hadn’t realized it had been that long. “It’s almost dark there. We’ll see the city lights coming on soon.”

Slim looked up at the viewscreen. The star at the center of the system was disappearing behind the curve of the planet, bathing the landmasses below in a ruddy glow. On Earth, he probably would have found the sight comforting, almost beautiful, but in light of what he’d seen earlier, it was as though the whole place was saturated in blood. As he watched, lights began flickering, tiny pinpoints on a swiftly darkening continent.

“That would be a lovely sight, if the whole place wasn’t so terrifying,” Sulu muttered.

Scotty drummed his fingers on the back of the command chair momentarily. Slim, glancing over at him, saw his jaw suddenly clench with determination. “Mr. Chekov, pinpoint the city’s power source locations,” he said with spirit. “Slim, I’m setting ye a practical exam. Type the power, the load factors—and how much our beams must pull to overload them.”

“Aye, sir,” Chekov and Slim said in unison.

It was, without a doubt, the most difficult test Slim had ever faced in his life, largely because he knew it wasn’t just an academic exercise. This was the real deal—a problem in real time, an equation—a series of equations, really—that had to be solved quickly and accurately, and if he was wrong, it wasn’t a matter of getting a bad mark on an exam and having to re-take it, it could literally be life and death for Jim and the others. But, at the same time, he’d studied this. He _knew_ how to do this. Yeoman Rand kept him, along with the rest of the bridge crew, well supplied with coffee throughout the night—except for Sulu, of course—but half the time his cup sat forgotten at his elbow as he worked through a difficult stretch of solutions.

At last, as the landmass below them turned inexorably westward, Chekov cried exultantly, “Got it!”

Scotty came up behind Slim and Chekov, who both stood by the helm, and clapped their shoulders. “Well done, lads. How long can we overload their power for?”

Slim double-checked his calculations. “If we put everything we’ve got into the beams, five minutes. No longer.”

“Well, that may be enough to give the captain and the others a head start.” Scotty rubbed his chin, then nodded decisively. “To your station, Slim, and be ready to give me that power on my signal.”

“Aye, sir.” Slim slipped back to the panel and bent over it, instinct telling him not to sit down just yet. His fingers hovered over the appropriate slide as he waited.

“Locked on, Mr. Scott,” Sulu reported, his voice slightly weary but holding steady.

Scotty held his breath for a moment, then suddenly snapped out, “ _Now!”_

Slim pushed the slide all the way up, diverting every ounce of power he could spare into the beams. The lights on the bridge actually dimmed momentarily as Sulu thumbed the trigger. A bright blue beam struck the location they had targeted, emanating from the underside of the _Enterprise,_ and a moment later, the continent went dark.

“We did it!” Uhura cheered, throwing her arms up in celebration.

Turning around, Slim saw a look of smug satisfaction on Scotty’s face. “That ought to show the bastards what a starship can do.”

As Slim had predicted, the beams were able to keep the power off on the planet no more than five minutes, but as Scotty said, it ought to be enough. Slim was fairly confident that it would be put down as the wrath of the gods anyway—even though he knew that the gods they worshiped were dead. As the lights came back on, he crossed his fingers and held his breath.

“Starship, lock in on this place, three to—”

The voice suddenly erupted onto the bridge—not Jim’s, not Leo’s or Spock’s, but a stranger’s—and Scotty stared in surprise and alarm.

“Slim, I need power back!” Sulu said urgently.

Swiftly, Slim turned back to his board and rediverted the power to the sensors. In a matter of seconds, Sulu had the screen up, even as the voice spoke again, in a hoarse, gurgling whisper. “Three to beam up…emergency…”

“I’ve got Mr. Spock’s signs! He’s back-to-back with two others!” Sulu shouted. “Transporters locked in!”

“ _Energize!”_ Scotty bellowed.

Slim whipped around to his console and saw the lights flash as the transporter was activated. A moment later, the readings returned to normal.

“I…I think we got them, Mr. Scott,” Slim said.

Every head on the bridge turned to the lift doors, waiting in hopeful silence. At last, the doors slid open. Jim came through, alone. Everyone was on their feet immediately. “Captain, where are—”

“They’re coming,” Jim interrupted. “Spock took a cut to his arm and Bones is insisting on treating it before they come up here. But they’re both fine.”

“And you, Keptin?” Chekov asked, his eyes seeming even larger than usual.

“I’m fine, too, Mr. Chekov.” Jim smiled wanly. “Just exhausted.”

Uhura glanced at the viewscreen, then back at Jim. “That _was_ Bob Merrick, wasn’t it? The man who spoke to us?”

Jim rubbed his temples, nodding. “It was. He sacrificed himself at the end there, so we could get away. Whatever faults he may have had, he went out upholding the traditions of the Academy.”

Slim studied his father worriedly. Despite Jim’s reassurances, he wasn’t convinced. “You _sure_ you’re okay, Dad?”

Jim started and turned. “Slim, what the hell are you doing here? It’s almost four in the morning.”

“He was running the Engineering panel,” Scotty intervened. “I didn’t realize how late it was getting.”

“Tell me what happened, Scotty.” Jim sat down in his chair, a little heavily. “All of it.”

“Not much to tell, sir,” Scotty said, rubbing his bald spot. “We…ah…we managed to pick up the broadcast of the fight in the arena, the one between the doctor and Mr. Spock. I sent Slim and O’Flaherty to get something to eat, then told Slim to come back. We tried to find ye, but nothing came up. Finally I got tired of waiting and decided to give a bit of a show of power. Chekov found the source of the city’s power, Slim did all the necessary calculations, and we shorted it out…temporarily. I hope I didn’t do wrong, but…”

“You did fine,” Jim assured him. “In fact, you probably saved all our lives. The blackout occurred at the crucial moment to allow me to escape my pending execution. It didn’t interfere with the society and violated neither the Prime Directive nor my orders.” He nodded to Sulu and Chekov. “Prepare us to break orbit and get out of here, gentlemen.”

The door to the lift opened again, and Spock and Leo came in. Slim couldn’t help but notice that, although they both bore signs of strain and worry, they looked far less worse for the wear than anyone else on the bridge. Leo went straight to Jim’s side, placing a hand on his shoulder; Jim leaned into it almost unconsciously.

“Captain,” Spock said, looking around him with his brows knit in concern, “do you intend to summon Gamma shift to their usual positions?”

“As soon as we’ve cleared orbit, Mr. Spock,” Jim said with a nod. “Warp factor one, Mr. Sulu. Let’s go.”

“Warp one, sir.” Sulu began keying in the instructions to break them out of orbit around the planet.

Spock stepped up to the side of Jim’s chair. “I would suggest, Captain, that you permit me to contact the relief shift for Alpha tomorrow. Three hours of sleep is insufficient for most humans, and it would be illogical to expect all of you to return after so little rest. I will gladly take responsibility for the intervening time, and will of course contact you should anything go wrong.”

Jim hesitated, then nodded. “Thank you, Spock,” he said tiredly. Turning to Slim, he added, “But you’re going now. Go on, son, go to bed. We’ll try not to wake you up when we come in.”

“Ye did well, laddie,” Scotty said, clapping him on the shoulder and giving him a warm smile. “I’m right proud of ye.”

Slim smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Scott. Goodnight, everyone….’Night, Dad.” He gave his dad a quick hug before heading into the lift.

The strain and exhaustion of the last eighteen hours or so caught up with him all at once, and he felt himself deflating as he sank through the decks to his destination. Somehow, he rallied the energy to stumble to his family’s quarters and into his bedroom, but at that point he stopped caring. He shucked his shirt, toed out of his socks and shoes without bothering to untie them, and crawled under his covers. He was so tired that he fell asleep almost before his head hit the pillow, and tumbled at once into the deep oblivion of true slumber, knowing nothing further until very late the next day.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may be pleased to know that I am once again making this my Camp NaNo "novel." Hopefully this means I'll actually get multiple chapters completed, and may even be able to start posting regularly again...I'm also off on Friday, which definitely helps.


	80. 'Cause You've Never Been This Loved

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because the lovely Sarah specifically requested it...this chapter is dedicated to her.
> 
> There is sex.

Leo watched the door close behind his son, then turned back to Jim. He was sitting perfectly upright, his face composed and steady, but Leo knew his husband, knew every one of his tics and tells. Jim was about one step away from completely falling apart.

Not that Leo was really doing much better.

He could feel himself trembling all over. Partly it was that he was exhausted; Jim had evidently slept away most of the afternoon and evening, but Leo had been awake, helping Spock try to batter his way out of their cage and worrying about Jim. He also hadn’t had anything to eat but bread and water for the last eighteen hours. But he was also beginning to realize just how close he had actually come to dying. He’d liked Flavius, but that hadn’t changed the fact that he’d provoked him to a murderous fury, nearly getting himself killed in the arena because he didn’t know how to handle a sword and didn’t know when to shut up. And worse—to his mind—Jim had been forced to watch, helpless and bound and unable to do anything about it. Leo knew damned well that one of Jim’s greatest fears was of being unable to protect the people he loved, and Leo had put him in that position. Some husband he was.

He knew he was being unfair. It wasn’t like their positions had never been reversed—or like they’d never been in that position before. The incident with the Tholians, the encounter with the Excalbians, Jim disappearing on Gideon, the outbreak of Rigellian fever, the doomsday machine, Losira, the Capellans, the “grup virus,” the loss of the _Galileo_ …the arena battle with the Gorn, Leo’s brush with xenopolycythemia and everything that had happened in the spaceship masquerading as a world, the whole thing with Landru, Khan and the horrors that had occurred because of and around him…and then there was Canopus III, which still gave both of them nightmares on occasion but which they had silently agreed to never discuss again. This was hardly the first time one of them had thought they were watching the other die, and it certainly wasn’t either of their faults.

The problem was, he couldn’t convince himself of that. He couldn’t convince himself that there was nothing he could have done, that he wasn’t deliberately or subconsciously putting himself in peril, that it wasn’t, somehow, his fault that Jim had to suffer so badly.

And, if he was honest with himself, he couldn’t convince himself that Jim wasn’t better off without him.

“Breaking orbit now, sir,” Sulu reported, glancing over his shoulder. Dark circles under his eyes told the tale; the man was bone-weary and should have been asleep hours ago. Chekov was practically nodding off over his console, jerking himself awake at the last possible second. Even Scotty was rubbing his eyes when he thought no one was looking. Only Spock appeared completely poised and alert, but how much of that was genuine and how much was his damned Vulcan stiff-upper-lip crap was anyone’s guess.

Jim nodded and pressed a button on his chair. “Gamma bridge crew, report to positions, on the double.”

Leo wondered if he ought to stop by Med Bay and make sure Gamma shift was in place. In the next moment, he told himself not to be stupid. With the exception of the senior command, shifts and watches went on as usual unless they were on shore leave…or on red alert, in which case all hands were either on deck or secured to quarters. Weaver was undoubtedly on duty, handling whatever minor emergencies went on during the overnight shift, and she would…not _resent_ his interference, exactly, but certainly be annoyed at the implication that she didn’t know her job. He decided to let well enough alone.

The relief crew arrived within five minutes. Jim waited long enough to ensure that all positions had been replaced, then stood up. “Mr. Spock, if you’re sure you’re up for this—”

“Quite sure, Captain,” Spock replied calmly.

“Then you have the conn.” Jim took a couple of steps away from the chair, hesitated, and turned back. Softly, he added, “Spock…I don’t know if I said thank you. For…”

He didn’t finish the sentence, but his eyes flickered briefly over towards Leo. In other circumstances, Leo might have either smirked or rolled his eyes…or both. Spock had saved his life—from a mess largely of his own making, it had to be admitted—and when Leo had stumbled over himself trying to thank him, he had reacted in typical Spock fashion by making comments about the “unnecessary” need for such things. Leo had blown up at him until he’d almost caught Spock in a moment of unguarded emotion and realized what was really going on.

He waited for a reaction of the same kind, but to his surprise, Spock’s expression shifted, almost imperceptibly, and he inclined his head slightly in Jim’s direction. He didn’t say anything, but Jim seemed to understand. He nodded again, then turned around and took Leo’s arm as they headed for the lift.

Exhaustion, strain, and the last remnants of the terror he’d felt on the planet below combined to make Leo open his mouth the second they were alone. “Should I be jealous?”

“Of what?” Jim asked absently, taking hold of the handle and setting the lift in motion.

“Spock never allows himself to show that much of his human side when I try to thank him.”

“Bones, I didn’t know Spock’s opinions meant that much to you,” Jim began with a slight smile, looking up with a teasing glint in his eye. The second he made eye contact with Leo, however, his expression changed as he evidently realized what Leo was saying. “Oh.”

Lifting one hand, he cupped Leo’s cheek tenderly, rubbing his thumb along the cheekbone, the gesture comforting under usual circumstances, but at the moment, it was just worrying and Leo couldn’t say why. He almost felt like Jim was just placating him…or preparing him.

Softly, Jim said, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Bones, but Spock tends to overcompensate for his emotions by turning even more machinelike than usual, especially when he’s in a situation where he doesn’t think it’s safe to express them fully. He cares about you—he cares about all of us—but he was raised to believe that emotion is weakness, and that indulging in it interferes with logic. When he’s out of the situation, he can let himself relax and…feel.”

Leo swallowed hard, wanting to believe that was all there was to it, but he had to say it. “Then why does he only want to…feel…when you’re concerned?”

Jim stared levelly at Leo for a long moment. The lift doors whispered open, and without a word, he gripped Leo’s hand and led him down the corridor to their quarters. Once inside, he let go, leaving Leo standing lost and forlorn in the living room as he headed into Slim’s room. He was out in less than a few seconds. Still without speaking, he took Leo’s hand again and brought him into their bedroom.

The instant the door closed behind them, his arms were around Leo’s neck, pulling him in for a fierce, bruising, passionate kiss.

“I love you,” he murmured against Leo’s lips. “I love _you,_ Leonard Horatio McCoy. I’ve loved you from the day I met you. There’s never been anyone I loved so much, and there will never be anyone I love more. Whatever may have happened in any other universe, in _this_ universe, you’re my husband and the love of my life, and no one and nothing will ever stop that. I loved you yesterday. I love you still. I always have. I always will.”

“Jim…” Leo began, feeling the tears well up in his eyes.

“No, listen to me, Bones. Please listen to me. You’ve got no reason to be jealous, of anyone. Spock’s my friend. He cares about me the same way he cares about you. And I care about him the same way. But you? You are the light of my goddamn life. I love you. I adore you. The thought of losing you fucking terrifies me. You’re my heart, my soul, my everything. My Bones.” Jim kissed him again, light as a feather, and whispered softly, the words a caress, “My Bones.”

Leo closed his eyes, letting the tears squeeze out onto his cheeks. “My Jim,” he whispered back.

Jim gently led Leo over to their bed, eased him down onto it, and rested his forearms on Leo’s chest. “I don’t show you often enough how much you mean to me,” he murmured, caressing Leo’s cheeks with the backs of his fingers in a tender gesture. “Are you up for a demonstration now? I promise I’ll be careful.”

Leo’s eyes popped open in surprise. He knew exactly what Jim was suggesting, and it was startling in the extreme. They were both tired, raw, emotionally vulnerable, and neither one had had a shower in a day or so. How could he possibly be in the mood for sex?

As if he’d read Leo’s mind—which wouldn’t surprise him, given how long they’d known each other—Jim pressed a kiss to the crook of Leo’s neck. “I always want you, Bones. Any time, any place, no matter what you look like or smell like. But if you don’t want it…”

“I do,” Leo interrupted, his voice hoarse with unshed tears. “I do, Jim. God, I want you more than anything…”

Jim kissed him again. “Then just relax, baby. I’ll take care of you.”

_Baby._ Jim didn’t often call him anything but Bones, and when he did, when he used pet names like that, it sent a thrill all the way to Leo’s toes. He almost forgot how tired he was.

Almost.

He did what Jim had told him, lay back and relaxed as his husband worked his boots off, eased off his pants, slid his hands under the fabric of his shirt. Jim’s palms were warm against the skin of his torso, his touch gentle as he removed Leo’s shirt, leaving him clad in nothing but his underwear. Leo, propped up against the pillows and the headboard, watched as Jim took off his own shirt, then hesitated before picking up both shirts. Neither had had time to change before reporting to the bridge, so they were still wearing the heather-grey t-shirts they had been issued to fight in the arena—or in Jim’s case, to die.

With a sudden movement, Jim crumpled the shirts into a small, tight ball and threw them into the garbage chute. “I don’t want any mementos of that planet,” he muttered, seemingly more to himself than to Leo. “Let them have their damned…‘civilization.’ It’s not coming onto this ship.”

Leo didn’t say anything as Jim divested himself of the rest of his clothing, except his underwear. He knelt on the side of the bed next to Leo and ran a gentle hand along his ribs, then leaned in to kiss him once more. Instinctively, Leo wrapped his arms around Jim, pulling him close as he kissed him back.

After a few moments, Jim pulled back, looking down at Leo with an expression of absolute love and devotion in his eyes. “How do you want to do this?” he asked softly. “Tell me what you want, Bones.”

“You,” Leo whispered, shifting one hand to cup Jim’s cheek. “I want you, Jim.”

Jim laughed softly. “You’ve got me, Bones. Always. The question right now is _how._ ”

The words came out of Leo’s mouth before he thought about them. “Want to feel you inside me.”

Jim’s eyes widened briefly in astonishment. It wasn’t often that Jim topped; Leo was the more dominant one in their relationship, and both of them enjoyed it that way. But suddenly, Leo had a pressing need to let Jim be in control, to be looking up at Jim while his husband took the lead, to be the one filled instead of filling. It wasn’t so much that he wanted Jim to prove he loved him as it was that he felt…empty, hollow.

“Are you sure?” Jim asked, looking a little worried.

Leo rubbed his thumb over Jim’s cheek. “I’m sure.”

Jim stared at him for a moment longer, then nodded. “Okay, then.”

He eased Leo onto his back and stretched out on top of him, kissing him warmly and heatedly before sliding down the length of his body. Within a few moments, both of them were completely naked. Jim ran his fingers lightly over Leo’s cock, making it twitch in anticipation. A soft chuckle escaped Jim’s lips. “Eager, aren’t we?”

“I can wait,” Leo said seriously, although he wasn’t sure how true it would continue to be as things progressed.

“I won’t make you.” Jim smiled and reached for the lube.

A lot of times, when Leo was bottoming, they didn’t do a lot of prep. He had always preferred it rough, which was a big part of the reason Jim didn’t top often; he was always afraid of hurting Leo, and Leo also suspected that he was subconsciously afraid that Leo might be that rough with him in return. But somehow, Leo knew even before Jim began that this wasn’t going to be hard or fast. Jim was going to go slow, take his time, show him how much he loved him. So he wasn’t surprised when Jim eased one finger inside of Leo and began carefully working the tight ring of muscle loose.

Leo tried his hardest not to cry out with longing and frustration as Jim slowly, patiently opened him up, adding one finger at a time so gently Leo almost didn’t notice he was doing it. Every once in a while, Jim would brush Leo’s prostate, making his hips buck upwards, and every time they did, Jim would press a kiss to his neck or his chest or his forehead.

Finally, Jim withdrew his fingers and reached for the lube again. Leo reached up and caught Jim’s hand, stopping him. “Wait,” he whispered.

Jim looked at Leo in concern. “Bones, I know you like it rough, but—”

“No, not this time,” Leo said, shaking his head but not letting go of Jim’s hand, or breaking eye contact. “Just—let me do it. Please?”

“Oh.” Jim flushed a little, in a way Leo found very becoming and one hell of a turn-on. “If that’s what you want…then yes.”

“It’s what I want.” Leo let go of Jim’s hand, turned his head to the side, and picked up the bottle of lube.

He squeezed a dollop onto his other hand, warmed it up a bit, and then reached for Jim, wrapping an arm around his waist and pulling him closer. Carefully, he wrapped his hand around Jim’s cock and slicked it generously. He couldn’t resist running his thumb over the tip as he did so; Jim shivered and closed his eyes for a moment.

“All right, darlin’?” Leo asked, pausing in his motions.

Jim opened his eyes and smiled. “All right,” he whispered back. “Go ahead, Bones.”

Leo was happy to comply. He made a point not to pull too hard—it wouldn’t do for Jim to come before he was ready—but it took a lot more of his willpower than he had previously anticipated. Finally, however, Jim was ready. Leo lay back against the headboard, spreading his legs further apart in silent anticipation.

Jim rested his hands on either side of Leo, then slid them behind his shoulder blades as he lined himself up. “Ready?” he asked.

“Ready,” Leo answered. He was trembling with anticipation, his whole body alive with desire.

Jim leaned down to capture Leo’s lips with his own, then drew his hips back and pushed inside of him.

Leo’s eyes closed at the feel of the slow, sensuous slide of Jim’s cock inside of him. Jim moved slowly, steadily, never speeding up his rhythm or varying his pace. Without conscious thought, Leo slid his hands under Jim’s arms and over his shoulders, holding him close, clinging to him desperately. Tears sprang to his eyes as Jim patiently moved inside of him. He’d made love to Jim like this, slow and gentle with only hints of their usual vigor, but never in his life had anyone treated _him_ like this. Every single time he’d bottomed had been a good, hard fuck; that was what he liked, would have sworn up until now that it was the only kind he was interested in. But this—the tenderness, the gentleness, the sensitivity—all the things that characterized Jim Kirk under ordinary circumstances—this was exactly what he wanted, exactly what he hadn’t realized he was missing all these years.

“ _Jim,_ ” he cried out, tilting his head back.

“I’ve got you, Bones,” Jim murmured, kissing the hollow of Leo’s throat. “I’ve got you. Just hang on, baby, almost there. I’ve got you.”

Leo trusted Jim as he trusted no one else in the universe. He held on as Jim kept going, feeling his orgasm building in his gut. He was close, incredibly close—a lot closer than he would have believed possible from something as slow and gentle as what Jim was doing.

“J-Jim,” he stuttered, opening his eyes. “I’m gonna—”

Jim cut him off by pressing his mouth to Leo’s. He pulled one hand from behind Leo’s shoulders and brought it between their bodies, wrapping it around Leo’s length. With experienced, practiced movements, he stroked Leo’s cock in time to the movement of his hips. He murmured against Leo’s lips, “That’s it, Bones, come for me, come on…”

It didn’t take long, maybe three strokes, before Leo came in Jim’s hand with a muffled cry. At almost the same instant, Jim stiffened as he found his own release inside of Leo. Leo buried his face in the crook of Jim’s neck, holding him close as both of them rode out their orgasms together.

At last, Jim pulled out as carefully as he could, then kissed Leo lightly. “Be right back,” he whispered.

Leo felt his heart rate begin to return to normal as he watched Jim slip out of bed and into their bathroom. A moment later, he came back with a wet washcloth, with which he proceeded to clean both Leo and himself, gently and tenderly. Once he was done, he tossed the washcloth to one side and curled against Leo’s side, resting his head on his shoulder.

“I love you,” he said softly, one finger tracing the outline of Leo’s pectoral muscles.

Leo wrapped his arms around Jim, feeling a lot more relaxed than he had earlier. “I love you, too,” he whispered. “I’m sorry for being all…jealous and possessive earlier, it’s just…”

Jim shook his head. “No, I understand. I’ve screwed up before and we both know it.”

“Jim, no.” Leo pressed a kiss to Jim’s forehead. “You’ve never—”

“Edith Keeler,” Jim said softly.

Leo sighed. They’d never really talked about what had happened in old New York, even right after it happened; Leo had been hurt and upset and avoided Jim for three days before the rest of their friends—their family—conspired to get him onto the observation deck in time to hear Jim pouring his heart into an old country song that made him break and realize just how much Jim really meant to him. But the truth was that both of them had fallen in love with Edith Keeler—who, the more Leo had thought about it, was basically just a female version of both of them, so small wonder.

“I fell for her, too, Jim,” he pointed out. “And that was…it was different. What had me so upset back then…it wasn’t so much that you’d fallen for someone else, especially since you’ve proven time and again over the years that you didn’t love her more than you love me, just…differently. What upset me was that you loved her and you let her die.”

“Bones—”

“No, listen, Jim. I know you had to. I know it was the only way we’d get back here…but all the same, I couldn’t help but wonder. I’d do anything to save your life, you know that…but I gotta admit, those days we were—well, those days _I_ was avoiding you—it was because I was terrified that you’d let me die if it came down to it, or that you’d think I was ridiculous for not being willing to let you die in that situation.”

There was a long moment of silence. Leo had never admitted that out loud, nor had he ever admitted—even to himself—that he still wondered sometimes if Jim would sacrifice him for the greater good if he had to. He never _would_ admit out loud that in those first few days, he’d felt that Jim had not only allowed Edith Keeler to die, he’d as good as killed her himself. _That_ was what scared him the most—not the thought of Jim letting him die if it was the only way to save the rest of the crew, but the thought of Jim actively taking him out.

“I wouldn’t,” Jim finally said quietly. “Remember after I had that nightmare with Nylund a few weeks ago, when you were talking about how you couldn’t let me die, that you weren’t sure if you could let me sacrifice myself and make it worthwhile, and I told you I knew I couldn’t? I couldn’t even let you sacrifice yourself, Bones. I know it’s awful, but…if it had been you, if I’d had to let you get run over by that damned truck in order to fix everything, I wouldn’t have been able to do it. I would have sacrificed the entire future, let the Nazis win, sabotaged the future of human space travel, just so I could have spent whatever time we had left with you. I still would. Dammit, Bones, I almost gave in down there. I was ready to promise Claudius anything he wanted, beam down the whole crew, beam down our _children_ , if he’d just promise that you’d be all right. I asked him if Spock would be allowed to help you once he defeated his man and he said no…but I was praying Spock would do it anyway. I told you once, there’s no one else I’d trust with your life if I can’t be there to protect you than Spock. And then Spock _did_ save you, and everyone screamed foul and…God, Bones. The only reason Claudius didn’t have you killed immediately was because he knew I’d gladly accept anything that happened to me after that, and he was right.”

“You think I would have been much better?” Leo asked softly. “I’m just as terrified of losing you as you are of losing me—more, because I’ve lost you before. I try my damnedest to keep you safe and it terrifies me every time I fail—and I fail way too often, seems like.”

“Bones, no.” Jim sat up and looked at Leo seriously. “You’re the only reason I’m still here.”

Leo cupped Jim’s cheek in his hand. “I’m in the same boat you are, Jim. I’m a doctor, I’m supposed to be about healing people, about doing what’s best for as many people as I can…but I’d let the universe go hang if it meant saving you. You know that. You’ve always known that. I guess I just…selfish as it is, I needed to hear you say it.”

Jim copied Leo’s gesture. “I love you, Bones,” he said, clearly and distinctly. “I’m always going to choose you. No matter what’s at stake, no matter how many lives I could save by letting you die, you’ll be the one I save, time and again. I’ll never let you go.”

“I love you, too, Jim.” Leo tilted Jim’s face towards him and kissed him tenderly.

Jim curled against Leo, his head resting next to Leo’s heart. Leo tangled his hand in his husband’s hair, stroking it absently. They lay like that for a while, not saying anything, just taking comfort in one another.

Finally, Leo spoke softly. “Thanks, Jim.”

To his credit, Jim didn’t act like he didn’t know what Leo was talking about. “You’re welcome, Bones. Thanks for…you know, letting me do that.”

“I didn’t know I was going to enjoy that as much as I did,” Leo confessed. “Thought I only liked it hard and fast, but that was…that was exactly what I needed. So no, thank _you._ ”

“I love you,” Jim murmured.

“Love you, too, darlin’.”

Jim gave a soft sigh. His lashes brushed lightly across Leo’s pectorals as his eyes fluttered closed. Leo rested his cheek on the top of Jim’s head, closing his own eyes. As he drifted off to sleep, one single thought flashed through his mind: _I am the luckiest man in the galaxy._

 


	81. Lost in This Moment With You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's wedding time! I had a lot of fun writing this chapter, so I really hope you enjoy reading it.
> 
> I am _told_ that the wedding vows I chose here for Nic'tlarn and Kelly are traditional Celtic wedding vows. We all know you can't trust everything you read on the internet, so let's just say [I found them here.](http://brethewriter.tumblr.com/post/119988677754/traditional-celtic-marriage-vows-better-than)
> 
> Also, [I made a playlist to go with this chapter.](https://youtu.be/vkiAzMfkC1k?list=PLAAlY07caq4AH9u4e3s5H6sbF1G3IUx-w) It's not every song that would have been played at the reception, you understand, but it's all (or most of) the ones that are specifically mentioned. See the end of the chapter for the specific list of what they are, if you can't figure it out as you go.

Jim turned away from the mirror to look at Bones. “Am I straight?” he asked a little anxiously, spreading out his arms.

“God, I hope not, else what have we been doing these last fifteen years?” Bones smirked at him.

“You _know_ what I mean,” Jim said, exasperated.

Bones finished pulling on his boot, stood, and kissed Jim on the tip of the nose before straightening the medals on his chest. “There. Perfect.”

“Thanks.” Jim smiled up at his husband.

“Have I mentioned lately how much I hate this thing?” Bones grimaced as he ran a finger under the stiff, tight collar of his dress uniform.

“Have I mentioned lately how good it looks on you?” Jim countered. He ran his hands over Bones’ shoulders before kissing him again.

Bones wrapped his arms around Jim’s waist, pulling him closer and deepening the kiss. Jim allowed it to go on probably longer than necessary—or sane—before Bones finally let him up for air. “I’d suggest stayin’ here and lettin’ you peel it off, but I think that’ll have to wait,” he said in Jim’s ear. “Those kids’ll be awfully disappointed if you don’t show.”

Jim laughed and gave Bones one last kiss before letting go. “I’m looking forward to this, too,” he confessed. “C’mon, Bones, let’s get going.”

The chapel on the _Enterprise_ had been designed by some hypersensitive politically-minded groundlubber anxious to avoid offending anybody, and was therefore devoid of any religious or cultural symbolism whatsoever—merely an altar, a lectern, and rows of seats. However, it served its purpose—a quiet place for those religiously-minded individuals to sit and commune with their god or gods in whatever manner they so chose. Oddly enough, though, of the four couples who had been married on the _Enterprise_ so far, only one had chosen to have their ceremony in the actual chapel: Jim and Bones.

Whether that played into Nic’tlarn and O’Flaherty’s decision—since neither of them were religious—Jim hadn’t asked, but the fact of the matter was that they had asked Jim if he would marry them there. Their reception, like Jim and Bones’ had been, would be on the observation deck, but the ceremony itself would be before the square white altar, with the seats mostly filled by the other engineers.

“I haven’t been in here since Spock declared you dead last year,” Bones admitted softly as they reached the door of the chapel. “During that crap with the Tholians.”

Jim winced. He tended to forget that chapels could be used for funerals—or memorial services—as well as for weddings. He paused, turned, and touched Bones’ cheek lightly. “It’s okay, Bones,” he said quietly. “I’m alive. So are you. This is supposed to be a _happy_ occasion.”

Bones’ lips quirked upward in a small smile. “‘Let’s not bicker and argue over ‘oo killed ‘oo.’”

“That’s my Bones.” Jim kissed Bones’ cheek and then went into the room.

Nic’tlarn and O’Flaherty were already there, waiting near the altar with an air of nervous anticipation about them both. Since only the senior officers had space dress uniforms—the ordinary rank-and-file didn’t attend shipboard functions, generally speaking—and the drab, grey uniforms they wore for ceremonies on Earth were hardly wedding attire, both ensigns wore their regular uniforms, although they’d made an effort to spruce themselves up. Nic’tlarn’s skin glistened, as though xe had polished xyr head like a gemstone, and xe had outlined xyr eyes in gold. O’Flaherty was presenting male that day and wore the corresponding uniform, but someone had woven a crown out of purple and yellow flowers and set it on his head, where it somehow blended with his red hair. His hands rested on his rounded stomach, and excitement danced in his eyes.

The guests were filing in, most of them wearing the red shirts of Engineering.The front row was always reserved for senior command, but the wedding party’s closest friends were also there. Spock sat at one end of the row, stiff and formal, Uhura next to him and already dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. Chekov and Sulu were next, their fingers twined together; Jim mentally bet that the next wedding he conducted would be theirs. Simril sat upright, smiling faintly. Next to him was Cayne, her hair in a loose braid instead of the tight coil she wore it in while she was working, and then Slim. Jim felt a pang in his chest as he realized that, although their hands weren’t clasped, they were as close to touching as they could be without being obvious. Addie sat on Slim’s other side, having evidently insisted on a seat of her own. There was an empty seat, which Bones slipped into, and then at the end sat Scotty, resplendent in kilt. Bones patted Addie on the head, pressing a finger to his lips to indicate that she should stay quiet. She nodded and smiled obligingly up at him.

Jim gave the room one last scan, then turned to Nic’tlarn and O’Flaherty. “Are we ready?” he asked softly.

O’Flaherty turned on Jim what he had once seen described as “a look both brave and eager” and nodded. “As we’ll ever be, Captain.”

Touching both of them lightly on the shoulders, Jim led the two ensigns to the altar.

The room quieted even more than it already had as they reached it. Jim reached under the altar and extracted a thick object bound in black faux leather, its edges gold leaf. It was, in fact, the official Starfleet Ceremonial Manual, a symbolic object for the two ensigns to take their oath of marriage on. However, Jim didn’t open it. The book contained no fewer than nine wedding ceremonies, but, astonishingly given the sociological and cultural advancements of the last two centuries, all of them presupposed a gender binary. Even the supposedly “gender-neutral” ones—like the one Jim and Bones had used—used gendered language in the vows. Because of that, Jim had, with surprising help from Spock and Scotty, written a ceremony specifically for the two ensigns.

The actual ceremony, of course, was largely superfluous; what was important was making the oath and signing the contract. But there was no harm in dressing the oaths up a little bit.

“Friends, crewmen, family,” Jim began, enunciating each word carefully. “We are gathered here to witness the union of Ensign Kelly O’Flaherty and Ensign Nic’tlarn. On this day, two souls, two hearts, will become one. Two individuals will become, for the universe to see, the family they, in truth, already are.”

In the front row, Scotty smiled broadly; he had been the one to suggest that line. Jim continued. “O’Flaherty, Nic’tlarn, we who are gathered here will surround you with all the love, support, and peace that it is within us to give. But it is you who will truly decide whether your marriage is a strong or weak one, whether it is one of love or strife, whether it continues to be all you promise today or not. We vow to assist you if it is within our power to do so, but in the end, the decision, as well as the fate of the union, is yours.”

He gestured with one hand, using the other to keep the book flat in front of him. They hadn’t exactly had a rehearsal, not as far as traditional wedding rehearsals went, but Jim had given both ensigns a copy of the ceremony once he’d written it, and they’d had a dry run in Jim’s living room the night before, so Nic’tlarn and O’Flaherty knew exactly what to do. At Jim’s signal, they turned to face one another. Nic’tlarn held out xyr hands, palms facing up; O’Flaherty rested his on top of them, his fingertips curling slightly into xyr palms.

“Nic’tlarn, in the presence of these our witnesses, are you prepared to make your oath to Kelly O’Flaherty?” Jim asked.

“I am.” Nic’tlarn’s voice trembled slightly, but was perfectly clear.

Jim tried not to smile, knowing it would be unprofessional. “Then you may begin.”

Looking O’Flaherty directly in the eyes—xe was slightly taller than he was—Nic’tlarn spoke in a voice that grew in confidence and strength as xe continued. Jim felt warmth fill him as he listened to the recitation of the simple, beautiful oath.

_You cannot possess me, for I belong to myself._

_But while we both wish it, I give you that which is mine to give._

_You cannot command me, for I am a free person._

_But I shall serve you in those ways you require, and the honeycomb will taste sweeter coming from my hand._

Jim had read these particular words in a book, perhaps three months after his and Bones’ wedding, and had assumed they were made up. But later on, he had learned that they were actually the traditional Celtic wedding vows. He almost wished he’d been able to say them to Bones himself, but since he’d already made his oaths, he’d tucked them away for future use. They fit these two ensigns perfectly, and he was proud to be able to use them now. Nic’tlarn continued with the remainder of the oath, xyr voice reverberating off the walls.

Once xe had finished, Jim turned to O’Flaherty, his eyes soft as he looked at the ensign but still forcing himself not to smile, and posed the same question. Then it was O’Flaherty’s turn to recite the vows, promising the same things Nic’tlarn had.

_I pledge to you that yours will be the name I cry aloud in the night, and the eyes into which I smile in the morning._

_I pledge to you the first bite from my meat, and the first drink from my cup._

_I pledge to you my living and dying, equally in your care, and tell no strangers our grievances._

_This is my wedding vow to you._

_This is a marriage of equals._

There were more than a few sniffs as Jim held out the book, inviting both O’Flaherty and Nic’tlarn to lay their hands on it, which they did. In the most solemn voice he could, Jim intoned, “If you will uphold the vows you have given to one another before these witnesses today, please say ‘I will.’”

“I will.” Both ensigns spoke together, their voices strong and sure. Neither took their eyes off the other.

“Then with the powers vested in me by my commission as a Starfleet officer, and by all that it is within me to give, I hereby pronounce you legally and lawfully wed, a union recognized throughout the United Federation of Planets and wherever its jurisdiction reaches. May it be happy and healthy, as long as you ever shall live.” Jim paused, then grinned broadly. “You may now kiss.”

O’Flaherty and Nic’tlarn looked at one another a little shyly. Jim realized that they were seldom demonstrative with their affection at all, and he knew Nic’tlarn was uncomfortable with overmuch physical contact. He was about to reassure them that they didn’t need to if they didn’t want to when Nic’tlarn suddenly cupped O’Flaherty’s face in xyr hands and kissed him, warmly and tenderly. There was a concerted whoop of delight from the assembled engineers.

When Nic’tlarn at last broke the kiss, both ensigns were blushing fiercely, but grinning ear to ear. Jim put a hand on each one’s shoulders and turned them to face the assembly. “May I present the _Enterprise’s_ newest family,” he said in a loud voice.

Instantly, everyone was on their feet, clapping and cheering. Jim let the applause go on for a while before saying, “Reception up on the Observation Deck—feel free to head up there to congratulate the new couple.”

There was something of a stampede for the door. Jim lingered with O’Flaherty and Nic’tlarn long enough to have them sign the PADD with their marriage certificate on it, then hugged them both. “Congratulations, you two. I mean it.”

O’Flaherty hugged Jim tightly in reply. “Thank you so much, Captain.”

Nic’tlarn also hugged Jim, which surprised him, but he didn’t question it. “I don’t know that we will ever be able to thank you enough for all you’ve done for us,” xe said.

“You’re family,” Jim said simply, which made both ensigns flush again. “Come on, let’s go party.”

Like Uhura had for Jim and Bones eleven years earlier, Nic’tlarn and O’Flaherty’s friends had put together the wedding reception for them. The surprise wasn’t so much that as it was who had been primarily responsible—Slim and Cayne both swore that Simril had insisted on doing most of the work, and for his part, the burly ensign didn’t deny it. He hadn’t gone overboard with decorations, seeming content to allow the panorama of space to be sufficient ornamentation, but there was a decent spread of finger food on a long table, the centerpiece of which was a quiet, understated, three-tiered wedding cake.

When Nic’tlarn and O’Flaherty entered the room, there was a loud round of applause. Quiet music played in the background as everyone descended on the refreshment table, mingled naturally, and generally seemed to enjoy themselves. Jim stood to one side, a fond smile on his face as he watched the proceedings.

Two arms encircled his waist from behind, a chin rested on his shoulder. Jim turned, still smiling. “Hey, Bones.”

“Hey.” Bones was smiling, too, although the expression was distorted from this close. “So they get to stay on the _Enterprise_ now, right? Them and their baby?”

“That’s right,” Jim answered. “Nic’tlarn will be watching Addie and the baby, full time. We rendezvous with Starbase Seventeen in ten days, and that’s where Dr. Marcus catches her shuttle back to Earth and her new position, at which point Nic’tlarn takes over with Addie.”

“They still don’t want to know what it is,” Bones murmured, a little absently. “I can understand that, I guess. We wouldn’t have wanted to know which was being incubated if things had gone as planned.”

Jim nodded. Most couples did, of course; they wanted the full genetic screening, for not only gender but also any genetic abnormalities. There were tests so sophisticated they could tell you not only what color the child’s eyes would be, but when they would develop vision problems and to what degree. When Jim and Bones had provided the material to create the zygotes, however, they had specified that any prenatal screenings check _only_ for truly severe abnormalities, things that could have caused a developing fetus to die in utero or shortly after birth. They didn’t want to know gender, hair color, size…they didn’t even particularly want to know about most of the relatively minor conditions and ailments that could be spotted on these genetic scans, like allergies or a predilection towards addiction, not before the baby was born. Too many people, in Jim’s opinion, whose children were created artificially tried to create the “perfect child”—a child free of blemish, disease, or disorder—and too many doctors at those labs encouraged the practice, saying it would produce a better generation of humanity. It was uncomfortably close to the Eugenics Wars.

Jim and Bones hadn’t wanted that. It wasn’t physically possible for either of them to get pregnant—at least, not by one another—but they had wanted their child, or children, to be as close to “natural” as it was possible to get. As such, they had contributed materials to form twenty-six zygotes, each identified only with a twelve-digit number followed by the letters A-Z, with the understanding that when they chose to become parents, one would be selected at random. They didn’t even know which letter Addie had been, not that it mattered. And the results showed, as far as Jim was concerned. They had a happy, healthy three-year-old with no known health issues, smart and friendly and talented and _theirs._ Right now she was sitting on one of the benches, her legs swinging back and forth as she ate a cookie almost as big as her head and chattered away at Lieutenant Rahaim, who listened with an expression of wide-eyed interest that was quite possibly exaggerated and a broad smile that definitely wasn’t.

“Does Rahaim have younger siblings?” Bones asked, evidently following Jim’s gaze. “Or children?”

“Technically, no to either,” Jim answered absently. “But she came from a fairly small village, she told me, where everything was held in common—even the children. All the adults took a hand in raising them, so she grew up with all the children as her siblings and considered all of _their_ children to be hers, at least in part. You know she’s the first one from her village to ever join Starfleet? She’s sort of a local hero to them.”

Bones chuckled softly. “You really do make an effort to get to know every single member of your crew, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Jim said honestly. “I do. I want them all to feel important—like they belong.” Especially someone like Sumayya Rahaim, who had been part of the crew since the _Enterprise’s_ recommissioning. He’d also gotten to know Rahaim because she was a practicing Muslim, the first who’d ever come aboard the _Enterprise_ (they’d had a couple more since then). Having grown up basically agnostic, Jim was always fascinated to learn about any religion, but more importantly, he’d had to set up some accommodations for her. Rahaim always worked Alpha shift, always took her forty-five-minute break at 1300 hours, and had the fifth day off every standard week. She was open and friendly, always willing to answer questions when newer crew members asked why she went in and out of the chapel so much, only ate certain foods, or always wore a cloth covering her head (which she tucked into the neckline of her uniform).

“You’re a great captain, Jim.” Bones pressed a kiss to the side of Jim’s neck.

“Attention, everyone!” Simril called, his deep, booming voice rising over the quiet babble and effectively silencing the room. “The newlyweds will now share their first dance.”

“Port!” O’Flaherty blushed.

“C’mon, Kels, it’s tradition,” Slim coaxed.

Nic’tlarn took O’Flaherty’s hands and let him into the center of the room, smiling broadly. Xe said something softly to him, which made his blush deepen, but he smiled in reply. Without letting go of one hand, O’Flaherty placed the other on Nic’tlarn’s shoulder; Nic’tlarn rested xyr hand at O’Flaherty’s waist, slightly further towards his back than was classic ballroom stance.

Simril touched a button on the music player, and music filled the room. It was a gorgeous, lyrical piece, obviously played by an entire orchestra, and although part of it sounded familiar, Jim couldn’t place the tune. It didn’t really matter; O’Flaherty’s face, as he gazed on his spouse, was radiant, and Nic’tlarn looked happier and more in love than Jim had ever seen xem. Xe lifted an arm, twirling O’Flaherty under it gracefully, before pulling him close.

Watching the new couple, Jim remembered his own wedding—not just everything that had gone wrong with it, but the important things. Remembered looking up at Bones with his eyes shining as he promised himself to him forever. Remembered kissing his husband for the first time in front of almost the entire crew. Remembered two-stepping with him, using the entire dance floor, with Bones holding him exactly the way Nic’tlarn was holding O’Flaherty—as though he was the most precious gift in the universe, something to be treasured for all time.

Remembered how naive he had been to believe he could never love Bones more than he did at that moment.

The song drew to a close. O’Flaherty rose up on his toes to plant a kiss on the end of Nic’tlarn’s nose as everyone applauded. The music shifted then into a more upbeat song, fast and lilting and familiar to Jim. It was a folk song from somewhere—he wasn’t sure where—that he’d heard at the Academy on a number of occasions, playing in the distance.

“Come on, ladies!” Uhura cried, practically skipping onto the floor. Gaila was there in a flash, Cayne a half-step behind, the other female officers following. They circled the newlyweds, joining hands as they did so.

Jim’s eyebrows rose in astonishment as the circle began moving in more-or-less perfect unison, bouncing lightly on the balls of their feet as they danced around Nic’tlarn and O’Flaherty. Obviously, this was, if not _the_ traditional folk dance to the song, at least _a_ traditional dance, and one all of them knew. He noticed Simril whispering in Slim’s ear, and before the music had advanced three measures, most of the male engineers were on the floor, too, forming an outer ring.

The two circles began moving in opposite directions, then stopped as the women twirled around while the men clapped. Jim found himself clapping along to the rhythm of the song as the circles paired off and skipped a few steps before spinning one another around. Slim, who was—big surprise—partnered with Cayne, was clearly learning the dance as he went, but he was obviously in high spirits and enjoying himself thoroughly. Scotty in his kilt and Rahaim in her hijab made an odd juxtaposition, but they partnered one another well; indeed, Jim had never seen his chief engineer so light on his feet.

“Don’t want to dance, darlin’?” Bones asked, now standing next to Jim and clapping along, too.

“I don’t know this dance,” Jim said with a shrug. “Although that doesn’t seem to be stopping Slim.”

“Really? You never went out to the quad after a couple of cadets got married?” Bones seemed surprised. “This is an old Academy tradition, this dance. As much as you love to move…I wondered why I never saw you.”

“I didn’t…get out much,” Jim admitted. “Except with you…you mean you _do_ know this dance?”

“Sure. Can’t remember what the song’s called, but I did this dance a few times.”

“We didn’t do it at our reception.”

“We got interrupted, remember? I’m sure it was on Uhura’s list.”

The song wasn’t very long, ending after only a minute or two, with all the dancers flushed and laughing and happy. Most of them stayed on the floor as the music changed, dancing alone or in groups or with a single partner as the mood struck them.

Jim had to admit that Simril had put together a pretty awesome mix of music—a combination of Celtic folk music, classical pieces, and country love songs. He dragged Bones out onto the dance floor a couple of times, showing the younger crew members how to two-step or waltz, and of course he joined in the traditional party line dances as they came on. At one point, a song came on he didn’t recognize, but after the first two notes, O’Flaherty made a noise somewhere between a screech and a groan and thumped Simril playfully in the abdomen, making him double over with a startled _oomph,_ but he came up laughing. Jim didn’t understand O’Flaherty’s reaction, nor did he understand why Simril had put the song on the playlist, unless it was because it was about a couple getting engaged. He just didn’t understand where iceworms, whatever those were, came into it.

Another song came on later, the lighthearted air Jim remembered from Slim’s birthday party, the one he and Addie had danced to. Sure enough, upon hearing the first notes, Addie ran straight to her brother and threw up her arms, and Slim led her onto the dance floor. If Jim hadn’t known better, he’d have sworn Uhura had been giving her lessons on the sly, because she was definitely getting the hang of the two-step. Slim ended the dance the same way he had on his birthday, by scooping Addie up and setting her on his shoulder. She threw her arms up and grinned hugely at the assembled crowd, who all clapped and cheered before returning to the dance floor.

“What’s that song called?” Jim asked, drifting over to Simril’s side.

Simril glanced over at him. “It’s ‘Love the Way You Love Me,’ it’s—”

“No, not this song,” Jim interrupted. “The one Slim and Addie were dancing to.”

“Oh.” Simril shook his head. “It’s called ‘Take a Little One-Step.’ From some old obscure musical.”

“So where did you even find it?”

“Kelly is a humongous closet musical nerd. I don’t think there’s a show that’s played on Broadway since 1878 that he doesn’t own at _least_ one cast recording of. Anyway, he put it on the playlist at Slim’s party, so I just…borrowed it.”

“I like it,” Jim said.

“Me, too, actually,” Simril confessed. “Although I think what I like best about it is watching Slim and Addie dance.”

The next six songs were graceful, lyrical pieces, and then a bright, cheerful guitar riff played. Cayne’s shoulders began swaying back and forth, almost involuntarily, to the rhythm. Suddenly, she grabbed Slim’s arm and dragged him onto the dance floor, into the midst of several other couples. Slim laughed, obviously startled and embarrassed, but after a couple of steps he shifted his grip on her hand, taking the lead.

Jim, his eyes fixed on the whirling couple, waited for the usual pangs of regret in his chest. Slim had hit another growth spurt and was now taller than Cayne, no longer his “little boy.” Cayne’s face was almost as radiant as O’Flaherty’s had been earlier; Slim’s smile was one Jim never saw when his son was looking at anything else. Both were flushed with laughter and delight, and neither seemed to have eyes for anything but each other—even when Slim spun Cayne away from him before pulling her back into a close hold as they ate up the dance floor, he kept his gaze on her, and she was never turned away from him for more than a second.

To his surprise, however, he felt only a sort of contented glow. They were a strikingly handsome young couple, well-matched and obviously enjoying themselves. Jim would even go far as to say it was obvious they were in love, although he didn’t think they were necessarily aware of that themselves. He didn’t know if he’d finally accepted that his son was growing up or if it was just the wedding atmosphere affecting him, but he decided not to overthink it, at least not for the time being. For now, he would just enjoy the moment.

Bones came over to slip an arm around Jim’s waist. “Ensign Simril, do you take requests?”

Simril grinned mischievously. “I anticipated your request, Dr. McCoy, and it’s right after ‘The Hokey Pokey.’”

Jim didn’t know which part of the statement startled him more.

The song that was playing ended, and Slim lowered Cayne’s hands, both of them looking a little breathless but happy. For a wild moment, Jim thought Slim was going to kiss Cayne, but before he did, the opening strains of “The Hokey Pokey” came on. Jim couldn’t believe his eyes as every single person in the room cheered and formed a gigantic circle—even Spock, who looked somewhat perplexed. No doubt he thought it was completely illogical, Jim thought with a grin as he “turned himself about.”

Simril had programmed in a second or two of breathing space between dances, rather than the straight bleed-through most DJs seemed to go with, and Jim waited to see what song he thought Bones would have requested.

Unlike every other song, it started straight in with lyrics, and Jim suddenly found it hard to breathe as he recognized the song.

_I don’t need whiskey to drown out the pain…_

“Holdin’ You.” It had been the first song they’d ever danced to sober, seventeen days after they had officially become a couple, at a party someone Bones worked with at the clinic had thrown down at the beach. Jim remembered the night vividly: the stars twinkling in an inky black sky, the bonfire and the moonlight reflecting off the ocean, the gentle breeze ruffling his hair, Bones holding him close and singing softly in his ear, off-key but perfect to Jim. It had been the second moment he’d gotten some idea of how much Bones really loved him, and it was still one of his favorite memories.

He clung to Bones, feeling the tears in his eyes. Bones wrapped his arms around Jim, one hand at the small of his back, the other resting between his shoulder blades. Not bothering with a proper waltz hold, or any of the proper steps, they simply swayed back and forth like teenagers at a school dance. Jim buried his face in Bones’ shoulder. Just like he had that night all those years before, Bones sang along with the music. He was a little more in tune than he’d been back then, not that it mattered—the words were no less sincere.

_When this tightrope I travel begins to unravel…and it feels like we’re falling apart…_

Jim pulled back enough to look up at Bones. His husband’s hazel eyes were warm and tender, and his soft smile spoke more than words ever could. Just before the song ended, Bones stopped their swaying, leaned forward, and captured Jim’s lips gently with his own.

_Holding you holds me together…_

Bones led Jim off the dance floor as the next song started up. Gently, he wiped the tears off Jim’s cheeks with the ball of his thumb. “You all right, darlin’?” he asked gently.

“Yeah…yeah, I’m okay.” Jim smiled for Bones. “I was just…that’s always been one of my favorite songs.”

“I didn’t know that,” Bones said, surprised. “Never heard you sing it. And you didn’t put it on that playlist you made on our anniversary…”

“I can never get through it without tearing up,” Jim confessed. “It always makes me think of that night on the beach, that party you took me to right after we started dating…”

The look in Bones’ eyes told Jim that he, too, remembered that night. He ran his fingers through Jim’s hair lightly. “You know how much I love you, Jim. That song’s always meant that to me. I’m not sure how Simril knew that, but…”

Jim leaned against Bones’ chest. “I love you.”

“Love you, too, darlin’.”

They didn’t go on the dance floor again, choosing instead to watch the crew. None of the drinks were alcoholic, but Scotty had probably smuggled some in, or maybe the music just affected him, because at one point, a song came on that had the chief engineer first tapping his toes and then dancing a (somewhat stiff) rendition of the Highland Fling while all of his engineers clapped and cheered him on. Jim hadn’t known the man could move like that, although he wasn’t sure why he was surprised. Scotty had a lot of pride in his heritage, to the point that he even had a set of pipes hung up in his quarters, so maybe it wasn’t so shocking that he knew the traditional folk dances, too.

It was perhaps an hour or so later that Jim noticed Addie starting to fade. She was still dancing with anyone who would agree to dance with her, but she was rubbing her eyes a lot and hiding yawns behind her hands.

“Somebody’s getting sleepy,” he murmured.

“I noticed that,” Bones said, his voice rumbling in his chest. “We might need to make our excuses and put her to bed.”

Jim was just preparing to disentangle himself from Bones’ arms when he noticed Simril tap Slim on the shoulder and say something in his ear, also glancing at Addie. Slim nodded, then moved over to where Chekov and Sulu were dancing. He murmured something, and the three of them casually drifted towards where Simril still stood. Jim frowned and decided to stay put for a moment longer.

The song ended, but another one didn’t begin. Gradually, the babble of voices ceased as everyone looked around, wondering what was going on. The silence went on for almost a full minute before a thin, clear note sounded, wavering in the atmosphere. Jim recognized it as the sound of a pitch pipe.

His eyes returned to Slim and his friends in time to see Simril’s hand move through the air. Slim’s warm tenor rang out over the room, loud enough to be heard but gentle as though he was singing Addie a lullaby. “ _Of all the money that e’er I had…”_

Jim’s jaw dropped in astonishment as the other three joined in, singing in something that was pretty close to perfect harmony. The song was one he’d never heard before, a lilting, Celtic melody, but the meaning was clear—it was a song of farewell, a song to sing when a gathering was breaking up or someone was leaving on a journey. Uhura picked up Addie, rocking her back and forth; the little girl laid her head on her godmother’s shoulder, her long lashes fluttering shut. Scotty’s fingers twitched, almost looking as though he was playing some sort of instrument in the air as the four men’s voices swelled with warmth and richness.

_Then fill to me the parting glass…goodnight and joy be to you all…_

No one applauded when the song ended, but it obviously wasn’t because no one wanted to. Rather, they were stunned with awe and amazement. Jim knew his son had a good voice, but he hadn’t known the other three could sing at all.

O’Flaherty broke the spell, moving forward to hug all four of them. Nic’tlarn, too, embraced them. As if some sort of signal had been sounded, the guests began filtering out, stopping on their way to congratulate the newlyweds and express their appreciation to the quartet. The newlyweds also left, their arms twined around one another’s waists.

Bones let go of Jim and moved forward to take the now-sleeping Addie from Uhura’s arms, leaving Jim free to approach Slim and his friends. Cayne, too, came over to join them as Jim asked, “How long have you four been working on that?”

“Since Nico and Kelly told us they were getting married,” Simril admitted with a grin.

“You sounded amazing,” Cayne told them, her eyes shining. “I’d have thought you’d been practicing for ages.”

“Sure put Little Mischief to sleep,” Bones said quietly, joining them. “Any other songs in your repertoire?”

“We’ve been sort of practicing a couple, but we’ve only been seriously working on ‘The Parting Glass,’” Sulu said. “We wanted to have it ready for today.”

Jim smiled. “It sounded perfect. Need a hand cleaning up?”

Slim shook his head. “No, we got it. Go put Addie to bed.”

“See you later, son.” Jim gave Slim a quick hug before he and Bones headed out the door.

When they reached their quarters, Bones nodded in the direction of their room before heading into Addie’s room to put her down. Jim, understanding, headed into the room to take off his stiff dress uniform. This was a somewhat involved process, as he had to first unpin the medals and put them back into the black velvet case. It almost embarrassed him just how many medals he had. Starting with the Palm Leaf he’d “earned” for nothing more than being on the _Bradbury_ during the Axanar peace summit, he’d somehow managed to acquire a long string of accolades and commendations just by being in the right place at the right time. He still didn’t believe he deserved any of them, but he’d learned not to say that, and he wore them whenever he was in his dress uniform. Partly he did so because Starfleet regulations insisted, but partly—mostly—he wore them for Bones. His husband was always so proud of him and his accomplishments. Jim hated to disappoint him.

He was just closing the case when Bones came in, tugging at the collar of his shirt again. “She didn’t even stir when I put her down. All the excitement must’ve worn her out.”

“All the exertion, too,” Jim agreed. He crossed over to Bones and began unpinning the medals from his chest. While not as highly-decorated as Jim was—probably because he was a doctor, not a captain—Bones had a modest set of ribbons and bars that tended to impress those who associated military awards with worth. Jim knew which of the two of them was the better man, though, and it wasn’t the one with the Christopher Pike Medal of Valor.

Bones stayed still, his eyes fixed unwaveringly on Jim’s as his fingers patiently unfastened each clasp and slotted the awards into their own case. The minute Jim snicked the lid shut, however, Bones’ arms were around him, pulling him close for a kiss.

“Oh, darlin’,” he whispered against Jim’s lips. “You don’t know what you do to me.”

Jim shivered and let himself melt into Bones’ kiss. He knew damned well his shirt was about to end up in an undignified heap on the floor, but somehow, he really couldn’t bring himself to care.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, the songs (you can see the titles on the YouTube playlist):
> 
> 1\. Nic'tlarn and Kelly's first dance  
> 2\. The "folk dance" (yes, that's actually from an anime soundtrack, shut up)  
> 3\. Kelly's "earworm," last mentioned in Chapter 70, the song he hit Porter for  
> 4\. The song Slim and Addie dance to  
> 5\. The song Slim and Audra dance to  
> 6\. The Hokey Pokey, of course  
> 7\. The song Jim and Bones dance to  
> 8\. The song Slim, Porter, Sulu, and Chekov sing everyone out with


	82. Just to Climb a Thousand Walls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter did not go remotely in the direction I was expecting, but I like where it did go. Hope you enjoy it, too!
> 
> Title is from "No Place That Far" by Sara Evans.

Sulu let out an exaggerated roar as he swung the long, heavy sword in an overhand chop. Slim brought his own blade up, shifting his gloved hand to brace the upper portion as Sulu’s clanged against it, sending vibrations running through Slim’s body. Gritting his teeth behind his mask, he ignored the shocks and quickly returned his hand to the hilt. Managing to steal a half-step back, he risked a sideways sweep. The older man only just managed to avoid the blow.

As Slim had begun growing seriously, he had a more difficult time winning fencing matches with the foil or the epee. Although he and Sulu were about the same height, Slim’s chest and shoulders were broadening. He wasn’t as big as Porter, and doubted he ever would be, but he was certainly going to be fairly powerfully-built when he was done—the nickname that had been hung on him as a child was rapidly becoming inaccurate. Sulu was slender and wiry, light on his feet and agile, and he could literally run circles around Slim if he so desired.

The claymore, though, was a different story. The long blade he had found awkward and clumsy on his fifteenth birthday was beginning to feel more natural in his hands, and the weight was one he found oddly reassuring. His height and weight proved an advantage over Sulu, however slight. Sulu was the more experienced of the two, naturally, but the claymore wasn’t something you could actually _fence_ with, and it wasn’t a weapon he had used too terribly often. This wasn’t fencing. This was honest-to-goodness swordplay.

And Slim found that he enjoyed it.

Muscles in his shoulders burned pleasantly as he feinted towards Sulu’s side again, then abruptly changed angles, going for an upward sweep. In an actual swordfight, the maneuver, which Sulu clearly wasn’t expecting, would have taken the man’s arm off at the elbow. As it was, the padding in Sulu’s shirt caught the blade before it went deep enough to do any serious damage…except, of course, to the shirt itself.

“Match point,” Sulu called, pulling his arm free and taking a step back.

Slim also took a step back, lowering his blade and raising his mask. “You all right?”

“Yeah. Gonna have a little bit of a bruise there, but I’m okay.” Sulu removed his own mask and twisted his arm to look at the neat slice in the canvas fabric, revealing the thick blue gel. The stuff wouldn’t protect you one hundred percent, but it would at least slow a blade down before it hit skin, and it had the advantage of being lightweight, which meant it wouldn’t slow _them_ down. “Also gonna probably need Pasha to sew this up, I think.”

“Sorry,” Slim apologized.

“Don’t be. That’s what it’s there for. A sleeve’s a lot easier to repair than an arm.” Sulu flashed him a grin. “Less awkward to explain to Dr. McCoy.”

Slim grinned back. “You want to go again, or we done here?”

Sulu pondered for a minute before answering, “I think we’re finished for the day. Feel up to a game of Fizzbin? Nico’s probably handed Addie back to your folks now, so we could get the whole group together.”

“Give me ten minutes?” Slim said. “I want to grab a quick shower.”

“Yeah, same here. Meet you in the rec room.”

Slim clicked his claymore into the brackets, then headed up to his family’s quarters, whistling under his breath. Things were going pretty well. He and Audra were growing more and more relaxed around one another, and they’d already agreed, privately, that the next time they had shore leave, they’d go out somewhere together, just the two of them, and try a real date. He wasn’t sure what they’d do, exactly, but he was pretty sure that whatever it was, he’d enjoy it a lot, if only because he was with Audra. God, he was getting sappy.

Kelly and Nic’tlarn had settled into married life fairly quickly. Outwardly, indeed, little had changed; Kelly had been moved into private quarters—actually the former CMO’s quarters, since Starfleet captains rarely got transferred unless they asked to be and Jim wouldn’t leave the _Enterprise_ until the brass forced him to—as soon as they had learned he was pregnant. Nic’tlarn had already stayed with him nine nights out of ten, and after the wedding, xe had simply moved the remainder of xyr things into the room. Neither had changed their name, there being little reason to, and there was no change in their outward behavior. But to those who knew them well—Slim and his other friends—there was a contented, almost euphoric glow about them, and also, in Kelly’s case, an aura of immense relief. His fears that he would be forced to leave the _Enterprise_ had been real and they had been deep, despite Jim’s initial reassurances, and he’d confided to Slim a few days before the wedding that when Jim had told them that the only way he and the baby would be able to stay was if he was married, he’d been sure that he’d be on the next shuttle back to Space Station K-9. The official document didn’t matter as much as it used to in the Federation, but there were still a few occasions when a properly sanctioned marriage made a difference, and it had definitely made one here.

Porter seemed a lot more relaxed these days, too, which Slim was definitely glad about. He was like the big brother Slim had never had, and seeing him in pain, the way he’d been on his birthday, was almost too much to handle. He’d seemed genuinely happy for Kelly and Nic’tlarn on their wedding day, and he’d certainly enjoyed putting together the wedding reception for them. He still didn’t associate much with the other engineers, but he was a lively and active part of their little group—and one hell of a Fizzbin player.

When Slim stepped through the door, he found Jim lounging on the sofa with his feet up, reading a PADD. He looked up with a smile. “Hey, son. Have a good practice?”

“Yeah, it was great, thanks.” Slim smiled back. “What’s up?”

“Not much. Bones and Addie went up to the Observation Deck, I think, but…I dunno.” Jim shrugged carelessly. “I’m a little tired. Figured I’d come back here and read for a little while. What are you up to?”

“Just grabbing a shower,” Slim answered. “We’re gonna play a game of Fizzbin, I think. You wanna come?”

Jim shook his head. “No, thanks. Have fun, though. I’ll see you at dinner, maybe.”

“Okay, Dad.”

Slim showered as quickly as he could, changed into more comfortable clothing, and waved to his dad as he headed up to the rec room. At the doorway, he paused, looking across to his usual table, where his friends sat.

Kelly, his stomach forcing him to sit well back from the table, leaned back in his chair. One of Nic’tlarn’s hands rested at the nape of his neck in a gentle, tender gesture as xe leaned into him. Audra had let her braid down from its tight coil and was fiddling with the end of it, curling the golden strands around her finger. Chekov sat practically in Sulu’s lap, resting his head on the older man’s shoulder and looking half-asleep. Porter shuffled a deck of cards with his large, capable hands as he talked to Gaila, her hair loosened from the high ponytail she’d had it in while working in Engineering and spilling around her shoulders. Slim felt a grin steal across his face as he watched them.

Audra was the first to look up and notice him. Her face brightened as she waved him over. “Hey! How was fencing?”

“Fine, thanks.” Slim slid into the seat next to Audra, reaching over and giving her fingers a light squeeze as he did so. “How are y’all doing?”

“I don’t know how you and Dr. Marcus managed with Addie day in and day out for so long,” Kelly said, his eyes twinkling. “For that matter, I don’t know how Nico does it, either. She’s exhausting.”

Slim couldn’t help but laugh. “She can be, when she’s in one of her moods. Other times, though, she’s real sweet. But yeah, I’ll take a shift in Engineering any day.”

“Not I,” Nic’tlarn said with a soft smile. “I enjoyed working in Engineering…but this is all I have ever wanted.”

“Somebody has to.” This cheerful aside from Gaila.

Porter laid the deck down in front of Sulu. “Cut it.”

Sulu reached around Chekov to separate the deck into three smaller stacks, then restack them. “Pasha, are you playing?”

“Hmm…” Chekov shook his head without lifting it from Sulu’s shoulder. “I’ll watch.”

“Long day?” Audra teased gently.

“I’m just tired. I don’t know why.” Chekov gave a slight shrug. “Ze keptin seemed tired, too.”

“Well, if you want to be dealt in, let me know.” Porter began zipping cards out.

It was fun. Gaila had never played before, but she was surprisingly quick to pick up on the rules—even the ones they made up on the spot for no reason other than to try and befuddle her. Slim had a run of particularly good luck and the game got intense for a while. Just after Audra swiped a hand out from under his nose following a particularly brutal trick, Sulu suddenly pressed a hand to Chekov’s forehead, then set down his cards, a look of worry on his face. “Pasha?”

Chekov mumbled indistinctly, burrowing his face into Sulu’s neck. Sulu got to his feet, somehow picking Chekov up as he did so. “I’m gonna run him up to Med Bay,” he said, obviously struggling to keep his voice even. “I’ll catch up with you guys later.”

The others stared after him. Slim looked down at the pile of potato chips they were using in lieu of poker chips and realized he had completely lost interest in the game the minute that look of fear flashed into Sulu’s eyes. He knew, of course, that Chekov tended to catch every illness that went around—knew, too, that he always got dramatically sick over nothing, then better just as dramatically. But he also knew that when a disease had a more dangerous variant, Chekov invariably wound up with the more dangerous variety. It worried Jim, worried Leo, and scared the hell out of Sulu. Probably this was just a cold, but just in case…

Kelly spoke quietly. “Can we call this? I think Slim won anyway.”

“Yeah, I reckon we’re done here,” Audra said.

Gaila popped a chip into her mouth and spoke around it. “How does the game usually end?”

“When one person has all the chips,” Porter told her. “Or when we’ve gotten so hungry that we’ve _eaten_ all the chips. Or when we get bored. Or when the captain comes up and reminds us that we have to be on shift in four hours and should probably get some sleep first. It depends.”

Slim cracked a weak smile at Porter’s attempt at a joke. It vanished immediately when Leo came through the door, his brow creased in a frown. He looked around, saw Slim, and strode over to the table. “Have you seen your father?”

“Yeah, ‘bout—” Slim glanced at the chronometer strapped to his wrist, raising his eyebrows slightly. “Two hours ago? He was readin’ on the couch when I went up to shower. Why?”

“He told me he’d meet Addie and me for dinner twenty minutes ago. I commed him and didn’t get an answer…thought he might have been up here playing cards with y’all.” Leo’s frown deepened. “I guess he’s just really absorbed in that book…did he say what he was reading? Or anything at all?”

Slim bit his lip, worry surging through him again. “He said he was a little tired. Pa…Chekov said the same thing a couple hours ago, that he was tired. An’ Sulu just took him up to Med Bay. I reckon he was runnin’ a fever.”

“Oh, hell,” Leo said under his breath. “I hope there’s not something going around again. Look, Addie’s with Spock and Uhura…you can go eat dinner with them, if you want, or—”

“Reckon I’ll come with you, if that’s all right,” Slim said, pushing away from the table. “Meet y’all in the mess?”

“I hope everything’s okay,” Gaila said worriedly.

Audra nodded. “Go take care of your dad, Slim. We’ll see you in a bit.”

Slim fell into step with Leo as they walked back towards quarters. Neither of them said a word, but Slim noticed that Leo was setting a fast pace. He didn’t really object. He was worried, too. Leo kept muttering under his breath, over and over, and after a few moments, Slim caught the words. “He’s fine. It’s probably just a low-grade ‘flu. He’s always so dramatic. He’s fine.”

It normally took seven minutes to get from the rec room to their quarters. Counting the time spent impatiently in the elevators, Slim and Leo made it in four and a half. Leo was first through the door, calling as he did so, “Jim?”

Slim turned out of habit to the couch, where he’d left his father two hours earlier. To his surprise and alarm, Jim was still there, his head lolled to one side, one arm draped across his chest, the other dangling off the side of the sofa. The PADD lay on the floor where it had fallen. “Pa—” he began, his voice cracking.

“Jim?” Leo said again, loudly, kneeling next to Jim.

“Dad!” Slim called.

Jim made a small noise, halfway between a whimper and a groan, and moved his head fractionally, but didn’t open his eyes. Leo laid a hand on his forehead, then his cheeks. His face went white as a sheet, and he gathered Jim into his arms. “Slim, don’t ask questions,” he said desperately. “Go up to the mess hall, get Addie, bring her to Med Bay, _now._ Don’t walk—run.”

Slim didn’t wait to be told twice. The frantic note in Leo’s voice and the look in his eyes was enough for him. Turning without speaking, he pushed through the doors and took off down the corridor as fast as he could go.

He burst into the mess hall and wasted a moment he wasn’t sure he had looking around. He spotted Uhura an instant before Audra spotted him and waved. “Slim, over here!”

Slim took the path of least resistance and hurdled over two or three chairs in order to reach the table where his friends and family sat. Spock’s eyebrows drew together momentarily. “Thomas, what is the meaning of—”

He got no further. Slim didn’t bother explaining. He reached the table, snatched Addie out of her seat, and bolted for the door again.

“’Lim!” Addie protested, nearly stabbing him with her fork, which she still clutched in her fist. “I eating!”

“Later, Addie,” Slim gasped, still running as fast as he could for the lift.

“Put me down!”

“No.”

“Down!”

“We’ve gotta go fast, Addie. Papa said.” Slim stabbed at the lift button and caught his breath.

Addie quieted down at that.

Slim skidded into Med Bay with Addie in his arms and not even enough air to shout. Fortunately, one of the nurses—Slim thought her name might have been Chen—saw them and called, “Dr. McCoy!”

Leo came out of the secondary bay, his face drawn, and saw Slim, then beckoned sharply. Still panting for breath, Slim obeyed, taking Addie into the back room.

“Put her there,” Leo muttered, indicating a biobed as he passed it. “Vegan choriomeningitis usually isn’t contagious, but I’m taking no chances on this one.”

“Vegan—” Slim paled, setting Addie down. “ _That’s_ what Dad has? But I thought he already had it!”

“He did. This is a new mutation—of fucking course. He and Chekov both have it.” Leo grabbed a tricorder and came back over to them. “We’re modifying the cure for the regular strain now. They’ll be fine in a few hours, but…”

Addie shrank away from the tricorder. “No!”

“Addie, sweetie, it’s okay, it won’t hurt you,” Leo coaxed. “Papa just needs to make sure you’re not sick.”

“No!”

Slim sat down on the biobed. “Here, Addie, it’s easy. I’ll show you.”

Leo smiled weakly in thanks. “Roll up your sleeve, Slim. It’s just a simple blood test.”

Slim complied, pushing the sleeve up past his elbow. Leo poked him with the needle; he didn’t feel more than a pinch before it was withdrawn, and he smiled at his sister. “See? Nothin’ to it.”

Leo inserted the device into the slot, allowing the numbers to run. “Sulu checked out,” he told Slim. “Like I said, this isn’t usually contagious—it’s usually only transferable through the blood itself—but, well, this is a mutated strain. And it’s incredibly rare…for both Jim _and_ Chekov to have it…I just want to make sure.”

“You checked yourself, right, Pa?” Slim asked, suddenly worried.

A figure suddenly loomed up behind Leo and jabbed him in the neck with a long, thin probe. Leo jumped. “Ow! Dammit, Geoff, what was that for?”

“Boy’s right,” M’Benga said, withdrawing the needle and slotting it into place. “You need to be checked, too. By rights you should’ve been checked first.”

Leo was about to grouse when his tricorder beeped. He glanced down at it and exhaled. “You’re clean, Slim. Okay, baby, your turn.”

Addie looked apprehensively at Slim, who spoke coaxingly. “C’mon, Addie, be a big girl, huh? Just push up your sleeve like you saw me do.”

Since Addie was wearing short sleeves, it didn’t really matter, but Slim knew she had to go through the routine to prove she was a “big girl.” Obediently, she pushed the sleeve of her shirt up as high as it would go, then held out her arm. Leo took it and inserted the probe as gently as possible, then removed it smoothly to run the test.

Just then, Spock came striding in, his eyebrows creased in concern. “Doctor?”

“Vegan choriomeningitis,” Leo said, tiredly running a hand through hair.

“Athena?” Spock looked at Addie, who looked back at him with big blue eyes.

“Her results are still running. No, it’s Jim—Jim and Chekov.”

Spock raised an eyebrow. “I was under the impression that Vegan choriomeningitis could not be caught a second time, once antibodies had been produced.”

Leo sighed. “It’s a mutation, which means Jim could get it again. I know the regular strain isn’t contagious—you have to have contact with the blood—but with this mutation, I wanted to be sure. Sulu, Slim, and Addie are at most risk—they have the most prolonged contact with the two people known to be infected—so if they’re safe, it probably isn’t contagious. Sulu and Slim are both clean, and—”

M’Benga’s tricorder beeped. He looked at the results, then at Leo, then removed the tricorder from his hands. “You’re not. Go sit down.”

Leo didn’t protest. He walked across the room and sat down on the biobed next to where Jim lay, mostly unconscious. Chekov lay on his other side, Sulu holding one of his hands in both of his. Spock turned to M’Benga. “I assume the cure for the usual strain will not work on this strain?”

“You assume correctly, Mr. Spock,” M’Benga replied. “We’re working on the modifications now—they should be ready within the hour.” The tricorder in his hands beeped, and he looked down at it, then nodded. “Clean as a whistle. That proves it—this mutation is not contagious.”

“Then I must confess that I am puzzled,” Spock said. “How did the captain, Dr. McCoy, and Mr. Chekov all manage to contract the disease?”

“As to the captain, I can’t say. My best guess is that the mutation was latent in his system and something triggered it. I have no idea at all how Chekov contracted it. I do have a fairly good guess as to how McCoy got it, but I’m going to claim doctor-patient confidentiality on that.”

Spock raised an eyebrow again. “If it is through a method whereby the disease could spread to others—”

“You have my word that it is not.”

“However, if I were to press you as a member of senior command—”

“Then I would remind you of an old Earth adage, Mr. Spock.” M’Benga nodded at Addie, who had been watching the verbal volley with the intensity of a spectator at a tennis match. “‘Little pitchers have big ears.’”

“An idiom,” Spock said in a calm, placid tone of voice, “referring to the large ear-shaped handles on a vessel for pouring water, usually intended to mean—” He stopped. “I see.”

Slim felt himself blush as the implication of M’Benga’s words hit him. “I’m gonna go wash my brain with bleach now,” he muttered.

“An illogical statement, as the chemicals in such a concoction would—”

“It’s just an expression, Uncle Spock. A—a hyperbole.” Slim dredged the word out of the recesses of his memory of eighth-grade English.

M’Benga turned towards the end of the room. “Like I said, shouldn’t be more than an hour before we’ve got the cure ready. Dr. McCoy is lucky, he’s asymptomatic, which means the disease hasn’t had time to really take hold yet, but Captain Kirk and Chekov…”

“They will be all right, won’t they?” Slim asked, a stab of worry running through him.

“Of course,” M’Benga assured him immediately. “They might be a bit shaky for a little while, and they probably won’t wake up until morning. But they’ll be just fine.”

Slim hesitated, then glanced at Spock before asking, “Can I sit with them for a while?”

“Sure. Like I said, this isn’t contagious.”

Spock joined Slim as he and Addie went over to where Leo sat, half-on and half-off of the biobed, staring at Jim without touching him. He looked up as the group approached. “Is she—?”

“Dr. M’Benga says she’s fine, Pa,” Slim assured him. “It’s just the three of y’all.”

Leo exhaled, closing his eyes briefly. “Thank God. I know she’d be asymptomatic if she had it, but the cure’s not fun, either.”

“I finish dinner now?” Addie asked, sounding peeved.

Spock extended his hand to her. “Come along, Athena. I will escort you back to the mess hall…Doctor, I believe Nyota and I had already arranged to have her stay with us this evening.”

“Thank you, Spock,” Leo said quietly.

“See you later, Addie,” Slim said, tugging his sister’s braid. Addie giggled and waved before setting off with Spock.

“Have you had anything to eat?” Leo asked Slim, a little dully.

“I ate a late lunch.” It wasn’t one of Slim’s days in Engineering, and he’d been so absorbed in his latest practice test that he’d forgotten to eat until he’d felt gnawing pains and looked up to realize there was only half an hour until the end of Alpha shift. He looked at Leo, who suddenly looked exhausted. “Pa, are you okay?”

“Hmm…” Leo rubbed at his eyes. “Tired all of a sudden. I think it’s starting to hit my system.”

Slim glanced anxiously across the room, wondering if he should get M’Benga. “Why don’t you lie down, then? I’ll sit here an’ keep an eye on things.”

Leo hesitated for a moment, or maybe it just took that long for his brain to process the question. “Yeah, okay,” he said at last, lying back on the biobed. There was a soft _beep_ as it adjusted itself to his readings. He settled back, folded his hands on his chest, and closed his eyes. Within moments, his steady, even breathing told Slim that he’d fallen asleep.

Slim drew on the patience he’d cultivated over the years and sat back in the chair between Leo’s and Jim’s biobeds, watching them. Leo was simply asleep—he seemed more tired than anything—but Slim saw the tension on his father’s face and knew that he was in a serious amount of pain. He looked up at the indicators over the bed and located the K3 indicator. He was no doctor, but he knew enough to recognize that the numbers were close to what they had been when Jim had had Rigellian-Kassaba fever—God, had it _really_ been two years since then?

He glanced over at Chekov, who looked incredibly fragile, and then up at Sulu, whose face was creased with anxiety. Quietly, Slim said, “He’ll be all right, Sulu. M’Benga promised.”

“I know, and I trust him almost as much as I trust Dr. McCoy. It’s just…” Sulu bit his lip. “I hate seeing him in pain like this and knowing I can’t do anything about it. I’d take it all on myself if I could.”

“That’s love, ain’t it?” Slim tried to smile.

“Yeah.” Sulu looked up, the ghost of a smile on his own lips. “You’ll figure that out the first time you see Audra in pain and you’re helpless to do anything about it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” Slim said, desperately fighting the blush on his face even though he knew it was involuntary.

“Slim, half the ship saw you dancing with her at Nico and Kelly’s wedding,” Sulu told him. “You’re not fooling anyone but yourself at this point.”

Slim bit his lip hard. “I don’t reckon you’d believe me if I said we got caught up in the moment.”

“Oh, I believe you, but only because I know how careful you’ve been not to let the captain see.” Sulu tilted his head to regard Slim. “And maybe anyone who doesn’t know you would believe that you were just dancing like that because the music hit you and you were in close proximity. But I’ve been watching you for a while, and—actually, no, that’s a lie. I probably wouldn’t have noticed. Pasha has, though.”

“He has?” Slim looked at Chekov again. “He notices a lot, doesn’t he?”

Sulu nodded. “Always has. It’s partly a defense mechanism, I think, but with you and Audra he noticed because he really does care about you. And also because he’s a romantic little sap.”

Slim couldn’t help but chuckle. “You love it.”

“I do,” Sulu said sheepishly. “I always have.” His expression softened as he looked down at his lover again. “And I’m not much better when it comes to him. I’ve loved him for a long time…seems like forever. I always catch myself thinking that sappy stuff people say in cheesy romance novels, but I guess now I understand why. It just fits.”

“I’m real happy for you two,” Slim said sincerely. “You deserve each other.”

“And you and Audra deserve each other. Slim, in all seriousness, if you haven’t told her, don’t wait. You know as well as I do how uncertain life is out here.” Sulu brushed a lock of hair back from Chekov’s face, his eyes full of worry. “Tomorrow’s not guaranteed. You don’t want to find yourself alone and adrift, wishing you’d said something before it was too late.”

Slim swallowed hard. He and Audra hadn’t said the words, exactly, but…“I—I think she knows. I mean…we talked after my birthday, an’…we kinda said everythin’ but.”

Sulu chuckled softly. “I did, too, the first time I tried to tell Pasha I loved him—the night after your dad and Dr. McCoy and I got back from the Kalandran outpost. I told you about that. Except I know he didn’t understand…I had to spell it out for him later. But you and Audra…I guess you’re younger, in the first place, and you actually talked about it. I just kind of…rambled.” He looked up. “So you two are a couple?”

Oh, how Slim wanted to be able to say yes. He made himself go for total honesty, though. “We ain’t… _exactly._ Not officially. But…the potential is there.”

Sulu studied him for a long moment, then nodded slowly. “That’s a good start.”

M’Benga came over then, bearing a tray with three hypos on it full of bright blue liquid. “Cure’s ready,” he announced. “Mr. Sulu, Chekov’s the worst off of the three, so I’m going to start with him…I warn you, this is going to be unpleasant.”

“As opposed to what, exactly?” Sulu asked, glancing up at the K3 indicator.

“It’s going to get a lot worse than that,” M’Benga told him. “When Dr. McCoy gave the cure to that woman from Gideon, what was her name—”

“Odona,” Slim supplied, remembering the incident.

“Yes, her—he had to strap her to the table to keep her from hurting herself further. We’re talking violent spasms, spike in fever, spike in pain readings. It gets worse before it gets better, this disease. You might want to leave.”

“No.” Sulu’s face was ashen, but his eyes blazed with determination. “I’m not leaving him. Sir.”

M’Benga turned to Slim, who also shook his head. “I’ll stay. If that’s okay.”

“I can’t really stop you,” M’Benga sighed. “As long as you’re here…give me a hand with this.”

Slim and Sulu assisted M’Benga in strapping Chekov to the biobed. Once M’Benga was certain he was restrained properly, he picked up the hypo, flicked off the cap, and pressed it to Chekov’s neck.

The effects were almost immediate. Chekov’s face, already twisted with pain, screwed itself into a mask of sheer agony. His whole body contorted, then began shuddering and jerking wildly, straining at the restraints. All the indicators above the biobed shot up to almost the top of the red zone—the pain indicator _did_ go up as high as it could go, and seemed to be trying to go higher. Sulu took Chekov’s chin in both hands, holding his head steady, and stroked it with the backs of his fingers, leaning down to murmur ceaselessly in his ear.

Then, just as suddenly, the numbers dropped dramatically, the spasming stopped, and Chekov’s muscles relaxed. After a moment, Sulu slowly pulled his hands away from his lover’s face, the strain of the last few minutes showing plainly on his face. “Is it—?”

M’Benga nodded. “He’ll be fine now.” He turned to Jim, uncapping the next hypo as he did so. “Slim, can you do the captain’s restraints yourself?”

“Yes, sir.” Slim fastened the straps around his father, feeling him twitch and flinch as he did so.

Jim’s convulsions were, if anything, worse than Chekov’s had been. He arched his entire body upwards, or tried to, only to be arrested by the straps. The monitor over the biobed began beeping alarmingly as his heart rate shot up. Slim jumped to his feet and M’Benga shouted for backup as Jim, still unconscious, began to scream.

Chekov didn’t stir—the medication must have been keeping him under—but in the biobed to Jim’s left, Leo started upright. His eyes were still fuzzy with evident exhaustion and he didn’t seem aware of his surroundings, but he slid off the biobed and lurched forward, grabbing at the restraints.

“Leo!” M’Benga shouted, but Leo didn’t seem to hear. With a strength Slim hadn’t known he possessed—certainly not in his current state—he wrenched the restraints loose from around Jim, then practically threw himself on top of him, wrapping his arms around him.

Slim gaped in amazement as Jim’s screams stopped. He clutched at Leo, his breath coming in fits and gasps, but he was no longer twitching or convulsing—even though the indicator levels were all still high, with the exception of the heart rate, which was beginning to slow. He was still in excruciating pain, still burning with fever, but the spasms had ceased completely. After a moment, the indicators normalized, and Jim’s head lolled against the pillow, rolling to face Leo. Leo took a deep breath, then let his eyes flutter closed again.

“Did he actually wake up at all?” Sulu asked, his voice cracking slightly.

“I—I don’t think so.” M’Benga looked shaken. “I have no medical explanation for what just happened, but…I’m not moving him. Slim, stand by to hold him down if he gets violent.” He grabbed the third hypo and depressed it against Leo’s neck.

Of the three, Leo’s reaction to the treatment was the least violent, but then, he had the least severe case. Slim was poised to pin him down, but although Leo shook and juddered and tightened his grip on Jim, he didn’t seem to need any additional restraints, and he relaxed a lot quicker than the other two had.

M’Benga shook his head. “I give up trying to understand those two.”

“But they’re gonna be all right, ain’t they?” Slim asked, a little uncertainly. He wouldn’t have believed anyone could be okay after what his father had just gone through.

“Yes, they’ll both be fine. I don’t know that Chekov or the captain will wake up before tomorrow, but Leo might.” M’Benga hesitated, looking from Sulu to Slim, then added, “You can stay until they do, if you want.”

Since Slim hadn’t had any intention of moving anyway, he simply nodded. “Thanks, Dr. M’Benga.”

“Thank you,” Sulu echoed softly, looking back at Chekov again.

“I’ll be in periodically,” M’Benga said as he left the room, taking the spent hypos with him.

As soon as he was gone, Sulu undid the restraints on Chekov and crawled into the biobed with him. The bed beeped in warning for a moment, then readjusted itself as Sulu pulled Chekov into his arms, curling protectively around him. Slim watched him for a moment as he closed his eyes, pressing his lips to Chekov’s forehead. A moment later, he was sound asleep.

Slim didn’t know how much longer he was awake. The semidarkness of the room, combined with the leftover shakiness from what he had witnessed, combined to give him a kind of feeling of unreality. He sat back in the chair, watching his parents sleep, with no real sense of how much time was passing.

He must have fallen into a light doze, because when he heard a low groan from the biobed, he jerked upright and nearly fell out of the chair. Blinking hurriedly, he managed to get his attention to focus properly. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, but when he did, he saw Leo shifting, stretching, and half-sitting up in the bed. “Mmm…what time ‘s it?” he mumbled.

Slim located the chronometer inset on the biobed monitor. He had to do a double-take. “Closin’ in on midnight.”

“Slim?” Leo turned to him, looking confused. “What’re you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

“You an’ Dad don’t like us bein’ alone at night,” Slim reminded him. It was a restriction he was beginning to find ridiculous—he was more than capable of taking care of Addie overnight—but this wasn’t the time to argue. “Addie’s with Uncle Spock an’ Aunt Nyota.”

Leo groaned softly and sat up the rest of the way. Jim mumbled in his sleep, burying his face in Leo’s side, which made Leo pause. He eased himself back against the wall, running a hand gently over Jim’s hair. “Cure took?”

“Yeah.” Slim hesitated. “Pa…how much d’you remember?”

“Remember?” Leo frowned. “I must’ve fallen asleep before the cure was ready…how did I get over here?”

“Sulu figured you hadn’t woken up,” Slim said, trying to smile and failing.

“Slim, what happened?”

Slim bit his lip. “Dad…he didn’t react well to the cure. Chekov spasmed pretty bad, but Dad…I thought he was gonna tear himself to pieces. He started screamin’, an’ that’s when you got up, tore off the restraints, an’ lay down with ‘im.”

“ _Restraints?_ Why the hell would you—?” Leo began angrily, his voice raising, then suddenly stopped and ran a hand over his face. “Because it’s not in his file. Geoff’s not his primary. Dammit, I should have thought of this, but…”

“What is it, Pa?” Slim asked.

Leo looked down at Jim again, his concern just visible in the dim light. “I’ve never pressed for details, but your dad…it wasn’t the cure that made him violent, Slim. It was the restraints. Something in his past—I think he was tied down once, at _least_ once, and something bad happened to him. He panics when he’s trapped like that, especially when it’s ropes or chains or straps.” He sighed deeply. “I know why you did it—I know the spasms are pretty violent—but…I guess I’ll have some bruises in the morning. Surprised I don’t have any now.”

“He didn’t hit you,” Slim said softly, remembering. “The minute you got in the bed with him and wrapped your arms around him…the convulsions just sort of stopped.”

“The cure had probably taken effect by then, that’s all.”

“No…the indicators were all up at dangerous levels for a minute or two longer before he evened out. And you hardly twitched at all when M’Benga gave you yours. He said he gives up trying to understand you two.”

Leo didn’t speak for a moment, intent on watching Jim sleep. At last, he said, “We ground each other, I guess. Remind me to tell you sometime about the nightmare he had when he was still in the hospital after we brought him back to life.” His voice caught slightly on the last words. “Like the song says. Holding him holds me together. I guess it works both ways.”

“Yeah,” Slim said, remembering the way Jim and Leo had danced at the wedding. “You gonna stay there tonight, Pa?”

“I’m not moving until Jim wakes up,” Leo said firmly.

“Good.” Slim pulled himself out of the chair, wincing at the stiffness in his back, and bent down to disable the alarms on the biobed Leo had vacated, then toed out of his shoes and crawled into it. “G’night, Pa.”

He saw the briefest hint of a smile on Leo’s face. “Good night, Slim.”

Slim stretched out on top of the blankets, watching Leo tease Jim’s hair lightly and listening to him softly sing the lullaby from _The Court Jester._ The song was barely more than a minute long, but before it was more than half over, Slim’s eyes had fluttered closed and he was sound asleep.

 


	83. All Our Yesterdays

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys, I am so sorry. I didn't mean to take a week off from posting...Stupid Me decided that it would be a BRILLIANT idea to work two hours of overtime every day last week, and since that would've meant tying up my mother's car for two hours every day, I had to take the bus...which meant getting up an hour earlier (and subsequently going to BED an hour earlier), and which also meant it took me roughly three times as long to get home as it usually does because one of my connections only runs once an hour after five P.M. All of which meant that I was leaving home at 6:30 A.M., getting home between 8:30-9pm (depending on whether or not my bus actually showed up), and going to bed by 11-11:30pm. You can imagine that this seriously ate into my writing time, and I just didn't get the chapter finished until late. By then I decided to just hold off until today.
> 
> Anyway! This chapter is based on the episode of the same name written by Jean Lisette Aroeste. I wasn't sure how it was going to work out, considering a significant part of the plotline is...but I think I figured it out in the end. I trust you'll let me know if I didn't.

Unpleasant as the cure for Vegan choriomeningitis, whatever its iteration, could be, it was at least effective. Jim and Chekov had both woken the next morning showing no ill effects whatsoever—and as regarding Chekov, that was an immense relief. Whatever he caught seemed to linger longer than it was supposed to. This time, though, he’d come through with flying colors. Leo had watched both of them closely over the next few days, but within a week had conceded that they were the picture of health.

In the last two weeks, he’d done a lot of watching.

Injuries and illnesses had been fairly light, so Leo felt safe in leaving Med Bay in the hands of his nurses and spending a lot of his time loitering on the bridge. For once, it wasn’t just because he wanted to be close to Jim, or to make sure he didn’t do something stupid. O’Flaherty was at the thirty-two week mark in his pregnancy, which meant that he could give birth at any point in the next eight weeks. Jim, Leo, and Scotty had tried to prevail on him to let them start his maternity leave, but he’d resisted. Officially, Starfleet only granted a total of twelve weeks of maternity leave _total,_ not just twelve weeks from date of delivery, which meant that if he went on leave now and didn’t deliver until his due date—or later—he’d only have four weeks at best to rest and recover, and bond with the baby, before he’d have to be back on duty. Jim certainly wasn’t going to hold him to that, and had told him so several times, but he insisted that sitting around for too many days in a row with nothing to do drove him crazy. So five days per standard week, he sat at the Engineering panel on the bridge, which was getting increasingly harder for him to reach. Leo suspected that part of his problem was that if he sat alone for too long, he started thinking about Apollo.

Not for the first time, he determined that before they got back to Earth, he was going to put together a proposal to institute the position of ship’s counselor on any vessel set to be on a voyage of more than a year. Even old Navy vessels had had _somebody,_ a chaplain or a counselor or both, that crewmen could talk to when they were undergoing mental crises, and they’d only been out a few months at a time. And since subspace communication required so many relays, people couldn’t just call home whenever they wanted to. Contact with families at a distance was as limited as it had been during Earth’s second World War—letters when you could send them (albeit electronic), calls when you were at a station that had the equipment, hope for a precious chance to send a brief message home in a mass relay once in a while. Not everyone was equipped to handle that.

Which reminded him that he still needed to have a serious chat with Jim about his problem with restraints. Mentally, he made a note to do so that evening. As he headed up the lift to the bridge, he was even considering talking Jim into taking his lunch break and trying to pry it out of him then. As soon as the doors opened, however, he realized it was hopeless.

“—incapable of space flight,” Spock was saying, straightening up from his station. “Nevertheless, sensors indicate no life-forms on the planet’s surface whatsoever.”

Jim nodded, then turned and smiled at Leo. “Hey, Bones, you’re just in time. Look what we’ve got.”

Leo spared the viewscreen a glance. “Class M planet. So what?”

“This is Sarpeidon,” Jim told him. “It’s the only satellite of the star Beta Niobe. Last reports indicated that it hosted a humanoid species, civilized, but—”

“Incapable of space flight,” Leo completed. “Except the sensors indicate nothing down there. Yes, I heard that part, but I ask again: So what?”

“Beta Niobe,” Spock said calmly, “is set to go nova in approximately three hours and twenty-seven minutes.”

Leo raised an eyebrow. “Approximately.”

Jim coughed behind his hand. “ _Anyway,_ there’s also massive power generation from down there. Something’s gotta be causing it—which means there might be people down there after all and we just don’t know it. They might be hurt, or ill, which is where you come in. Let’s go.”

The door slid open as Leo turned back towards it, revealing Scotty and Slim. Leo felt a pang at the sight of his stepson. Slim was only two or three inches shorter than Jim now, and about the same breadth. His hair, more brown than blond, flopped across his forehead, just clear of his bright blue eyes. He’d passed the awkward stage and walked with an easy, confident grace. It wasn’t exactly his father’s confident swagger, but it was close. A slightly more humble version of the Jim Kirk strut. But his expression, when he met his father’s eyes, was still boyish and innocent. “Hey, Dad. Hey, Pa.”

“Hey there, son.” Leo rumpled Slim’s hair affectionately. “Studies going okay?”

Slim made a face. “I still ain’t sure I’m getting the hang of astrophysics.”

“Your scores show marked improvement,” Spock observed. “However, I will review the results of today’s examination promptly upon our return.”

“Thank you, Uncle Spock.”

Jim’s eyes crinkled upwards in a grin. “You have the conn, Mr. Scott.” He clapped Slim on the shoulder as he passed by.

Ten minutes later, the three men had materialized in the middle of a very large room, subdivided with shelving and storage cabinets. In one corner sat a desk with more bookshelves against the wall behind it and chairs on either side. Another alcove boasted a bunch of elaborate machines, humming and spinning and blinking out of sequence.

“What is this place?” Jim asked, looking baffled. His voice didn’t echo, despite the high ceilings, but seemed oddly muted. “A warehouse?”

“An arcade, perhaps.” Spock aimed his tricorder at the machines, clearly trying to determine what they were for—they were obviously the source of the power pulses.

Leo took a slow, careful look around the room, then shook his head and pointed to a row of audiovisual terminals in individual half-cubicles, a tape storage area visible behind them. “A library. The main branch in Atlanta looks a lot like this.”

“May I help you?”

Startled by the quiet voice, all three men spun around to see a dignified man with a high, domed forehead. At a guess, Leo would have said he was no more than ten or fifteen years older than he himself. He also had an air of authority about him.

“I am the librarian,” he added, confirming Leo’s guess about their location.

Spock, naturally, recovered first. “Perhaps you can, Mr….?”

“Mr. Atoz,” the librarian supplied. “I confess that I am a little surprised to see you—I thought that everyone had long since gone. But the surprise is a pleasant one. After all, a library serves no purpose unless someone is using it.”

“You say everyone has gone,” Jim said, frowning. “Where?”

“It depended on the individual, of course. If you wish to track a specific individual, I am sorry, but that information is confidential.”

“No, no one in particular,” Leo said. Something about this whole situation was making him uneasy. “Just…in general—where did they go?”

Atoz brightened. “Ah, you find it difficult to choose, is that it? Yes, a wide range of options is a mixed blessing, but perhaps I can help. Will you come this way, please?” He bowed, inviting them to precede him to the audiovisual area. Leo was reminded of old Crosby, the white-haired (well, what hair he had left was white) master of the reference section of the Atlanta Public Library’s main branch. Rumored to have been so old he had helped to shelve the Library of Alexandria, he always greeted knowledge-seekers with an unholy glee and unbridled enthusiasm. He was big part of the reason Leo had known more than he ever wanted to know about the horrors of space when he’d first met Jim on the shuttle to the Academy.

His train of reminiscence was derailed when Atoz—whom he would have sworn was behind them—emerged from the tape storage area with a broad smile.

“How the hell did he get over there?” he demanded, unconsciously dropping his voice to a stage whisper. Old Crosby had gotten very shirty if people talked too loudly.

“Each viewing station in the library is independently operated,” Atoz said, as though that was a legitimate answer. “You may select from more than twenty thousand Verisim tapes, several hundred of which have only recently been added to the collection.” He turned to Jim. “You, sir—what is your particular field of interest?”

It suddenly occurred to Leo that perhaps the man’s statement _was_ an answer. He surreptitiously unslung his tricorder as Jim replied, straight-faced, “How about recent history?”

“Really? That is too bad. We have so little on recent history—there was no demand for it.”

“It doesn’t have to be a lot,” Jim persisted. “Just the answers to a few questions.”

“Ah, of course.” Atoz smiled beatifically. “In that case, Reference Service is available in the second alcove to your right.”

Leo, studying his tricorder readings on the man in the tape storage area, was not at all surprised to see Atoz sitting behind the reference desk when they arrived. Nor was he surprised to note that the man didn’t seem to have ever seen them before.

“You’re very late,” he scolded angrily. “Where have you been?”

“We came as soon as we knew what was happening,” Jim said, casting a glance at Leo briefly. Obviously, the man had taken them for natives of the planet.

“It is my fault, sir,” Spock said. Leo didn’t know if he was addressing Atoz or Jim or both. “I must have miscalculated. Remember, the ship’s sensors indicated that no one was here at all.”

Leo was so astonished by this declaration that he almost forgot to start scanning the Atoz in front of them. Spock rarely made mistakes, and _never_ admitted to it. The best Leo could come up with was that the half-Vulcan was attempting to deflect Atoz’s wrath from Jim to himself—protecting his captain, and in a way protecting Leo as well, since he’d be the first to jump in front of Jim if trouble started.

“In a very few hours, you would have been absolutely correct,” Atoz said, still looking rather miffed. “The three of you would have perished—vaporized. You arrived just in time.”

“Then you know what’s going to happen?” Leo asked, stopping his hand halfway to his tricorder.

“You idiot! Of course I know,” Atoz snapped. “Everyone was warned of the coming nova long ago. They followed instructions and are now safe. And you had better do the same.”

“Did you say they were safe?” Jim asked.

“Absolutely.” Atoz’s expression shifted from annoyance to pride. “Every single one.”

“Safe where? Where did they go?”

“Wherever they wanted to go, of course. It is strictly up to the individual’s preference.”

“And you alone sent all of the people of this planet to safety,” Jim pursued.

Leo picked up on his husband’s unease and took a half-step closer. Atoz could be like Matt Decker, who’d believed he was beaming his crew to a safe place only to watch helplessly as the planet-killer devoured them whole…or he could be like Kodos, who had told four thousand people that they were helping to create a better world and then slaughtered them. Or his people could actually be safe, like he said they were. The trouble was there was no way to tell for sure without actually finding the people, which Atoz had just implied, if not outright stated, was impossible.

“Yes, I am proud to say I did,” Atoz replied. “Of course, I had to delegate one or two simpler tasks to my replicas. But the responsibility was mine and mine alone.”

“I believe we’ve met two of them,” Jim said. His voice was grim, and Leo knew that he was less than comfortable with this—especially since the “replicas” clearly didn’t share information with their creator. “And you, I take it, are the real thing?”

“Of course,” Atoz said again.

Leo glanced down at his tricorder. “He’s real, all right, Jim,” he said quietly. “And actually, that could explain the report of the ship’s sensors. One solitary remaining man is a difficult object for detection.” Raising his voice to a normal tone, he added, “Sir, are you aware that you will die if you remain here?”

“Of course,” Atoz said for the third time, “but I intend to join my wife and children when the time comes. Do not worry about me. Think of yourselves.”

The man was single-minded to the point of mania, or else he had his own reasons for urging them to leave. Leo was about to suggest they beam back to the _Enterprise_ —there was so obviously nothing to be done here that there was no point in staying—when Jim said in a resigned tone of voice, “All right. How? What do we do?”

“The history of the planet is available in every detail,” Atoz said, getting up and leading them back to the tape carrel. “Just choose what interests you the most—the century, the date, the moment. But remember, you are very late.”

“We’ll be as quick as we can,” Jim promised.

Leo glanced at Jim, who was putting on a headset. Spock ignored them, walking away, and Leo was inclined to do the same—he wanted nothing more than to rip the damn thing off Jim’s head—but his husband handed one to him and, reluctantly, he accepted it. Atoz inserted a tape into each viewing station. Leo waited a moment. To his surprise, the image that appeared on the screen in front of him was a barren arctic wasteland. It looked as though it had taken place in the planet’s distant past, an ice age of some kind—certainly not a time period Leo had any interest in. Glancing to his right, he noticed that Jim was observing an alley that resembled seventeenth-century England.

He was about to ask Atoz if these screens would help him to see the people who had been sent back when a sudden scream ripped through the library—a woman’s scream. Leo yanked the headset off his ears, Jim doing the same, as a second scream rang out.

“Help! They’s murderin’ me!”

“Spock, Bones!” Jim shouted, charging for the door of the room. “Over here, quick!”

“Stop!” Atoz cried frantically from where he stood near the machine that had puzzled them earlier. “I have not prepared you! Wait, you must be acclimated to your chosen time!”

But Jim had already gone through the door. Spock and Leo charged after him, pushing through the doorway together—and Atoz’s yells stopped abruptly in the background.

To Leo’s surprise, they had run straight into the image he had seen on his audiovisual system.The vast expanse of ice and snow, faintly tinged with blue, stretched before them. Gusts of wind occasionally tossed up handfuls of snow, but overall the place was silent and still.

And cold. Incredibly fucking cold. Standard issue Starfleet uniforms were designed for the temperate climate of a starship, which was why the landing party on Alfa 177 had been in such dire straits before they’d been able to be rescued. Leo gasped as the wind blew down the tunnel, the cold nearly snatching the air from his lungs.

“Fascinating,” Spock said in his usual bland voice, but Leo knew he was suffering. Vulcan was a good deal hotter than Earth; even the _Enterprise,_ set at what for humans was a perfectly comfortable seventy degrees Fahrenheit, occasionally proved too cool for someone raised in an environment where “room temperature” was thirty-five degrees centigrade. This had to be at least fifty degrees cooler than that.

“Where the hell is Jim?” Leo ground out, looking around him. The tundra was completely devoid of life, and there was no sign whatsoever that there had been any for a long time. Yet Jim had gone through the portal—as portal it must have been—barely seconds before Spock and Leo had…and there had been that ghastly scream.

“He is not here, Doctor,” Spock said.

“Yes, Spock, I can see that. I didn’t ask where he _wasn’t._ ” Leo knew he was being testy, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

“A more pertinent question might be to ask where _we_ are,” Spock pointed out.

Leo tried to make himself think. It wasn’t easy, considering the cold was already seeping into his very bones. “I was watching that tape…I think it was about an ice age. The planet’s last ice age, probably. And then we ran through the door…and Atoz said something about being ‘prepared for our chosen time’…”

“Bones! Spock!” Jim’s voice seemed to echo out of thin air behind them.

Leo whirled around, his heart in his throat. Spock, too, spun quickly, saying as he did so, “Here, Captain.” He paused for no more than a second when he turned and saw nothing but an ice cliff—no sign of Jim. “We hear you, but we cannot see you. Are you all right?”

“We followed you,” Leo added, looking up anxiously in case Jim was standing at the top of the ice cliff looking down at them, “but you’d disappeared.” And he was going to _definitely_ have words with Jim about that when they met up again.

“We must have missed each other in the fog,” Jim’s disembodied voice replied.

_Fog?_ Leo mouthed at Spock, who shook his head. “Fog, Captain? We have encountered no fog.”

“Mercy on us,” a woman’s voice said. Leo thought it sounded like the woman who had been screaming earlier. “It’s a spirit!”

“No, don’t be frightened,” Jim’s voice replied quickly, slightly muffled, as though he had looked away. “These are friends of mine. They’re—on the other side of the wall. Spock! Are you still in the library?”

“Indeed not,” Spock answered. “We are in a wilderness of arctic characteristics—”

“He means that it’s cold,” Leo half-shouted upwards in impatience, rubbing his arms to ward off the chill. Dammit, he was a Southern boy, he wasn’t meant for snow. This was more Jim’s speed.

“Approximately minus twenty-five centigrade,” Spock said calmly. Leo knew he had just pulled that number out of his ass, since he hadn’t even unslung his tricorder, much less glanced at it, but he decided not to call him on that. “There is no library that we can see. We are at the foot of an ice cliff, and apparently we came _through_ the cliff, since there is no visible aperture.”

_Great,_ Leo thought bitterly. _I’m trapped in a frozen wasteland with the Computer Who Wore Tennis Shoes._

“There’s no sign of a door here, either,” Jim was saying. “Only the wall. It’s foggy here, and I can smell the ocean.”

That actually probably _did_ appeal to Jim—he’d be the sort to stow away on Blackbeard’s ship and take it over. Spock, however, was nodding. “Yes. That is the period you were looking at in the viewer. Dr. McCoy, on the other hand ,was watching a tape of Sarpeidon’s last ice age—and here he is, and I with him because we left the library at the same instant.”

“Which explains the disappearance of the inhabitants.” Jim’s voice was grim again. “We certainly underestimated Mr. Atoz.”

Leo had been feeling a little lost in the conversation, but he suddenly got what had happened. “Of course. They’ve all escaped the destruction of their world by escaping into the past.”

“Well, we know how we got here,” Jim said. Was it Leo’s imagination, or was there a texture of relief in his voice? “Can we get back? The portal’s invisible, but we can still hear each other. There must be a portion of this wall that only _looks_ solid—”

Another loud scream cut Jim off. Worry for his husband overrode Leo’s cold, and he rushed forward, pressing desperately at the walls of the cliff. “Jim!” he shouted.

Jim spoke, it seemed to Leo, a little breathlessly. “My friends are back—a couple of, uh, coxcombs I had a run-in with a little earlier. And they’ve brought reinforcements.”

“Keep looking, Jim,” Leo urged, feeling his way along the cliff. “You’ve _got_ to be close to the portal. We’re looking, too.”

Spock came over and began feeling his way along the wall. Leo could hear faint voices, and then Jim’s, very clearly. “On what charge?”

Leo strained to hear the reply, but only managed to catch the tail end of it. “—and purse-cutting.”

“Nonsense. I’m no thief.”

“Jim,” Leo called, panic beginning to grip him. “What’s happening?”

“Lord help us, what’s that?” a voice cried out, sounding fearful.

“It’s spirits!” the woman’s voice from earlier shrieked.

“Depart, spirits, and let honest men approach!” a third voice said, but it was shaking and didn’t carry much authority.

“Keep talking, Bones,” Jim’s voice said. It sounded like it was getting closer, which gave Leo strength.

He moved towards the voice as a new voice joined the chorus, sounding ghoulishly pleased. “They speak at _his_ bidding. Stop his mouth and they’ll quiet!”

“You must be close to the portal now,” Spock said, his face stoic as he moved along the ice cliff.

“Just keep talk—” Jim’s voice abruptly cut off.

“ _Jim!_ ” Leo shouted, pounding uselessly on the cliff face. His hands burned with the cold and ached with the pain of beating them against the hard surface.

Spock gently but firmly pushed him back and continued to feel his way along the cliff, much more carefully than Leo had been and taking care not to touch the surface for too long. Leo blew on his hands, trying to get them to thaw, then rubbed at his ears to relieve the numbing.

“Jim’s gone,” he said anxiously (and uselessly). “Why can’t we hear him?”

“I am afraid that Mr. Atoz may have closed the portal,” Spock said, stepping away from the cliff face. “I doubt that I shall find it now, in any event. We had best move along.”

Leo stared at Spock in shock. “Jim sounded as if he might be in trouble.”

“He doubtless was in trouble, but so are we. We must find shelter, or we will very quickly perish in this cold.”

As Spock had spoken, they had begun moving away. Leo was reluctant to move, his feet dragging. Suddenly, he stumbled, his knees buckling; Spock caught him and helped him to sit down. At first, Leo assumed it was his fear for Jim, but belatedly, as Spock studied him closely, he recognized the signs for what they were and knew exactly what was going on. He knew, too, with flinching certainty, that Spock couldn’t help him and still find Jim.

“Spock,” he said quietly. “Leave me here.”

“We go together or not at all,” Spock replied, as if there could be no two ways about it.

“Don’t be a fool,” Leo said angrily. He was struggling to hold onto consciousness. Any minute he would pass out, and if he did that before Spock moved away…“My face and hands are getting frostbitten. I can hardly feel my feet. Alone, you’ll have a chance—at least try to get back to Jim!” He had no idea why Spock seemed to be tolerating the cold better than he—key word was “seemed”—but he was going to use that to his advantage and convince him to save his husband.

“We stay together,” Spock repeated, but his voice seemed to be coming from far away.

“Stubborn, thickheaded…” Leo mumbled. His vision was swimming, his limbs felt heavy, and he no longer felt the cold. The wind sweeping along seemed to carry the sound of the choir at the church in Atlanta from his childhood.

It seemed to him that he was falling slowly through a thick cloud of cotton wool. He slid sideways off the rock, hit the ground, and greyed out.

——

“Dr. Leonard McCoy, wake up.”

The voice was an ephemeral whisper, scarcely audible over the chorus of other voices filling Leo’s mind. His father’s frail voice, begging for oblivion…Christopher Pike, urging him to take care of Jim…Phil Boyce, reminding him to be grateful for every moment he was given…Jocelyn, screaming as she threw his belongings out the front door…he was gasping for air, he couldn’t breathe…

And then the voice spoke again, urgent and strong. “ _Bones!”_

_Jim,_ Leo thought with a moment of perfect clarity.

His breathing evened out, the voices quieted, and a light pierced the darkness of his mind. His eyes fluttered open. Shadows became shapes became more defined shapes, until he was able to focus on a slender, beautiful young woman, dressed in heavy furs, standing a little ways away from him.

“Who are you?” he asked, his tongue lying thick in his mouth.

“My name is Zarabeth,” the woman said in a light, musical voice.

Leo blinked to try and clear his head. “Where’s Spock?” Surely Spock had been there before he’d passed out…or had he listened, had he gone away like Leo had asked, was he even now rescuing Jim?

“I’m here, Doctor.” Spock stepped forward slightly into Leo’s field of vision.

“Are we back in the library?” Leo clung to the faint hope that Spock had managed to save both of them, and was disappointed when Spock shook his head.

“We are still in the ice age. But safe, for the moment.”

Panic gripped Leo again. He struggled to sit up, violently trying to shake off the tendrils of fog that clung to his mind and body. “Jim! Where’s Jim? We’ve got to find Jim!”

“You are in no condition to get up,” Spock scolded, pressing a gentle hand to Leo’s shoulder and trying to ease him back against the bed. “Rest now, and I will attempt to find the captain.”

Reluctantly, Leo let Spock settle him back in the nest of furs. He was pretty tired; he recognized the signs of coradrenaline administration, and also recognized, in a distant way, that it had been applied later than was probably optimal. His body needed rest. But he tried to grip Spock’s arm, to impress on him the urgency of the situation. “Find him, Spock,” he begged desperately. “Don’t worry about me. Find him!”

Exhausted, unable to keep his eyes open a moment longer, he let them fall shut and sank into slumber once more.

Eventually, he woke once more, feeling better for the rest but still too weak to get up. The woman called Zarabeth, clad in a flowing gown, brought him a quite elaborate meal. It certainly tasted better than the food he got on the _Enterprise,_ and Leo made sure the woman was aware of how much he appreciated it. She seemed pleased as she bustled about, tidying up the cave where she apparently lived.

Revitalized somewhat by the food, Leo looked up at Spock. “How long was I out?”

“A little more than a full day,” Spock told him.

“A _day?”_ Leo blurted. “Spock, why the hell didn’t you wake me?”

“There was no point, Doctor.”

“No _point?_ What the hell do you mean, there was no _point?”_

“The device that sent us here is called the Atavachron. When we went through, it…changed us. To return to the time period from which we came would mean instant death. I’m sorry. I know how much you were counting on getting back. But we’re trapped here.”

Leo noticed that Spock was using a lot more contractions than was usual. He filed the information away for future use. “How did you find that out?”

“Zarabeth explained. She, too, came through the Atavachron.” Spock glanced up at Zarabeth. Leo was startled to see an expression in those dark eyes that he had heretofore only seen when Spock was looking at Uhura. “Like us, she didn’t entirely come through by choice. She’s a…a political prisoner, of sorts.”

“I’m going to start on lunch now,” Zarabeth said, smiling at Spock before turning the expression on Leo. Married man or not, that smile damn near knocked him on his ass, metaphorically speaking. “It will be a true delicacy. Before I came here, I was famed for this dish. Of course, I have to…make do a little, but it’s still exquisite.” She bustled over to her work area.

Leo watched her for a long minute, then turned back to Spock. He added the half-Vulcan’s infatuation with Zarabeth to his mental catalog, then applied his concentration to the problem of the present— _his_ present—the present where his daughter and stepson waited on a spaceship orbiting a dying planet around a dying star. If he’d been out for a day…did time pass the same way here as it did in the library? “I hope the _Enterprise_ got away in time.”

“I hope it will get away,” Spock corrected him. “The event is a hundred thousand years in the future.”

“Yes, I know.” Leo bit his lip. “I wonder where Jim is?”

“Who knows?” Spock shrugged—actually _shrugged._ “We can only hope he is well, wherever he is.”

Leo stared at Spock. This wasn’t like him. There were a lot of things going on that were extremely unlike Spock. “What do you mean, ‘we can only hope’?” he said at last. “Haven’t you done anything about it?”

“What was there to do?”

“Locate the portal,” Leo said impatiently. “We sure didn’t come very far from it.”

Spock gave Leo the sarcastic head tilt-raised eyebrow combination he’d honed to perfection probably as a teenager on Vulcan. “We’ve been through all that, Doctor. What’s the point of rehashing the subject? We can’t go back. Wasn’t that clear to you?”

“Perfectly. I just don’t believe it.” Leo balled up a fistful of the blanket Spock or Zarabeth or both had wrapped him in and quoted his husband. “I don’t believe in no-win scenarios. I refuse to give up trying.”

“It would be suicide if you succeeded.”

This was Miri’s homeworld all over again, Spock fatalistically assuming that the disease was going to kill them and the cure would kill them faster and Leo being logical and determined. And just like he’d been back then, Leo was fighting not only for his own life, but that of his husband and his children. More than that, something was going on with Spock. If he didn’t know better, he would say the first officer was ill. Spock was allowing his emotions to have free range, which was shocking in and of itself. The Vulcan race was one of strong emotions; for their own good, they had fought to suppress it over the years and had succeeded in training themselves to be restrained and dignified. Spock was half-human, of course, which meant that he sometimes displayed affection, admiration, or concern, but he never showed extremes—delight, despair, rage, or fear. There was no telling how powerful the display of those emotions would be.

Leo suddenly decided to find out.

“I never thought I’d see it,” he said, heaving a sigh that was only mostly theatrical. “I understand. You want to stay here. I must say, you are _highly_ motivated to stay in this frozen waste.”

“The prospect seemed quite attractive to you a moment ago,” Spock shot at him.

It was a low blow, completely unlike Spock—and also untrue. Leo had praised Zarabeth’s cooking, yes, but he’d never given any indication that he felt more for her than that, or that he wanted to stay long enough to eat more of it. It was either jealousy or projection or an attempt at justification or something in between. Although what he was about to do was about as safe as poking a sleeping bear in the eye, he thrust out his jaw slightly. “Listen, you pointy-eared hobgoblin—”

He got no further. Spock suddenly leaned over and grabbed Leo by the front of his shirt, half-lifting him from the sickbed. Leo kept his expression blank as Spock brought their faces close together.

“I don’t like that,” he said in a low, dangerous voice. “I don’t believe I ever did. Now I’m sure.”

Leo scanned Spock’s face. He was either giving in to his human side…or there was something going on with the Vulcan side. Ordinarily, he could be counted on to give an answer, but under the circumstances, Leo knew he would have to figure it out himself. Which didn’t mean that he couldn’t ask a leading question.

“What is it, Spock?” he asked. “What’s happening?”

Spock let go of Leo, letting him drop rather heavily onto the bed. “Nothing that shouldn’t have happened long ago.”

“Long ago,” Leo repeated softly. He stared at Spock intently, thoughts beginning to coalesce at last. “Yes, I guess so…long ago.”

His scrutiny seemed to make Spock uncomfortable, another rarity. Abruptly, he got up and stalked out of the small chamber, leaving Leo alone with his thoughts.

They were in Sarpeidon’s last ice age, a hundred thousand standard years before Leo’s birth—before Spock’s birth. Back on Earth, this had been the time of the Neanderthals, the mammoth-hunters and the nomads, a primitive people who lived by their wits and strove for nothing more than survival. On Vulcan, the people at the time had been a more primitive, savage race, still indulging in excesses of emotion. Was that the answer? Had Spock somehow regressed to the state of his people before Surak’s revolution—thousands of centuries ago?

Leo took an objective look at himself. His mind was perfectly clear, but then, he had to admit that primitive humans were not truly as different from modern man as people had once believed. They understood less, perhaps, but their emotional state was likely no different, and they still possessed the qualities Leo knew himself to possess—loyalty, a strong sense of family, a modicum of courage, and a hell of a lot of stubbornness. So maybe he was regressing and just didn’t know it. He was fatigued, though—far more fatigued than he ought to have been after sleeping for twenty-four standard hours straight—and a headache pulsed at his temples. It was like he was suffering from a low-grade ‘flu, but that couldn’t be right. He had no other symptoms.

_Stop! I have not prepared you! Wait, you must be acclimated to your chosen time!_ Atoz’s panicked voice filled his mind. Leo frowned. What kind of preparation was he talking about? What kind of “acclimation” was necessary? If they had waited, would he and Spock have developed a tolerance for the cold? Would they have been dressed for the weather? Then he remembered Spock telling him that the Atavachron had “changed” them—that it had changed Zarabeth—that returning to their time would mean instant death.

And, suddenly, he understood.

Leo pushed off the heavy furs covering him and got to his feet. He swayed, momentarily overcome with lightheadedness, but forced himself to gather himself. He couldn’t give in now. He had to be strong. For Jim.

Staggering a little, he made his way to the doorway and stopped, leaning heavily against the frame. What he saw would have astonished him had he not had his moment of clarity.

Spock had Zarabeth in his arms, and he was looking at her the way he’d always looked at Uhura—except more intensely, more unrestrained, as though he could allow himself to feel for the first time. As Leo listened, he told her, “You are beautiful, beautiful beyond any dream of beauty I have ever had. I shall never stop telling you of it.”

“Stay,” she whispered. “I shall make you happy.”

“My life is here,” Spock replied.

Leo gathered all his strength—and his courage—and said, _“You lie.”_

Spock spun around. The fury and rage on his face was evident, more intense than Leo had seen it since Jim accused him of never having loved his mother. But there was also a spark of satisfaction in his eyes, as though he was glad to be allowed to feel this way. “I speak the present truth. We are here, for good. I’ve given you the facts.”

“The facts as _you_ know them,” Leo retorted. “But you’re also being dishonest with yourself, and that’s also something new for you. You accepted Zarabeth’s word because it was what you wanted to believe. But Zarabeth is a woman condemned to a terrible life of loneliness. She’ll do anything to anybody to change that—won’t you, Zarabeth?”

The momentary flash of guilt in Zarabeth’s eyes told him everything he needed to know, even as she insisted, “I told you what I know.”

Leo shook his head. “Not quite, I believe. You said _we_ can’t get back. The truth is that _you_ can’t get back. Isn’t it?”

“She would not jeopardize other lives—” Spock began angrily.

“To save herself from this life alone?” Leo interrupted. “She _would_ lie—and even murder me, the captain, the whole crew of the _Enterprise—_ to keep you here with her.” Sudden strength coursed through him, and he shot out a hand to grab Zarabeth’s wrist. “Tell Spock the truth—you would kill to keep him here!”

Zarabeth cried out—in terror, not in pain—but suddenly Spock lunged forward and wrapped his hands around Leo’s throat.

Leo didn’t fight him. He knew it was incredibly important that he keep himself calm. Partly because if he struggled, Spock would actually choke him, but partly because he knew he had to stay rational in the face of Spock’s excess of emotion.

“Spock,” he said insistently. “Think! Are you trying to kill me? Is that what you want? What are you feeling? Rage? Jealousy? Have you ever felt them before?”

Spock’s hands fell away from Leo’s throat. He tried not to take too obvious of a breath as Spock stared at him. “Impossible,” he said. “This is impossible. I am a Vulcan.”

“The Vulcan you knew won’t exist for another hundred thousand standard years!” Leo reminded him. “Think, Spock—what is it like on your planet now, at this moment?”

“My ancestors are barbarians,” Spock said slowly. “Irrational, warlike barbarians…”

“Who nearly killed themselves off with their passions,” Leo completed. He could see his words hitting home. “And now you’re regressing to what they were!”

Spock’s shoulders sagged slightly. “I have lost myself,” he said dully. “I do not know who I am. Zarabeth—can we go back?”

“I do not know. I do not know,” Zarabeth said, wringing her hands, her face twisted in despair. “It is impossible for me to go back. I thought it was true for you.”

Leo didn’t know if she was telling the truth or not, and he decided he was too tired to care. It didn’t really matter. He turned to his friend instead.

“I’m going to try, Spock,” he said quietly. “My life is there, and I want the life that belongs to me. I have a husband,” he reminded Spock, his voice dropping even further. “A family. I have to get back to them, and I have to go _now._ There isn’t much time—I can feel myself changing, too.” Taking a deep breath, he raised his eyes to the tearful Zarabeth again. “Zarabeth, will you help me find my way to the portal?”

“I—” Zarabeth began, then lowered her head. “Yes. If I must.”

Leo nodded. “Let’s get dressed, then.”

Zarabeth redonned her furs without saying anything. Also without saying anything, Spock went into the back room and came out with a blanket, which he wrapped around Leo’s shoulders. Leo nodded his thanks, but he, too, did nothing to break the fragile silence. They set off without another word.

The cave wasn’t very far from the cliffs, but there was such a _sameness_ about the glacier or ice cliff or whatever it was that, without Zarabeth to lead them, Leo privately acknowledged that he would have wandered until he froze to death without finding the spot where they had come through. As it was, despite the thick blanket he was cloaked in, he was unable to resist the cold and kept shivering. All the blanket did was ward off frostbite. He leaned heavily on Zarabeth as they watched Spock tapping at the cliffs.

“There is no portal here,” he said at last, after several long minutes. “It’s hopeless, McCoy.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Leo agreed, noting that Spock hadn’t called him _Doctor._ It was rare for Spock to even call him by his first name; he’d never referred to him strictly by last name. Still, he wasn’t about to concede that Spock should stop looking.

Spock didn’t seem to care. “You’re too sick to be out here in the cold any longer. Give it up.”

Before Leo could response, a voice, faint but clear, broke over them. “Bones! Can you hear me?”

“Jim! It’s Jim!” Leo shouted, hope giving him strength. “Here we are!”

“Stop, we’ve found them,” Jim’s voice said urgently. “Hold it steady, Mr. Atoz. Can you hear me any better?”

“Yes, God, yes, we hear you perfectly.” Leo let the blanket fall unheeded from his shoulders and rushed forward, his hands pressing uselessly against the wall.

“Follow my voice. Come on, Bones, follow the sound of my voice, come back to me…”

Leo’s hand plunged seemingly into the wall. “Spock! Here it is!” he shouted, delirious with relief. “Come on!”

“Start ahead without me,” Spock said. Leo turned, surprised, to look at him as he turned to Zarabeth. “I do not wish to leave you.”

“I can’t go with you,” Zarabeth said softly. “You know that.”

“What are you waiting for?” Jim’s voice said urgently, and now Leo could hear a faint note of panic in it. “Hurry! Scotty says we have to get back on board right away!”

“They will have to come back together, as they went out together.” The voice of Atoz broke into the conversation. “Singly, the portal will reject them.”

“Spock,” Leo pleaded, his voice cracking with fear for the first time. Jim was so close—achingly close—and he didn’t want to lose him, especially since he knew Jim would wait for them to come through until the star went nova if they didn’t go now.

Spock and Zarabeth looked at one another. He reached out and touched her face lightly with his fingertips.

“I did lie,” she said. “I knew the truth. I will pay. Goodbye.”

Spock turned away from her then, his eyes brimming with emotion. Grabbing Leo’s arm, he hauled him bodily through the portal.

An instant later, they stood in the library. Leo scarcely had a moment to realize he wasn’t freezing anymore when Jim hurled himself at him, wrapping him in a tight hug. Leo hugged his husband tightly in response, trembling slightly as he began to realize just how close a call they had both had. Behind him, Atoz spun the dials on his machine frantically, then ran past them. He dove through the portal and vanished.

“Atoz!” Leo shouted.

Jim shook his head quickly, pulling away from Leo just a bit. “He had his escape planned. I’m glad he made it.” He flipped out his communicator without taking his arm from around Leo’s waist. “Are you there, Scotty?”

“Aye. It’s now or never.”

Leo noticed Spock turn towards the portal and raise his fist, as if to strike it, but he didn’t complete the gesture as Jim said, “Beam us up. Maximum warp as soon as we’re on board.”

The shimmer of the transporter beam formed around them, and a moment later, they stood on the _Enterprise._ Lieutenant Kyle gave them a relieved smile. “Welcome back, Captain.”

“Thanks, Kyle.” Jim smiled, tugging Leo forward and off the platform. “Come on, let’s get up to the bridge.”

Leo hung back just a moment, studying Spock, looking for signs of the melancholy—or any of the other emotions—he had noticed down below. Spock turned to him, his usual placid mask in place. “There is no further need for you to observe me, Doctor,” he said. “As you can see, I have returned to the present—in every sense.”

“Are you sure?” Leo asked gently. “It did happen, Spock.”

Spock met Leo’s eyes. “Yes, it happened,” he replied quietly. “But that was a hundred thousand years ago. They are all dead. Dead and buried long ago.”

Leo waited a moment, then nodded slowly. He took Jim’s hand again as they headed up for the bridge.

Slim was still there, looking outwardly calm, but his eyes betrayed his anxiety and relief as he said, “Y’all cut it pretty fine.”

Uhura left her station to embrace Spock, who was slightly stiff at returning her embrace; Leo guessed he was feeling at least a twinge of guilt at having fallen so hard and so obviously for Zarabeth. Perhaps he was wondering if Leo was going to betray him. But Leo had no intention of doing that. After all, as Spock had said, it had been a hundred thousand years ago. As far as Leo was concerned, that was a woman he’d fallen for before Uhura was even born. He hadn’t cheated on her at all.

“Situations beyond our control.” Jim smiled at Slim. “The important thing is that we made it.”

“Aye, Captain,” Scotty said, pointing at the viewscreen, which was aimed behind them. “And just in time, too.”

Leo watched as the star began, silently and gracefully, to explode. Mostly to himself, he said, “I thought it would be brighter.”

“You’re thinkin’ of a supernova,” Slim said absently, also watching the explosion. “Novae like this are just the dyin’ gasp of a white dwarf. It only produces about a fiftieth of the material of a supernova, an’ one two-hundredth the materials of a red giant. The brightest one in the galaxy only had a magnitude of three, an’ that was way back in 1975.”

The faintest smile flickered over Spock’s lips. “I do not believe, Thomas, that you need worry unduly about your astrophysics assignments.”

In that moment, Leo gave up the last of his worry about Spock. The man really seemed to be okay.

That night, after they put Addie to bed and Jim and Slim read the next chapter of whatever book they were reading now, Leo and Jim crawled into bed together. Jim curled in the circle of Leo’s arms, tracing the outline of his pectoral muscles with a light forefinger. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Leo said quietly. “You?”

“I’m fine, but then, an analog of sixteenth-century England doesn’t have quite the same fatal potentials as an ice age,” Jim said, looking up at Leo. His blue eyes shone with anxiety. “As soon as Spock said ‘arctic characteristics,’ I started panicking. I know I should’ve worried more about Spock, he’s from a hot planet, but…”

“Spock was fine,” Leo said dryly. “Physically, anyway. If he was cold, he never showed it. I can honestly say I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him, though. The cold got to me pretty quick—I was close to serious frostbite—and I passed out not very long after we lost contact with you.”

Jim grimaced. “A couple of constables showed up accusing me of thievery—and then of witchcraft, which was probably worse. One of them knocked me upside the head…I didn’t come round for a couple hours, and when I did, I was in a jail cell.”

Leo felt a twinge of worry. “Let me see.” He ran his fingers over Jim’s temples. Jim stayed still, for a wonder. After a few moments, Leo pressed a light kiss to what he could feel was a slightly tender spot. “There. It may have been seven hundred years ago that you got hit, but you’ve still got a bit of a bruise. It’ll clear up by morning, and if it doesn’t—”

“I’ll come to Med Bay. I promise, Bones.” Jim lifted his hand from Leo’s chest and touched his throat with the gentlest of touches. “And these? They look almost like…finger marks…”

“It’s nothing, Jim.”

“Bones.”

Leo hesitated, then sighed. “Spock.”

“ _Spock?_ ” Jim gasped, half-sitting up in Leo’s arms.

Leo tugged his husband back down against his shoulder, cuddling him close. “He was…regressing. Going back to the way his people were a hundred thousand years ago—primitive, emotional, savage. I pushed him too far—did it on purpose, just like you did, to make him snap and realize what was going on. He didn’t seriously hurt me, though. I didn’t realize he’d gripped hard enough to leave marks.”

Jim said nothing for a moment, running his fingertip lightly over the marks. “They’re faint. I wouldn’t have noticed them if I hadn’t been looking so closely, to make sure you were okay…what did you say to push him?”

“I, uh…” Leo cleared his throat. “There was a woman.”

“Say no more.” Jim sighed. “Are you going to tell Uhura? If he starts acting guilty again—”

“I’ll leave that up to him. But really, Jim, it was a hundred thousand years ago—long before Uhura was ever born. And he really did think we were trapped there. Zarabeth lied to him and told him the Atavachron had changed us and we were stuck.”

“She might’ve believed it,” Jim murmured. “The prosecutor did…he was from Atoz’s time, too. He told me that the Atavachron was programmed to alter us to fit the chosen time frame, and that if we tried to go back, we would die. But since we _hadn’t_ been changed—and Zarabeth might not’ve known this either—if we’d stayed, we would’ve been dead in a few days.”

Leo teased Jim’s hair back from his forehead. “Spock was ready to give up, to stay. I wasn’t. All I could think of was getting back to you, and to Slim and Addie, but mostly to you. I was scared to death for you.”

“So was I,” Jim admitted. “Next time we go on an away mission, I’m not going anywhere without you. Deal?”

“Deal.” Leo tilted Jim’s face up and kissed him. “I love you, darlin’.”

“Love you, too, Bones.” Jim tucked his head under Leo’s chin; Leo settled him more comfortably in his arms.

Within moments, they were both sound asleep.

 


	84. This Much I Know Is True

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, I am so sorry this chapter is late! I thought I would have it finished yesterday, but I unexpectedly ate into my writing time on Tuesday (spontaneous baseball game) and that put me behind.
> 
> I'm also sorry it's so short, but there didn't seem to be anything more I could do with this one.
> 
> That being said: **WARNING.** This chapter contains mention of rape, and while I don't go into too much detail, there's enough detail that I wouldn't feel right not warning you. This is the chapter where Jim and Bones finally have that conversation about the restraints, so...be warned.
> 
> Also, chapter title comes from "Bless the Broken Road" by Rascal Flatts.

Jim sat bolt upright in bed, gasping for breath and covered in a cold sweat. He was disoriented in the darkness and couldn’t remember at first where he was. Shaking all over, he patted his arms and chest frantically, exhaling in relief as he realized there was nothing holding him down. He was fine.

“Jim?” Bones said sleepily, picking his head up off the pillow.

“Bones,” Jim managed. “Go back to sleep. ‘M fine.”

“Like hell you are.” Bones sat up and rested his hand lightly on Jim’s back. “Was it a nightmare? Want to talk about it?”

“No.” Jim turned and buried his face in Bones’ chest, clutching him tightly.

Bones’ arms encircled him, holding him securely but not too tight. Jim usually didn’t like to be held after a nightmare—he always felt panicky when he was confined, especially when he was already panicking—but for some reason, when he was _dreaming_ about being restrained, he actively sought out Bones’ arms. He’d never told Bones that was what he dreamed about on the nights when he wanted to be held, and he’d never really tried to examine the reasons behind it. All he knew was that cuddling his husband slowed his racing heart, and Bones’ arms about him made him feel safe and loved.

“It’s okay, Jim,” Bones murmured, pressing his lips to the top of his head. “It’s okay. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”

Jim clung to Bones like a limpet and tried to stop himself from shaking, but it wasn’t happening, not easily. He had a lot of awful memories, and they translated themselves into horrible dreams, but that particular dream was probably his worst, the one he had the hardest time shaking off. And tonight, it was harder than it had ever been before.

Bones just held him for a few minutes, rubbing his back in slow, soft circles. Finally, he said quietly, “You’ve had this one before, haven’t you?”

“Yeah,” Jim admitted hoarsely, his voice shaking even on that one syllable.

“Ever told me about it?”

“I—I can’t.”

Again there was a moment of silence before Bones spoke. “Have you dreamed about Tarsus since you told me what happened to your cousins?”

Jim tried to think through the fear and strain. “N-no,” he said eventually.

“When’s the last time you dreamed about Khan?”

“It—it’s been a few years…”

“How about New York? Do you still have that nightmare about watching Edith Keeler die?”

“No, but—”

“Jim,” Bones said gently, his lips brushing Jim’s forehead. “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me. I promised you I’d share your burdens. Tell me this one, darlin’. Let me help you carry it.”

Jim hesitated. He knew Bones meant it—he always did—but at the same time…he’d told him before that he didn’t want any of the darkness in his past to touch Bones, or to overwhelm him. And this was one of the darker spots of his life. He’d told him the basics, but he’d never gone into detail—with anybody—about what had happened to him.

Bones pulled him a little closer. “You know I love you, right?” he murmured. “I will always love you, no matter what. There’s nothing lurking in your subconscious that will make me stop loving you.”

And there Bones went, as usual, understanding Jim better than he understood himself. “I—I was dreaming about—” He curled against Bones’ chest again. “You—you remember when you asked me about my—about when I’d been raped, and I told you about the first time, when my P.E. coach…?”

“I remember,” Bones said softly. “Is that what you were dreaming about?”

“Yeah, but—Bones, I didn’t—I didn’t tell you everything,” Jim said in a rush.

He half-expected Bones to yell, despite what he’d said, but to his surprise, Bones merely gave him another light kiss. “I didn’t think you had, darlin’. I was pretty fragile that night still, and you weren’t exactly yourself, either.” He was quiet for a moment, then added, “Will you tell me now?”

Jim nodded slowly. “The thing is…what I told you, about him telling me to bend over his desk and me fighting him?” Bones made a noise of agreement, letting Jim know he’d heard and understood. “That—that was true, I mean, that really _did_ happen that way, but…it wasn’t the only time he…attacked me.” He swallowed hard. “I—I was his favorite, except for the kid who was, you know, willing.”

“Jim,” Bones whispered. He sounded horrified.

“About a week after that first time,” Jim continued, hearing his voice shaking but trying to keep it low, “I forgot my uniform. No big deal, but he gave me after-school detention. And he notified the school right away, so when I tried to leave at the end of the day, security caught me and dragged me back to serve my detention with him. He said we were going to be cleaning the smaller gym top to bottom, but—I knew he was just saying that for the guard’s benefit. Either way, he took me in there and—he locked the doors behind us. There wasn’t a lot in there—some tumbling mats and a balance beam and a pommel horse, and some of those free rings—nobody ever used it except when we did our unit on gymnastics, and that was like the last month of school. This was November.”

Bones tangled his fingers gently in Jim’s hair, holding his head close to his chest. Jim swallowed against a suddenly dry mouth and struggled to continue. “He—as soon as the doors were locked, he grabbed me and pinned me to the wall. Said he liked a good struggle as much as the next man, but he wasn’t going to give me the chance that time. He managed to twist my arm around so that he could…keep me controlled…and then he dragged me over to the pommel horse and pushed me into the end of it. When I tried to struggle, he grabbed my shirt and pushed it up, flipped it so that it was covering my head and my arms were sort of pushed in front of me, and then he…oh, God.” He took a deep, shuddering breath. “He tied me to it, Bones. He tied my arms to the front pommel of the horse and he tied my feet to the post and he pulled my pants down and he—he took what he wanted, and I couldn’t fight him…”

“Jesus, Jim,” Bones said, his voice cracking. He somehow managed to pull Jim closer. “Is that why you have so much trouble with—your face being covered and restraints and everything?”

“Yeah,” Jim whispered, feeling the tears well up as he buried his face against Bones’ chest. “He raped me twice more after that—I couldn’t escape him, no matter how hard I tried—and both times he tied me up so I wouldn’t struggle and gagged me with my shirt. Being held down, being tied up, having my face covered while anyone is—that’s why I can’t handle it. I’m sorry, Bones. I’m so fucking sorry.”

“For what? It’s not your fault.” Bones seemed to be trying to press Jim into himself, to force their bodies to merge into one single entity. “It was _never_ your fault, you hear me? No matter what anyone else did to you, it’s not your fault.”

“I should have told you sooner…”

“Maybe, but I understand why you didn’t. God, Jim, I wouldn’t have wanted to talk about something like that either.” Bones lay his cheek against the top of Jim’s head. There was a moment of silence before he added quietly, “So that’s what you were dreaming about? Do you dream about it a lot?”

Jim hesitated, then nodded against Bones’ chest, turning his head so that his ear was pressed to his husband’s heart. “You know how usually I wake up from a nightmare and I don’t want you to hold me at first, that I panic when you’re hugging me too tight?”

“Yeah, Jim, I know.” Bones suddenly stilled. “Do you want me to—”

“No,” Jim said immediately, curling—if possible—still closer to Bones. If he pressed any harder, he was going to break a rib. “It’s—you know how some nights, when I have nightmares, I _do_ want you to hold me like this? Those nights, those are the ones I’ve been dreaming about…that.”

Bones didn’t say anything for a moment. Finally, he asked, “So why are you okay with being restrained on nights you’re having nightmares about it?”

“I don’t know,” Jim admitted. “But I do. Most of the other times, I don’t want to be confined…I get scared, I feel like I’m trapped, and I…I need the control, I guess. But when I have that nightmare about him…I don’t know, Bones. I want you to hold me, because it makes me feel safe. Maybe it’s that you’re facing me and I’m facing you and I can see what you’re doing. Maybe it’s that he just tied my wrists and ankles and not anything else, so you with your arms around all of me is…comforting. I don’t know. All I know is…your touch is the only thing that makes the fear go away, or at least go from a shout to a whisper.”

“Jim,” Bones whispered.

“I love you, Bones. I love you so much.”

“I love you, too, Jim.” Bones let go of Jim with one hand to tilt his chin back with two fingers, then bent over and kissed him softly.

Jim let himself melt into the kiss. He felt the knots he’d coiled his body into slowly relax, until he had uncurled himself for the most part, although he was still lying close to Bones, safe in the circle of his arms. Then and only then did Bones let him up for air.

“I wish I could stop this,” Bones said, so softly Jim wondered if he even realized he’d spoken aloud. “I wish I could just…find the right combination of chemicals and give you a pill or a hypo and stop the nightmares for good.”

“You don’t need chemicals for that,” Jim said. “Remember what you said earlier? When I tell you about my nightmares, I don’t have them anymore. I guess…you remember what I said once, about not wanting my darkness to overwhelm you?”

“I’m not likely to ever forget.”

“Well, you’re—you’re a lighthouse, Bones. A beacon in the black. You’re my candle on the water. When the darkness gets overwhelming…you push it away.”

Bones tangled his fingers in Jim’s hair again. “You do the same thing for me, you know,” he murmured. “Whenever I start drifting, you’re—you’re my anchor. You’re something solid for me to hold onto.”

Jim couldn’t help cracking a small smile. “Thank you, Ty Grady.”

“Shut up,” Bones huffed, but he leaned over and kissed Jim again to soften the words. “I mean it, darlin’. You’re not the only one who has nightmares, but…they’re not as bad when I know you’re here.”

Warmth spread throughout Jim’s body. “I love you,” he said again.

“I love you, too.” Bones lay down on the pillows and pulled Jim over, settling his head on his chest. “Think you can get some sleep now?”

“I think so,” Jim said. “I’ll try.”

“Sleep, darlin’,” Bones whispered. “I’ll be right here. I promise. I will never let you go.”

“Me, neither, Bones.” Jim closed his eyes, and to his relief, he felt sleep beginning to overtake him. “I’m with you, forever and evermore.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The line "You['re] something solid for me to hold onto" is from _Touch & Geaux_ by Abigail Roux. (I just finished _Crash & Burn_ on the bus home from work today, so I have a lot of C&R feels right now.)


	85. And Up She Rises

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys, I am so sorry it keeps taking me so long to get these chapters out. I'm trying to get back on a weekly schedule, honest, but I've been out and about a lot the last couple of weeks. I swear I will try to start posting regularly again...
> 
> That being said, I've kind of been planning this chapter for a long time--I've just never had opportunity to put it in before. I hope you like it...

The chirp of his communicator startled Slim. He set down his stylus, picked up the device, and flipped it open. “Kirk here.”

“Slim, report to the shuttle bay, please,” Jim’s voice said, startling Slim further.

He wasn’t about to argue, though. “Okay, Dad. Slim out.”

Pausing only long enough to change into one of his mock-uniform shirts—he just had a feeling—Slim pocketed his communicator and headed for the shuttle bay. His mind was whirring with concerns and possibilities.

They were orbiting Stavromula Beta, a name Slim was pretty sure had been suggested as a joke and whatever governing body of the Federation decided on names hadn’t gotten the punchline. The atmosphere had a strange metallic quality that befuddled the scanners and scrambled the transporter signal, so that the landing party that had gone down had been forced to go in one of the shuttles. Slim knew that Leo had been included in the landing party, along with Spock and Scotty. He also knew that that was the exact mix that had been on the _Galileo,_ more than three years ago now (Jesus, had it really been that long?), and that if anything had gone wrong, Jim was never going to forgive himself.

His father was waiting just inside the shuttle bay when he arrived, and offered him a weak smile. “I’m imposing a ban on visiting planets we can’t get to without the transporters anymore.”

“Something went wrong, huh?” Slim’s stomach plummeted.

“You could say that. The shuttle crashed.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Slim whispered. “Mechanical failure?”

“From the sounds of it.” Jim ran a hand over his face. “Scotty’s been knocked unconscious, there are no other engineers down there.”

Slim bit his lip. Just then, the door slid open behind him. He turned to see Audra, Porter, and (to his surprise) Nic’tlarn, with Kelly waddling after xem. Jim turned to face them, his expression serious, and repeated what he’d just told Slim. “Ensign Nic’tlarn, I know you’ve been pulled from Engineering, but we’re shorthanded as it is and I need all four of you down there. Ensign O’Flaherty, we’ve got plenty of helmsmen, but you’re the best damn shuttle pilot we’ve got. Ensign Cayne, your command. Get down there, see what the problem is, see what you can do, and comm me for whatever you need. I don’t need to tell you that time is of the essence. If Mr. Scott is seriously injured, we need to get him back to the _Enterprise_ as quickly as possible—and we need to get that shuttle back, too.”

“Aye, sir,” Slim and his friends said in unison.

Jim nodded. “Coordinates of the last transmission are already in the shuttle. Good luck, men.”

Nic’tlarn looped xyr arm through Kelly’s, half-pulling her into the shuttle. Audra gestured for xem to take the seat next to the pilot’s, sliding into the seat behind Kelly instead. Porter and Slim, by wordless agreement, sat behind her. The door shut, and Slim caught a glimpse of Jim’s worried face as they pulled away.

Kelly was in the late stages of her pregnancy, perhaps a month or two from date of delivery, but she didn’t seem to be letting it affect her ability to pilot. Slim stayed quiet, letting her concentrate on her flying, and stared out the window. The metallic storms were beautiful, in a way. And this was only the second time he’d ever been in a space-capable shuttle. It wasn’t nearly as comfortable as the _Enterprise_ herself, or even as the subatmospheric shuttles he’d taken on Earth, but he found that, despite the danger, he was enjoying himself.

The enjoyment ended as they came in for a landing.

“You sure these are the right coordinates, Kels?” Audra asked, leaning forward.

“Positive,” Kelly said, sounding a little grumpy. She stabbed at a button on the console, and a grid overlay the viewscreen. “The last transmission definitely came from here.”

“Look,” Porter said, leaning forward to point. “See the scars on the dirt?”

“Jesus,” Slim said under his breath. There were deep, charred furrows in the ground, indicating that the shuttle had attempted to land and had skidded. Since they were designed for a gentle set-down, they didn’t have wheels, treads, or any way of moving or controlling the shuttle when on the ground. They weren’t supposed to even be able to do what this one had obviously done.

“Where do you want me to set down, Auds?” Kelly asked.

Audra took a moment to decide. “Right there, between the skid marks and the cactus-looking thing.” As Kelly complied, Audra added, “Nico, see if you can hail the other shuttle.”

Nic’tlarn leaned forward and flicked on the communications array. “Shuttlecraft _Copernicus,_ this is shuttlecraft _Columbus._ Come in, _Copernicus._ ”

There was a burst of static. Nic’tlarn turned up the volume on the array, and a few words became audible. “— _umbus_ —is shu— _erni_ —opy?”

“What?” Porter said under his breath.

“I _think_ they just said ‘Shuttlecraft _Columbus,_ this is shuttlecraft _Copernicus,_ do you copy?’” Nic’tlarn said just as quietly. “But I’m inferring rather a lot.” Xe moved closer and spoke loudly and distinctly as Kelly set the shuttle down completely and turned off the engines. “We copy, _Copernicus._ Can you give us your present location?”

This time, in the burst of noise, Slim was able to pick out the tone of voice of the speaker. “—e—ow—a-a—o!”

Nic’tlarn frowned. “ _Copernicus,_ repeat transmission, please?”

Static was their only response.

Audra bit her lip worriedly. “Anyone understand that?” she asked as she released her harness and led the others off the shuttle, blinking in the sunlight.

“I recognized that tone of voice,” Slim said, stepping out and shielding his eyes against the sun as well. “That was Pa—uh, Dr. McCoy. And I’m pretty sure what he said, with the consonants filled in, was ‘We’re down the goddamned hole.’”

“ _What_ goddamned hole?” Porter asked, frustrated.

Nic’tlarn, who alone of the engineers was not shielding xyr eyes from the sun, turned slowly, sighted along the tracks, and pointed. “ _That_ goddamned hole, I believe.”

Without needing to be given directions, Slim and Porter both went back for the supplies they had brought with them, then followed after Audra and Nic’tlarn while Kelly waited by the shuttle. The hole in question was, at least to Slim’s eye, definitely wide enough to take a shuttle, about ten meters from where they had landed themselves. Audra and Nic’tlarn both stood by the side of it, perfectly still. Slim was about to ask why when he reached them and could see for himself.

The hole was a lot deeper than it looked. Slim estimated it went down at least a hundred meters, given the relative heights of the various rock strata. (Part of him was distantly surprised at how natural the calculations had become.) The trouble was that the sides of the hole were smooth and sheer, and it was wide enough at the top that the _Copernicus_ had slipped in without touching the sides, evidently flipping over when she did so. However, the hole apparently narrowed as it went down, because the shuttle was wedged neatly at the bottom, nose and tail resting on the rock. The metal undercarriage was dented, scratched, and charred in places, not to mention caked with dirt.

“Can you talk to her?” Audra asked, snapping out of her daze and turning to look at Slim. “I know you can hear the _Enterprise_ without trying. This is part of her, ain’t it?”

Slim tried, stretching out his hands and willing the shuttle to communicate, but after a few moments he shook his head, frustrated. “It ain’t workin’.” His own accent, like Audra’s, was starting to slide. “It must not be the same. I don’t know _Copernicus_ like I do the _Enterprise._ ”

“We’ll just have to get you closer, then.” Audra turned to Porter and took the pack he was carrying.

There were a few trees on either side of the hole, trees that the shuttle had somehow managed to avoid hitting on its mad slide. Porter, easily the tallest of the four, quickly rigged up two simple belays. He hitched one to Slim while Nic’tlarn hitched the other to Audra, then took control of the free ends of the ropes.

Slim had been rappelling once in his life, on a class trip when he was twelve, some sort of character-building thing at a place called Camp Friendship. The commands came back to him as he positioned himself at the lip of the hole. “On belay?” he asked Porter.

The faint smile on Porter’s lips told him that he understood. “Belay on,” he confirmed.

“Rappelling,” Slim said, leaning back a little.

“Rappel on.”

Taking a deep breath, Slim forced himself back, then eased himself down the hole.

Audra joined him, looking a lot more nervous than he was, which surprisingly helped him. Together, they inched their way down the hole, bouncing off the walls and letting the tough nylon ropes play out in their hands. Slim found he was holding his breath just a bit as they descended into the darkness. Thank God the sun was directly overhead, so it wasn’t pitch-dark—just darker than they wanted it to be.

At last, Slim felt the surface of the shuttle just below him. Halting his descent, he squinted up, calling, “Tension!”

The rope stopped playing out. Slim gently rested his feet on the shuttle’s wing, then knelt down on it and laid his hands on the body of the shuttle. “Talk to me,” he mumbled. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

He sat perfectly still for nearly a full minute, concentrating with all his might, then looked up at Audra, his eyes wide, fighting down the fear. “I’m not getting an answer.”

Audra stared at him for a moment, then yanked out her communicator and thrust it at him. At first, Slim thought she wanted him to comm someone, but then his brain caught up with current events. He closed his eyes, laid his fingers on the communicator, and concentrated again. This time, the response was immediate.

“It ain’t my gift, it’s the shuttle,” he told her. “She ain’t talkin’.”

“Which means she’s dead,” Audra said grimly. “We ain’t gonna fix her. And the doors…” She bit her lip for a moment, then said abruptly, “Come on.”

Slim tugged his rope, looking up. “On belay?” he yelled.

“Belay on!” Porter’s voice echoed down to him.

“Climbing!” Slim called, although he had no idea how he was going to manage it.

“The hell with that!” Porter called back, making Slim laugh, albeit reluctantly. “Hang on, both of you.”

A moment later, the rope pulled taut, and then Slim felt his feet leave the ground. He was being pulled up in irregular jerks, and he put his feet on the edge of the well, “walking” up it in order to give Porter a little extra help. Beside him, Audra rose too, sometimes above and sometimes below him as she bounced her way up.

It took a lot longer to get up than it had to get down, which made sense; going up they were fighting gravity, rather than having it work for them. At last, however, Slim’s head was nearly level with the edge of the hole. He let go of the rope with one hand, reaching for the firm rock on the lip. Porter grabbed his hand, then the other when Slim raised it, too, and hauled him the rest of the way out.

Audra began talking while she was still bringing her knees over the edge of the hole, with Nic’tlarn’s assistance. “The shuttle’s dead. Completely. Probably why we lost communication with ‘em. And the doors can’t open.”

“There’s an emergency release on the inside,” Porter pointed out. “Even without power, that should still work.”

“Ain’t what I mean, Port. She’s wedged in there good. There’s maybe enough space for someone small to slip past on either side near the nose, but the doc an’ Mr. Spock are a good size—they ain’t fittin’ through them gaps, even if they can get out the doors and avoid fallin’ deeper in the hole, assumin’ it goes deeper, which I ain’t rulin’ out.” Audra’s accent was so thick you could cut it with a spoon. “Then there’s Mr. Scott. The captain said he was unconscious. We can’t get him out of there like it is.”

“Cut through the hull?” Nic’tlarn suggested, but the look in xyr eyes told Slim xe knew it was hopeless.

Porter shook his head. “She’s upside-down. The underside is twice as thick as the outer shell, to cushion landings. And all the vital parts of the shuttle are down there. Even assuming we could cut into it, we might trigger an explosion.”

Slim stared down into the hole at the upside-down _Copernicus._ As Audra had said, someone small—like Nic’tlarn or Audra or maybe even him, at least by the nose—could slip past the gaps on either side. He found his gaze traveling to the rope still tied to him, then to the tree where the simple belay was rigged. The slow wander of his gaze finally fell on Audra, who had a thoughtful look in her eyes, too.

“You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?” she asked him.

“Reckon so,” Slim said, nodding slowly, “but I ain’t sure the trees are up to the job.”

Porter groaned. “Is this really the time?”

Audra ignored him, pulling out her communicator. “Cayne to _Enterprise._ ”

“Go ahead, Ensign.” Jim’s voice replied immediately.

“Captain, the shuttle fell down a hole. It’s stuck. There’s no way to work on repairing it, not where it is…and I’m not sure it even _can_ be repaired.”

There was a long silence before Jim spoke again, in a tone of some slight panic and urgency. “What do you need, Ensign?”

“I need—” Audra hesitated, glancing around, mouthing calculations under her breath. “Twenty-eight men and all the cable they can lay their hands on.”

“Twenty-eight engineers?”

“Honestly, sir? I don’t care what department they come from, as long as they’re the strongest men you can think of.”

A slow smile spread over Nic’tlarn’s face. Porter still looked confused. Jim was obviously puzzled, too, but he didn’t question Audra’s request. “Stand by, Ensign, the men are on their way. Kirk out.”

Kelly came waddling up to them—there was no other word for her slow, wide gait, necessitated by the swell of baby in front of her. “What are we going to do?”

“ _You_ ain’t gonna do anything,” Audra said sternly, pointing at a flattish-topped rock a couple meters away. “You’re gonna sit there an’ stay out of the way.”

“Okay, what are _you_ going to do?” Kelly grumbled, rubbing her belly with a grimace.

“Yeah, what are we going to do?” Porter echoed.

Audra locked eyes with Slim, who smiled in spite of the seriousness of the situation. In unison, both of them said, “You’ll see.”

Ten minutes later, four more shuttles set down next to where the _Columbus_ rested. Slim watched as the crew members swarmed out. Mostly they were strapping men in red shirts, although there were a couple of gold shirts and one or two blues, and even a few female officers who consistently scored high on strength tests. The last man to step out of the last shuttle probably shouldn’t have surprised Slim.

“Captain Kirk,” Audra said, eyes widening briefly before she got herself back under control.

Jim strode over to the group, leading the men who were lugging massive coils of cable. “Ensign Cayne,” he said crisply. “We have the men and cable you requested. What’s the situation?”

Audra wiped her hands surreptitiously on her uniform pants before speaking. “As I mentioned, sir, the shuttle is down this hole here. Depth is approximately one hundred meters, based on the amount of rope played out when we went down to investigate. It’s wedged in there, but it’s precarious, and more importantly it’s upside-down. We can’t get the men out of there without ‘em falling further, and we can’t get ‘em past the shuttle itself even if we did.”

“A hundred meters?” Jim turned pale.

Audra nodded. “And like I said, the shuttle’s dead. Slim tried to talk to it and got nothing. It’s also upside-down. We can’t cut through the bottom, not safely, and we can’t get in to do any repairs. We can’t communicate with them—Slim tried raising Dr. McCoy on his personal comm and got nothing—and we don’t know how much longer they can hold out in there.”

Jim looked as though he were about one step away from fainting. “So what’s your plan, Ensign?”

“Simple, Captain,” Audra said, gesturing to the cables. “We haul _Copernicus_ out of the hole.”

“We do _what?_ ” Porter blurted out.

“I assume you have a plan for this,” Jim said, also looking taken aback.

“I do, sir.” Audra quickly outlined her scheme.

Jim didn’t look happy. “I’m not sure about this, but it’s our only chance, I suppose. All right, let’s get started.”

Under Audra’s direction, the cables were coupled together to make two long cables. The engineers, working swiftly and efficiently—as though this was an everyday occurrence—rigged up four block-and-tackle arrangements on either side of the hole. Audra reattached herself to the mock-harness they had rigged earlier; Nic’tlarn got into the other one, and with Slim and Porter acting as their belays, they rappelled into the hole. The cables were fed down the other side of the hole. There followed one of those long moments where everyone stood around, holding their breath and waiting for something to happen, as Slim attempted to maintain the correct tension on the rope as it swung back and forth. After what seemed an interminable amount of time, he felt three sharp tugs on his rope and heard Audra’s voice float up faintly to him. “On belay?”

“Belay on!” Slim shouted back.

“Haul away!”

“Hauling on!”

Slim blessed his father, Spock, and Sulu for keeping him in decent physical condition. He could feel his muscles bunching and standing out as he hauled hand over hand, pulling Audra up the hole. He watched the cable pay out on the other side as he pulled. It took him nearly ten minutes before Audra’s head appeared at the rim of the hole, then one arm came up, stretching for purchase. Slim stood on the rope as he bent to give Audra assistance, keeping it secured until he was sure she wouldn’t fall back in. Porter was hauling Nic’tlarn up as he managed to get Audra to her feet. Both of them held the ends of the cables in their hands.

The taller men, under Audra’s direction, fed the cables into the block and tackle on the other side of the hole. Both ends had a decently long tail, enough for several people to grab hold of. Once both ends were secured, she counted everyone off by fours and sent each group of eight to take an end of the rope.

“Ready?” Audra yelled. “Three—two—one— _heave!”_

It was a simple plan, in theory. The strength and weight distribution was right, and Nic’tlarn and Audra had managed to secure the cable to the hull of the _Copernicus_ through use of temporary brackets that still let the cable move back and forth, but not slip side to side. They would haul the ship up and out of the hole, and then they could either repair it or—the more likely scenario—rescue the trapped men and get them back to the _Enterprise_ posthaste. However, they were running into trouble.

“Pull, damn it!” Audra roared, struggling to haul back on the rope.

“This isn’t working, Ensign!” Jim growled from the cable opposite her.

“We’ve got to pull together,” Porter shouted. His muscles bulged beneath his shirt as he hauled.

“I’m open to ideas!” Audra snapped.

Slim felt his feet trying to slide. The problem was that no two people were pulling at the same rate. Just walking backwards like a tug-of-war game wouldn’t work; the surface was dotted with patches of lightning sand, and no one knew where they were except that they weren’t where they were right then. They would have to actually haul it out, heave-ho, but if they were all pulling at different times, it wouldn’t do anything.

Suddenly, a sweet alto voice rang out. “ _On the fifth of November back in fifty-three…the big man at Dolphin, sure he sent for me…”_

Slim turned in surprise to find Kelly sitting on the rock, singing and swaying back and forth as she did so. Without conscious thought, Slim began pulling in time to the rhythm of the song and Kelly’s swaying. The rest of the crew started pulling in unison, too, more or less, and while there were occasional slip-ups, Slim found they’d gotten the hang of it. It was a lot easier to pull than it had been when they started.

And the song was catchy. Slim caught onto the chorus and joined in at the end of the second verse. “ _With the diesel and shale, diesel and shale…down under the sea with the diesel and shale…”_

It hardly seemed like they’d been pulling for very long when Kelly fell silent. Jim turned his head. “Ensign, don’t stop now!” he called.

“That’s all there is, sir!” Kelly protested.

“Then sing it again! Or sing something else!” Jim bellowed.

Kelly looked a little bewildered for a moment, then shook her head and started in on another song. “ _He-bang, she-bang, Daddy shot a bear…”_

It wasn’t until the second chorus that Slim finally connected the pieces and realized what was going on. The songs Kelly was singing were what had always been called “shanties”—songs designed to make the men on old sailing vessels work in unison. He’d never realized before just how effective they really were. And Kelly’s voice was lovely, but she was also helping the only way she could. The choruses of the songs were pretty simple and repetitive, so by about the third verse, most of the men hauling away on the ropes were also singing along at the tops of their voices. Some were definitely not natural-born singers, but that didn’t matter. At least they were together.

The only problem, such as it was, was that the songs didn’t last very long. Slim could tell they still had a ways to go to get the shuttle out of its hole, although he could also feel that they had managed to haul it to a slightly wider part of the hole; it wasn’t resting on the rocks quite so much anymore. This time, though, Kelly didn’t let the silence last for long. She immediately started in on another song—one that the majority of the people already knew, one that had taken hold of the public imagination long ago. “ _What do you do with a drunken sailor…”_

There was a great deal of laughter among the ranks as they hauled on the cables in time to the verses. Audra and Slim both took turns chiming in with outlandish suggestions for what to do with the sailor, ranging from _give him the hair of the dog that bit him_ to _put a lobster down his britches_ to _put him to bed with the captain’s daughter._ That one earned a scowl from Jim, and Slim made a mental note to explain to him later that the “captain’s daughter” of the song was not a person, but an old name for the cat-o’-nine-tails. The song ended with everyone grinning and seeming not to notice the strain in their arms. Kelly started in on another, one that didn’t seem to have a chorus to it, about a girl who smuggled onto a sailing ship disguised as a cabin boy and wound up pregnant with the captain’s child. Out of the corner of his eye, Slim could see her holding her belly, rubbing it as if to reassure the child within that the song wasn’t about it.

She seemed momentarily stuck at the end of the song, however. Slim was about to beg her to start one of the songs she’d already sung over again when a deep voice rang out from the other end of his cable—Porter’s. “ _As I was a-walkin’ down Paradise Way…way-hey, blow the man down…”_

Slim relaxed internally and joined in with the repeated lines as Porter bellowed out…maybe not the traditional shanty, he amended as he tried not to blush at the rather bawdy lyrics. Not that sea shanties couldn’t get bawdy, just that they weren’t usually expressly about meeting prostitutes and getting venereal diseases. More than one male let out a strangled grunt of sympathetic pain when Porter sang the line _ship’s doctor got me then he got out his snips._

“Keep going, lads!” Audra called during the breath between songs.

Kelly took up with another song, then another. Slim was beginning to think they’d done it when Kelly faltered again. This time, he knew the crew wouldn’t tolerate a pause for very long. They’d been hauling for quite some time, and their strength was beginning to give out. Even as he thought it, the cable slid a little, and he dug in his heels trying to keep the shuttle from falling back in.

This time, however, it was Audra who saved them, her pure, clear soprano ringing out over them all. “ _Heel-ya-ho, boys, let her go, boys…sailing homeward for Minguelay…”_

Slim almost lost himself in the song. It was softer than most of the ones Kelly—and to some extent Porter—had been singing, more wistful, about an anticipated homecoming. But it had the right rhythm, and they pulled maybe a little longer than they had been, the coils of cable piling up behind the last man on either side.

It was a shorter song than the others, but this time, Slim had been thinking. As soon as the echoes of the last note died away, he took a deep breath and sang out the opening lines of the song he’d heard Mr. Pinkerton listening to a few times. “ _Oh, the year was 1778…how I wish I was in Sherbrook now…_ ”

The lines didn’t have equal rhythm to them, not like the other shanties, but it did at least keep everyone pulling in time. Jim caught Slim’s eye and winked, having caught on to the chorus and joined in with him. _“I was told we’d cruise the seas…for American gold, we’d fire no guns, shed no tears…now I’m a broken man on a Halifax pier…the last of Barrett’s privateers…”_

“Almost out!” Audra shouted exultantly as they reached the end of the song. Muscles were straining, arms were trembling, but Slim could feel it, too, in the tension of the cable—the shuttle would break through the top of that hole in a very few minutes. If only they could think of one more song to finish the job.

To Slim’s surprise, Jim took a deep breath before singing out. “ _Ah, for just one time…I would take the Northwest Passage…”_

It was a slower, more languid song than any they had sung before, which made sense; they were pulling more slowly, but with longer, firmer strokes. And they were all quiet, except when they joined in on the chorus. But Slim could feel the song working into the cracks of his soul.

Finally, _finally,_ just as Slim was starting to think he couldn’t pull one second more no matter how much encouragement he had, the shuttle’s bottom appeared over the edge of the hole. Jim’s voice cracked momentarily, but he rallied and kept singing as they hauled the battered, broken shuttle the rest of the way out of the hole, until it hung, swaying gently, suspended just above the hole.

“Hold tension!” Audra shouted, the second the song ended. “Lock off cables! Port, Nico, Slim, to me!”

Slim let go of the rope the instant the lock on the improvised block-and-tackle was engaged, then ran to the edge of the hole. He and Porter pushed the shuttle as Nic’tlarn and Audra pulled, shoving it towards solid ground. It was dangerous work, since they literally had to balance on the taut cables to do it, but Slim gritted his teeth and concentrated on not dying. After long, agonizing minutes, Audra shouted the all-clear and he and Porter edged their way back to solid ground.

Jim was at the side of the shuttle before Slim could do more than dash towards the end of the hole. “Bones!” he shouted, banging on the hull.

A faint banging answered him. Jim put his face as close to the faint crack of the door as he could and shouted, “Bones, Spock, open the damn door!”

Slim reached the group, grabbed his father by the back of his shirt, and hauled him back. The shirt tore away in his hands, which startled him momentarily, but he did at least manage to get Jim back from the door a nanosecond before the pneumatic hiss and creaking of metal heralded the door’s manual lock being disengaged. A moment later, the door swung open and Spock stepped out, holding a pair of feet. The feet were attached to Scotty, who had a bundle of blue fabric wrapped tightly around his head. Leo, holding his shoulders, was shirtless, having obviously used his uniform to staunch the bleeding.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” he assured Jim before another word could be said, before he had even cleared the door of the ruined shuttle, “but we need to get him back to the _Enterprise,_ and fast.”

Audra waved to Kelly, who nodded and began waddling as fast as she could towards the _Columbus._ Jim looked up at the shuttle again, indecision clear on his face. “Ensign Cayne, how many men do you need to repair this shuttle?”

“I still don’t think it can be repaired, Captain,” Audra replied.

“I believe her to be correct,” Spock said in a measured tone of voice. “The instrumentation is fused, the hull is severely damaged, and we were only able to get the door manually opened because I had been attempting it for quite some time before we felt the shuttle beginning to rise. How did you manage that, by the way?”

Audra jerked a thumb over her shoulder at the crews who were dismantling the block-and-tackles as swiftly as they’d put them up. “Hauled it.”

Spock quirked an eyebrow. “Fascinating.”

Jim rubbed his chin, then nodded. “Ensign Cayne, I’ll stay here and get the shuttles packed back up. You five take the crew of the _Copernicus_ back to the _Enterprise._ ” He put a hand on Audra’s shoulder briefly. “Well done.”

“Thank you, sir.” Audra flushed.

“See you back on the ship, Dad,” Slim said quietly as he turned towards the shuttle. Jim nodded absently.

Spock sat in the copilot’s seat this time; Nic’tlarn quietly sat next to Audra in the seat directly behind him. Porter and Slim sat behind them, with Leo in the back supporting Scotty’s head. None of them spoke as Kelly disengaged the external inertial dampeners and the shuttle lifted off.

Once they had cleared the atmosphere, however, Spock turned in his seat to look directly at Audra. “Tell me, Ensign Cayne, how did you think to use cables to pull the shuttle out of the hole?”

Audra shrugged. “We couldn’t do any work on it while it was down there, certainly not upside down like that. An’ we couldn’t cut through the bottom to get to y’all. Without the transporters, we were pretty limited in our options. An’ we knew Mr. Scott had been knocked out—tryin’ to pull the shuttle out usin’ another shuttle would’ve dragged, rolled it for sure, an’ I ain’t sure it would’ve worked. What we did, it was the only logical option.”

“It worked,” Leo said gruffly. “Little jerky at first, though. While you got your rhythm, I guess.”

Slim couldn’t help the smile that tugged at his lips. “‘Got our rhythm’ is right. Thank Kels—uh, Ensign O’Flaherty for that.”

“You’d better not have been helping to pull!” Leo warned.

“No, sir.” Kelly blushed furiously as she steered the shuttle towards the _Enterprise._ “I, uh, I started singing.”

“Singing?” Spock repeated.

“Yes, sir. Old Earth tunes called ‘sea shanties.’ There are a couple different kinds, but they all set a rhythm and…it worked.”

“Fascinating.” Spock nodded. “Well done.”

“Thank you, sir.” Kelly blushed deeper.

Nic’tlarn swallowed, twice, then leaned forward. “If I may, sir…what do you think Captain Kirk intends to do with the shuttle?”

“I would imagine,” Spock said, “that he intends to destroy it. He trusts your word that it cannot be repaired—I must agree with your assessment, as it happens—and as we have no way of removing it from the planet’s surface, and cannot leave it where it is, destruction is the only logical choice. My only question, then, would be how he planned to do it.”

“All shuttles are fitted with self-destruct mechanisms,” Porter began.

Slim shook his head. “But _Columbus_ is dead, Port, and with her the self-destruct mechanism. Unless they’ve got external detonators down there, an’ I don’t reckon they do, the only way to blow her up is to get back to the _Enterprise_ an’ use the phasers.”

Leo sighed, looking back down at Scotty. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually have a playlist for this chapter. It's not up online anywhere (yet), but I thought I would share the tracklist with you anyway--the names of the song and who sings them in the versions I have. Bolded tracks are the ones with lyrics included in this chapter.
> 
> **"Diesel & Shale" - Wolf Loescher**  
>  **"Old Joe" - The Pyrates Royale**  
>  **"What Do You Do With a Drunken Sailor" - The Pyrates Royale**  
>  "Handsome Cabin Boy" - Poor Clares  
>  **"Blow the Man Down" - The Pyrates Royale**  
>  "Sailor's Prayer" - The Pyrates Royale  
> "South Australia" - Charlie Zahm  
> "One More Day" - The Pyrates Royale  
> "Rolling Down to Old Maui" - The Pyrates Royale  
> "Shiver My Timbers" - Muppet Treasure Island  
>  **"Minguelay Boat Song" - The Pyrates Royale**  
>  **"Barrett's Privateers" - Stan Rogers**  
>  **"Northwest Passage" - Stan Rogers**


	86. To Prove Once More

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Holidays! 
> 
> Jesus, Mary, and Joseph...I am so sorry it's taken me this long to get the next chapter up. ( _Three frigging months,_ oh my _God_.) There's really no excuse for it. I hit a wall...I got about half the chapter written and then got distracted by another project (one I won't be posting until it's finished, and which I already know is no longer compliant with at least half the canon it's based on, but I don't care), and then NaNoWriMo happened and I just. Ugh. I am so, so, so freaking sorry.
> 
> I hope this chapter, (relatively) short as it is, makes up for some of the wait...

Spontaneous romantic gestures rarely went well between Jim and Leo, and when they did, it was because the romance was more in the line of foreplay than an actual attempt to be romantic. But when Leo found himself bored towards the end of Alpha shift, and also found a small pack of a paper-like fabric in his desk drawer, he decided to give it a shot.

As a young boy growing up in Georgia, his grandmother had taught him a few things. In the first place, he had learned about floriology—flower language—and could send a meaningful bouquet to the object of his affection (and had done so many times when first dating Jim; he hadn’t wanted to call it _courting,_ exactly, but he’d made a point of sending Jim flowers every now and again, because that was what a gentleman did, and also because it made Jim blush and smile so pretty). In the second place, he’d learned to darn socks and sew buttons, which was about the extent of his abilities with a needle; he could neither crochet like Jim nor sew like Chekov.

And in the third place, he had learned origami.

His grandmother hadn’t called it that. He’d found the word out later, almost in high school. But she had taught Leo, patiently and painstakingly, how to fold squares of paper into everything from simple balloons to complex statues involving multiple sheets. Most of it he’d lost over the years through disuse. But he’d had this packet of origami fabric in his desk for…pretty much since the _Enterprise’s_ recommissioning, actually…and just never used it. And now, his fingers fumbled with the first square, creased it down the middle, and began folding absently.

Halfway through his first folds, Leo realized what he was subconsciously trying to make and started to concentrate on it. He knew—in theory—how to make a variety of flowers, but the piece of fabric he had picked up was a deep, slightly shiny red, and there was only one flower he could make with it, really.

Several frustrating creases later, he impatiently shoved the now-crumpled sheet aside and reached for another red one. This time, he took a deep breath and focused from the start, pressing the folds sharply, stopping short of smoothing them with a forefinger when he unfolded the paper, and measuring almost as precisely as Spock would have. It took him a little longer than he might have liked, but he finally had a finished flower in front of him.

Leo dug through his desk drawers with a slight frown, finally emerging with a short length of thin, stiff green tubing. It had broken off of a more useful apparatus some time previously, and he’d thrown it in a drawer until he could get around to disposing of it…or finding a use for it. Worked carefully into the point of the folds, it made a perfect stem.

A glance at the chronometer showed that only fifteen minutes remained in Alpha. Smiling, Leo got to his feet and stepped out of the office.

“Dix, I’m heading up to the bridge,” he tossed over his shoulder to his nurse. “If you need me—”

“—I’ll call Geoff, because you’re clearly angling to get laid,” McCall completed, gesturing to the object in his hand.

Leo’s smile widened. “Nah. Not this time. Just some good old-fashioned Southern romance.”

“Does it come with Southern Comfort?” Chapel asked.

The nurses’ laughter followed Leo into the corridor. As he headed for the lift, he prodded at the sudden, unexpected ache in his chest and wondered where it had come from.

He’d thought, after all these years, that everyone knew how much he loved Jim, and not just for the sex. Somehow, the implication that he didn’t—that he was only interested in the physical side of things, or that there had to be alcohol involved—hurt.

Then and there, he decided to give Jim a romantic evening, as best as he could on such short notice.

Uhura looked up briefly when the doors opened to the bridge, but when Leo pressed a finger to his lips, she went back to what she was doing, hiding a grin. He could see at a glance that things were pretty quiet; Spock was bent over his station, Chekov and Sulu working silently at the helm, the viewscreen devoid of anything but stars. Jim sat in the captain’s chair, slightly sprawled out, his chin in one hand as he gazed at the viewscreen.

Silently, Leo tiptoed across the bridge until he was behind his husband’s seat. Bending over, he slipped his arms around Jim’s shoulders from behind, holding the rose in front of his face. “Hey,” he rumbled in Jim’s ear.

Jim started slightly, then craned his head around, a warm smile crinkling his brilliant blue eyes. “Hey. What’s the occasion?”

“It’s Tuesday,” Leo deadpanned. Reckoning days of the week in space was complicated, made more so by religious conventions from dozens of cultures and the constantly-changing panorama of space, so Starfleet had finally standardized time-telling methods. Weeks were counted from the first day of a mission, meaning that whatever day it was on Earth when a ship left, that day was considered the first day of the shipboard standard week. The governing bodies of the representative religions had decided which day of a standard week was to be set aside for holy day observances, and that was that. Most captains simply referred to the days of the week that way—the first day, the second day, and so on—but people often used the traditional names for the days of the week as well.

“Did you get this from the—” Jim began, turning back to the rose, then took it in his fingers and brought it closer to his face. “Where _did_ you get this?”

Leo smiled again. “Made it.”

Jim looked up at Leo with a startled expression on his face. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” Leo said. “My grandmother taught me.”

“This is the grandmother who taught you flower language?”

“That would be the grandmother.”

Jim twirled the rose for a moment. “Remind me what a single red rose means?”

“Red rose means love,” Leo said, leaning over and dropping his voice so that his words fell in Jim’s ear and Jim’s ear alone. “A single rose on the first date means ‘love at first sight,’ but after a long time together, it means ‘I still love you.’”

Jim’s face turned pink, and he smiled a little shyly up at Leo. “I still love you, too, Bones.”

“Good. Then could I possibly encourage you to come for a walk with me?”

Jim didn’t even look at the chronometer, which made Leo’s heart beat just a bit faster as his husband got to his feet. “Mr. Spock, I assume you can handle matters for the remainder of shift?”

“Admirably, Captain.” Spock said it without a change in expression, yet Leo detected the faintest hint of a smile in his voice.

“Then you have the conn.” Slipping his hand into Leo’s, Jim headed for the lift.

As soon as they were on a main corridor, Leo let go of Jim’s hand, only to hold out his arm in the formal, courtly gesture he’d been taught in preparation for countless debutante balls as a young man. Traditional gender roles were by and large a thing of the past, but there had never been any doubt in anyone’s mind when he was growing up that Leonard McCoy was an alpha. He’d been taught to lead, to escort, to court and flatter, and if he was honest with himself, that had been one of the fault lines running through his and Jocelyn’s marriage, because Jocelyn had an alpha personality, too. The difference was that Leo had tried to make theirs an equal partnership, whereas she had wanted to be in charge and in command. In the end, their marriage hadn’t been able to stand the strain. Losing Joanna had simply been the final nail in the coffin.

With Jim, though, it was different. Despite his air of command, his easy confidence, Jim was very much a more submissive personality, and more than that, he’d never had anyone pay him the thousand little courtesies Southern men had practiced for centuries. Granted, neither had most of the people on the ship. The _Enterprise_ was something of a microcosm of the Federation, so the crew came from all over. Even though they were mostly human, perhaps a third had been raised on colonies on other planets; of the ones raised on Earth, no more than half had grown up in the United States. Statistically speaking, probably no more than forty or so could claim to be from the South, and not all of them had been raised in the same traditions.

That never stopped Leo from paying Jim every courtesy he could. He liked seeing the look on Jim’s face when he did it, and more than that, he enjoyed the way it made both of them feel.

Blushing and smiling shyly, Jim rested his hand on top of Leo’s and let himself be led down the hallways. Leo kept in mind that the last time they had ambled without any particular destination had been Jim’s birthday, and considering the way that had ended, maybe they didn’t want to do that again. Instead, he moved slowly but with a purpose.

“Where are we going?” Jim asked finally, and it was clear from his tone of voice, even though he was smiling, that his thoughts were along the same lines as Leo’s.

“I thought we’d go up to the observation deck,” Leo answered, smiling in reply. “Haven’t gone up there to just look at the stars in a long time.”

Jim twirled the rose in his fingers. “Flowers, a leisurely walk, and now looking at the stars? We’re being quite the romantic tonight, Dr. McCoy.”

“Are you objecting?”

“I did not say that.”

“Good.” Leo brought Jim’s hand up to his lips and kissed the back of it lightly. “I don’t think we’ve had a purely romantic day since…our tenth anniversary.”

Jim’s face went thoughtful for a moment. “Damn, you’re right. And that’s been…what, a year and a half?”

“Close to it. You realize Slim’s gonna be seventeen in less than a month?”

“No, he isn’t.” Jim stopped and stared at Leo.

“Two weeks, Jim,” Leo said gently. “ _Exactly_ two weeks.”

“Jesus. That’s…we need to do something for him. Seventeen, that’s something special…” Jim’s voice trailed away.

Leo tugged Jim to get him moving again, keeping his voice as light as possible. “I remember my seventeenth. Homecoming weekend, senior year of high school. Best birthday present I ever got was scoring the winning touchdown.”

Jim actually laughed. “How have I known you almost twenty years and I never knew you played football in high school?”

Leo couldn’t help but blush. “Uh, yeah. I was a tight end.”

“Now that I can see,” Jim teased. “I never played football in high school. I was the antithesis of a jock.”

Now it was Leo’s turn to laugh. “Don’t tell me you were in the chess club.”

“Worse. Quiz Bowl team.” Jim laughed, too. “Captained us to third place at the interplanetary level when I was sixteen.”

“Seriously, we’ve never had this conversation?”

“Mm, when we first met, I think we both preferred to put the past behind us. And it just…never occurred to us.”

Leo led Jim into the lift and signaled for the appropriate floor. “So. Your seventeenth birthday?”

Jim squirmed uncomfortably. “Uh. I don’t remember it too well, actually. I, uh, I’d graduated high school early, the month before—what should’ve been halfway through my junior year—and Mom was out of town on work, so I hopped on my bike and went clubbing. Somewhere around my third club and fifth drink, I lost track of the evening. Woke up with the hangover from hell in an apartment two towns over, with not a single stitch of my clothing in sight.”

“Oh, Jesus, Jim.” Leo covered his eyes with a hand.

“Um, yeah. We’re not gonna talk about that.” Jim leaned into Leo as the lift disgorged them on the observation deck.

Although Leo definitely _would_ have liked to talk about that—he always worried when Jim mentioned things like that, even if they were long since past—he bowed to his husband’s wishes. Instead, he laced his fingers through Jim’s and led him into the room.

The one thing Leo did like about space, although he’d never admit it out loud, was the perpetual starlight. As long as they weren’t too close to one, a walk around the observation deck was like taking a walk across a field on a moonless night back on Earth—something he and Jim had done often enough in the early days of their relationship, when they were still cadets and the _Enterprise_ hadn’t even been christened yet. The lighting was kept as low as possible, for maximum visibility with minimum interference, and it was one of the two most popular places for young lovers to take walks, the other being the botanical gardens. In fact, Leo would never have suggested this if he hadn’t known that it was one of Slim’s days to work in Engineering; it meant there was no risk that, he and Cayne both being off, they would be up on the deck.

Not, he had to admit, that they ever _did_ anything; he didn’t even think they were officially together. But their friendship was close, at least as close as Jim and Leo’s had been before they were officially together, and he knew it upset Jim a little, seeing the physical evidence that their son wasn’t a little boy anymore. Since tonight was about romance and making Jim happy, Leo was glad he didn’t have to run the risk of running into them.

“It’s beautiful tonight,” Jim murmured, his eyes fixed on the stars.

Leo stared at Jim, smiling fondly at the glow on his face, the sparkle in his eyes. “Yeah,” he agreed, and he wasn’t only talking about the starlight.

They walked slowly around the edge of the room, looking up at the stars. When they’d first gone into deep space, Jim had amused Leo by making up new constellations and trying to convince him they were legitimate scientific names. Over the years, they had started instead to simply come up and _be._ It was someplace peaceful, and although the vastness of space still terrified Leo, he had to admit that the view outside the Observation Deck did not look like disease, danger, _or_ darkness.

After a moment, he paused, letting Jim get a little ahead of him. The stars were a little closer tonight than usual—not enough to be a problem, but enough that the nearest ones appeared about the size of a man’s fist—and their light played over Jim’s face, highlighting his cheekbones, the curve of his jaw, the shape of his nose. With his golden hair, grown slightly longer than Starfleet generally preferred for their captains, he looked like he was made of starstuff himself.

Jim stopped as he realized that Leo’s hold on his hand was no more than the hook of their fingertips catching on one another, then looked back, his eyebrows lifted slightly and his smile beginning to slip. “Bones?”

Leo smiled and took a step closer, catching Jim’s hand tightly and drawing him closer. “Dance with me, Jim?”

Jim laughed, although he looked a little flustered. “There’s no music.”

“I’ll make the music,” Leo promised, settling his hand on his husband’s hip and shifting his hand to the proper ballroom frame. “Do you trust me?”

“You know I do, Bones.” Jim’s voice was so soft as to barely be audible, but laden with sincerity.

Leo felt the little flutter in his chest he always did when Jim said something like that. He pulled Jim a little closer and kissed the tip of his nose, then began leading him in a basic waltz. As they danced, he hummed, just loud enough for the two of them to hear, even if there had been anybody else in the room. Jim smiled up at him, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners, but it wasn’t hard to notice that he was more amused than enchanted, nor that there wasn’t a lot of passion in their dance—just the two of them dancing in kind of a silly fashion.

Fortunately, Leo had a plan. Sort of. As much as one could have a plan for something spontaneous. Reaching the end of the phrase as he lifted his arm to spin Jim, he said quickly, “Computer, play file Seven-India-India-Oscar-Sierra-Sierra-Juliett-Two-Uniform-Uniform-Eight. Repeat twice.”

As his hand reconnected with Jim and he led him smoothly into the beginning of the next bar, a high, lilting flute playing the melody Leo had just been humming. Jim’s eyes widened, especially as Leo promptly broadened his steps without changing tempo, smoothing out his gait and sweeping Jim around the floor. Jim followed him like he always did on the dance floor, responding to him as though they were an extension of one another…but when the words kicked in, he faltered, and probably would have fallen if Leo hadn’t caught him and gently kept him on his feet and on the beat until he got his feet under himself once more.

_Love, it seems, made flying dreams so hearts could soar…_

It was one of Leo’s favorite songs from his childhood, the end theme to a movie he’d watched over and over again, loving the animation, the storyline, and the beautiful music, even though all of his friends mocked him for liking such antiquated things. He began singing along, softly, just for Jim, and although he knew his voice wasn’t anything to write home about, he hoped the feeling in it would make up for that.

From the way Jim trembled in his arms, it did. He slowly got closer, stepping closer than proper frame dictated, until by the time the song wrapped itself up and started over, he was close against Leo’s chest, feeling nearly boneless.

“Jim?” Leo murmured softly, shortening his steps until he was merely rotating in a circle with Jim in his arms.

“I love you so much,” Jim replied, just as softly. His hand slid off Leo’s shoulder to rest on his chest, and then he let go of Leo’s hand to place his other hand there as well. Leo brought his now-free hand around to settle between Jim’s shoulder blades. “Where did you find this song? How long have you been planning this?”

“Didn’t really,” Leo admitted. “Just got bored and felt spontaneous. And the song’s from an old movie. _The Secret of N.I.M.H._ From the late twentieth century sometime. It’s always been a favorite of mine.”

“I’ve never seen it. Never even heard of it. But if the music’s all like this, I’d love to.”

Leo didn’t say anything, merely pulled Jim as close as he could. But when the second play-through of the song ended, he said abruptly, “Computer, end playback.”

The silence was nearly deafening. Leo didn’t give Jim time to wonder what he was up to before he tugged him towards the lift. “C’mon, darlin’.”

Jim came willingly enough. With their arms about one another’s waists, they headed back to their quarters, only to find Slim coming from the other direction. The boy—almost a young man, really—stopped with a start at the sight of them. “Oh—hey, Dad, Pa.”

“Hey, Slim.” Jim smiled at his son. “What are you up to?”

“Nothin’, really,” Slim answered. “Just comin’ off shift—we had some stuff that we had to take care of that ran over a little. What are y’all up to?”

Leo winked at Slim. “We’re going to watch a movie. Want to join us?”

Slim hesitated for no more than a second. “If you’re sure I won’t be in the way.”

“We’re positive,” Leo said, turning in time to catch the light in his husband’s brilliant blue eyes.

It made his heart sing.

Nic’tlarn and Addie were sitting on the floor, working on the next iteration of Addie’s puzzle box, when they entered the room. A very pregnant O’Flaherty sat in an armchair watching them, but as soon as she saw them, she tried to struggle to her feet.

“No, it’s okay, O’Flaherty,” Jim said quickly, holding up a hand.

“Daddy! Papa! Slim!” Addie dropped the last piece of her box and jumped to her feet before running to hug her brother. Slim laughed and hugged her back.

“We were getting ready to watch a movie,” Leo told the two newlyweds.

Jim squeezed Leo’s waist briefly, then added, “Want to join us? It ought to be a good one.”

Nic’tlarn hesitated. O’Flaherty didn’t. “We’d love to, Captain. Thank you.”

Nic’tlarn sat on the arm of O’Flaherty’s chair, xyr arm around her shoulder. Jim and Leo curled up together on the sofa, and Slim sat on the floor, where Addie promptly crawled into his lap. Leo picked up the control for the holovid system and scrolled rapidly through the menu until he found the movie he wanted then pushed play and sat back. As Jerry Goldsmith’s gorgeous orchestrations washed over them, he pulled his husband half-onto his lap, feeling him melt against him.

So it wasn’t the night of passionate, fiery romance of their youths. So what? This, Leo thought in contentment, was the most love-filled room he’d been in in a long time. And he was going to enjoy every second of it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Technically I've started the next chapter, and I more or less know what will happen. And I have fragments of the chapter after that written...and I even know where the chapter after that will go! Fingers crossed I can get back on a regular update schedule. See you all next week!


	87. Fly Me to the Moon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to my friend Moni, who is not reading this fic (as far as I know) but who nevertheless aided and abetted me by getting excited and telling me I should absolutely do it when inspiration struck suddenly and I begged the people at the table to stop me from writing elevator sex in a public place.
> 
> Oh...yeah...there's sex in this chapter.

Jim was lost the minute Bones smiled at him.

It had been that way more or less from the day they’d met; Bones had given him that crooked half-smile and he’d fallen, hard and fast and painfully. When he smiled, Jim would do anything he wanted, without hesitation or thought. He fell a little more in love with his husband every time his lips quirked upwards.

He was doing it now, the slow, slightly impish smile paired with a heavy-lidded gaze that got Jim flushed and made him hot and bothered. The fact that he was doing it across the bridge _definitely_ didn’t help.

“Are you all right, Captain?” Uhura asked, a suspicious innocence in her voice.

“Fine, Lieutenant,” Jim said, managing to sound _almost_ completely fine.

Bones gave a low chuckle, the sound sending shivers down Jim’s spine. Oh, hell. Bones was deliberately seducing him—in front of the entire bridge crew—and, from the signals he was getting from his groin, it was working, _really_ well. He tried his hardest not to squirm.

Spock’s concerned voice told him he hadn’t managed it. “Are you certain, Captain? You appear to be in some distress.”

“I’m fine, Spock,” Jim said again. He knew he sounded much less convincing this time, but he was determined to make it through the end of his shift.

“You do not sound ‘fine,’” Spock said. “I observe that you are unusually flushed, and you appear to be uncomfortable. Certainly you do not seem able to keep still.”

Sulu turned from the helm with a gradually spreading grin on his face, and Jim could see the back of Chekov’s ears turning bright red. Uhura was coughing violently, and even Scotty, paying a brief visit to the bridge, seemed to be enjoying Jim’s discomfort. Bones laughed again, the sound soft and low and warm. Jim had to close his eyes momentarily before he could answer. “Spock, I’m _fine.”_

“I would venture to say,” Spock persisted, “that it might be a good idea if you were to return to your quarters. Perhaps a rest would do you good.”

“I would venture to agree, Spock,” Bones said, a silky texture to his voice. “Come on, Jim. I’ll take care of you.”

“Yeah,” Jim said, a little breathlessly. “I’ll bet you will.”

He could hear Sulu, Uhura, and Scotty snickering as he headed towards the lift, Bones on his heels.

Scarcely had the doors closed behind them when Bones slid his arms around Jim from behind, pulling him close. “Hey,” he rumbled in Jim’s ear.

Jim’s breath caught in his throat. “Hey,” he gasped.

“Have I ever told you how good you look when you get all flustered like this?” Bones said, letting the Southern accent slip into his tones. “Knowin’ it’s me who got you this way?”

“Jesus, Bones,” Jim said weakly. His pants were suddenly uncomfortably tight. “You keep this up and I’m not gonna make it out of the lift, let alone back to quarters.”

“Computer, halt lift,” Bones said with sudden authority.

The lift jarred to a stop. Bones reached over Jim’s head and flipped the large red lever of the maintenance switch, effectively preventing anyone outside the lift from calling it to another floor. The lights dimmed slightly, conserving power since the lift was not operational at the moment, but still giving off enough light that someone who was doing work could see what they were doing…and so that anyone trapped within it could see who they were trapped with.

Something fluttered in Jim’s chest as he realized what Bones had in mind. “Bones!”

“Yes?” Bones practically purred, his arms slipping around Jim’s waist and toying with the hem of his shirt.

“Bones…holy shit…we can’t—”

“C’mon, darlin’, where’s your sense of adventure?”

“I must’ve left it in my—” Jim broke off with a gasp as Bones’ hand dipped into the front of his waistband. “Aaah! In my other pants!”

Bones pulled back, but didn’t let go of Jim. “If you want me to stop…”

God help him, but Jim didn’t. Still, he tried to hang onto the rational part of his brain. “This is the only lift to the bridge,” he said weakly.

“And there are three hours left in Alpha,” Bones pointed out. “No one needs to go up there, no one needs to come down.” He kissed the back of Jim’s neck.

Jim felt his knees buckle and knew he was done for. Bones caught him, keeping him up, as Jim put up one last token protest. “We don’t…have anything…”

Bones chuckled. One of his hands withdrew from around Jim, then reappeared a moment later holding a travel-sized packet of lube between two fingers. “You really think I’d start somethin’ like this if I wasn’t prepared?”

“No,” Jim said, surrendering at last to the moment. “Of course not, Bones. I trust you.”

Bones nuzzled into Jim’s neck. “I love you,” he whispered.

“I love you, too,” Jim murmured.

Just like that, Bones’ hands were at Jim’s waist again, toying with the fly. Jim leaned his head back on Bones’ shoulder, biting his lips to keep from crying out as Bones palmed his erection through the fabric. Ordinarily he wouldn’t be so restrained, but the small part of his brain that still wasn’t sure about this despite having agreed to give in couldn’t currently remember if the lifts were soundproofed or not.

“It’s all right,” Bones said gently, his capable hands still on the move. “No one will be able to hear us. It’s just you an’ me, darlin’.”

“How do you always know?” Jim managed to ask as Bones found one of his sensitive areas.

Bones’ dark, seductive chuckle sent shivers down Jim’s spine. “I know you.”

Jim felt warmth spread through him at Bones’ words. Then his husband’s hand slipped into his waistband again, letting him know that there would be no more words for the time being.

They had often made jokes about Bones’ magic touch, but there was an element of seriousness to them, at least on Jim’s part; he had no idea sometimes how Bones managed to get his clothes off so quickly. This was one of those times. Almost before he knew what was going on, his trousers and underwear were down around his ankles and probably hopelessly tangled in his socks and boots. If Bones hadn’t been holding him up, he would have overbalanced and fallen in an undignified heap on the ground. The fact that Bones was still fully clothed was somehow simultaneously infuriating and a massive turn-on.

Jim let out a soft moan as one of Bones’ hands traveled up under his shirt, caressing his abdomen lightly, and the other reached between his legs to fondle his balls. Bones’ cock was straining at the inside of his trousers, and Jim wondered if he could manage to reach back and free it without falling out of Bones’ embrace. The sudden shift of Bones’ hand sent that thought right out of his mind.

“Bones!” he gasped.

“Hands against the wall, Jim,” Bones ordered, his hands shifting to Jim’s hips and his voice taking on a rough quality. “Spread your legs out. C’mon.”

Still feeling a little breathless, Jim complied. Bones’ hands on his waist kept him steady as he leaned forward, bracing himself against the side of the lift, and tried his best to spread his legs far enough to support him. The pants at his ankles made it difficult, though, and he started to kick out of them, only to be stopped by a firm hand between his shoulder blades.

“I’m gonna—” Jim began.

“I won’t let you fall, darlin’. Stay put.”

The tone was one Jim wouldn’t dream of disobeying. He bowed his head and bent his knees slightly, hoping that he wouldn’t completely disgrace himself—or hurt himself or Bones. Bones would be able to fix whatever went wrong, but the idea of facing any of the Med Bay staff and knowing they knew how their captain had been injured made him break out in a full-body flush.

Bones’ hands gently eased off of Jim, and he stayed where he was, forcing himself to breathe as he heard the rustling sounds behind him, indicating that Bones was removing his clothing. A moment later, one arm encircled his waist again. Jim gasped as a lube-slicked finger pressed against his entrance. He hadn’t even heard Bones opening the packet.

“God, Jim, you’re beautiful,” Bones murmured, pressing a kiss to Jim’s neck. “So fucking beautiful.”

“Bones,” Jim managed, then let out a strangled cry as Bones added a second finger. Those skillful fingers worked him open, twisting, scissoring, stretching the muscle out to prepare the way for Bones to enter him. One knuckle brushed Jim’s prostate and he saw stars in the confines of the lift. Astonishingly, considering how little they had actually done, he could feel his orgasm coiling in his gut and realized that he was incredibly close.

Almost before the thought had left his brain, Bones’ hand wrapped tightly around the base of Jim’s cock. “Not yet,” he said in Jim’s ear, his voice a low growl. “You’ll come when I tell you to.”

Jim needed this. Needed to be—not _restrained,_ exactly, the thought of being bound still made him panicky, although not nearly as bad as before he’d told Bones about his nightmares, Bones had been right about that. But he needed to be held, to be controlled, to let someone else take charge…more, to _trust_ someone else to take charge. It wasn’t something he’d ever been able to do with any of his other sexual partners, even the men he’d bottomed for over the years. There was more than one reason he’d never had more than one-night stands before meeting Bones. He’d never been able to articulate what he needed, and the few times he’d tried, the guys he was with had assumed he was into BDSM and offered to tie him down or get out the whips, which had sent his brain into a spiral of panic.

Bones understood. He always had, from the very beginning. Those strong, work-roughened hands of his always seemed to know exactly what Jim needed, from a gentle caress of the cheek to a slap upside the head. Jim had never needed to try to explain what he needed; he would ask sometimes, but if he didn’t ask, Bones always knew anyway and gave it to him. More importantly, he knew how far was too far. Jim wouldn’t be punished if he came before Bones told him to, but damned if he wouldn’t try to hold off.

A third finger slipped inside of Jim, then a fourth. For one wild moment, he thought Bones was going to shove his entire hand inside of Jim, but then rationality prevailed. That wasn’t something either one of them was really into; they’d tried it once, but they’d also had a lot more lube involved than they had to work with at the moment. This was about patient preparation, Bones gently stretching Jim’s hole out so that he could enter him without pain. The whole time, Bones pressed light kisses to Jim’s neck and jaw, murmuring in his ear about how beautiful he was, how good he felt.

Jim trembled with the effort of holding back his orgasm. He couldn’t help but cry out softly when Bones withdrew his fingers gently, but a moment later, he felt the pressure of Bones’ cock teasing at his entrance. Bones feinted twice, then suddenly slid inside of Jim with a single swift, smooth movement.

“Bones,” Jim moaned, closing his eyes and letting his head drop down.

“Easy, darlin’.” Bones wrapped his arms around Jim, one hand pressed to his sternum, the other still circling his cock. They stayed that way for a long moment, Jim bracing himself against the wall, Bones flush against his back and ass, filling him and making him feel loved and cherished.

Then Bones moved his hips, and the universe tilted on its axis.

Jim knew he wouldn’t last very long. No matter how hard he tried, the minute Bones let go of his shaft, he was going to explode. But the part of his brain that knew that was a mere whisper compared with the shout that resonated through his body, the way his nerves hummed and sang as Bones moved inside him. Bones held him tightly, securely, his hips snapping forward and pulling back, their bodies making a wet smacking noise as they slapped together. Jim’s arms trembled with the effort of keeping himself upright.

A whimper escaped his throat. His balls had drawn up close to his body, his body was begging for release, but with Bones’ hand still tight at the base of his cock, he couldn’t come, no matter how badly he wanted to.

“Let me hear you,” Bones whispered in his ear, shifting his angle slightly so that the head of his cock pressed right against Jim’s prostate and made him cry out again. “Go on, Jim…tell me what you want. Say it for me.”

“Bones… _please…_ ” Jim’s voice was high, desperate and needy, trembling with emotion. “I need to… _please…_ ”

Bones’ hand eased off. “Good boy,” he purred.

Those two words were all it took. Jim came so hard his vision went white and he nearly sagged to the ground—likely would have, were it not for Bones holding him up. For long moments, he was unaware of anything around him, aware only of the seed spilling forth from his cock, until he wondered if there was a single drop left in his body.

Bones wasn’t done. How he’d held off on his own release, Jim had no idea, but as his dick gave a final spurt and began to soften, Bones pulled him back from the wall and drew him across the lift. Jim leaned back against Bones’ firm chest, leaning his head back on his husband’s shoulder, as Bones braced his own back against the opposite side of the lift and began thrusting in earnest. Still spent from his release, every inch of skin on fire and tingling with oversensitivity, Jim couldn’t do more than clutch Bones’ arms and let out soft, whimpering cries as Bones drove into him.

“That’s my boy,” he crooned in Jim’s ear, running his fingers lightly over Jim’s abdomen under his shirt. “Such a good boy for me…”

“Bones,” Jim gasped, closing his eyes and clenching around Bones’ shaft.

He lost all sense of time, but it couldn’t have been very long before he felt Bones suddenly stiffen. A moment later, something hot and wet erupted inside of Jim, and then it was Bones’ release filling him, spilling out of his hole, and both of them moaned with pleasure.

Bones rode out the aftershocks of his orgasm. At last, it was over, leaving both of them gasping for breath and leaning heavily against the wall of the lift. Jim couldn’t help but whimper again as Bones slid out of him, and he was thankful Bones didn’t let him go, merely continued to hold him. They stood like that for long moments, hearing the rasp of their breathing and feeling the tremors still coursing through Jim’s body.

Finally, Bones reached for the bag Jim hadn’t even realized he was carrying and came out with a box of wet wipes. Wordlessly, he cleaned Jim up, being especially gentle and tender with him, then cleaned himself before helping Jim back into his pants and easing him against the wall.

“Stay there,” he said, a little hoarsely.

Since Jim still wasn’t sure he could move on his own, he merely nodded. Bones hadn’t put his own clothing back on—and he was completely naked, which was somewhat unfair—but it didn’t seem to bother him as he used the rest of the wet wipes to wipe down the walls of the lift. Jim wondered how he had enough energy left for the blush he could feel rising in his cheeks.

At last, Bones tossed the last of the wipes back into the box, then pulled his clothes back on. He winced slightly as he pulled his pants up.

“You okay?” Jim asked, hearing the roughness in his own voice.

“Little overstimulated,” Bones admitted sheepishly. “That’s…a lot more intense than we’ve done in a long time.” He wrapped one arm around Jim’s waist, pulling him close, then reached up and flipped the maintenance switch back up. The lights resumed full power and the lift hummed to life around them as Bones seized the control handle. “Deck five.”

“Now what?” Jim murmured. His legs still felt like jelly.

Bones kissed the top of his head. “Now we do exactly what I told Spock we were going to do before. We go back to quarters, and I take care of you.”

Jim couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up in his throat. “You just did. It almost killed me. Holy shit, Bones, if I ever call you ‘old man’ again…”

“You haven’t in years, darlin’. I don’t figure you’re going to start now.”

The lift stopped smoothly, the doors swooshing open. Jim took a step forward, only to discover that he was still too wrung-out to walk properly. Bones caught him before he collapsed, then scooped him up in a bridal carry. Unable to protest, Jim surrendered to the moment and lay his head on Bones’ shoulder as they headed down the corridor.

“Hope Nic’tlarn and O’Flaherty aren’t in there with Addie,” he murmured.

“They’re not,” Bones assured him. “They’re in the rec room. I checked before I came up to the bridge.”

Jim didn’t say anything until they were in their quarters. Bones lay him gently on the bed, got his uniform off of him, stripped down himself, and then crawled into bed next to him, taking him in his arms. Jim snuggled close to him and murmured, “You really did plan this out.”

“Yeah,” Bones admitted. “Last week when we had our romantic date…I wanted to do that because there’s not enough romance in your life, darlin’. But ever since then, I’ve been thinkin’ about this. Thinkin’ about you.”

“You were thinking about fucking me senseless in a lift?”

“Well…not exactly. But I was thinking of doing something different. I mean, we’ve had sex everywhere else on this damned tin can.” Bones smiled and kissed the end of Jim’s nose. “Seriously, Jim. Did I hurt you?”

“No,” Jim said honestly. “That was…Bones, that was amazing. I needed that.”

“So did I,” Bones confessed. He cuddled Jim closer. “I love you, Jim.”

“I love you, too, Bones.” Jim lay his head on Bones’ chest. “You realize it’s still early, right? Slim will be worried when we don’t turn up for dinner.”

Bones laughed. “Spock will tell him he sent you for a rest. Chekov will blush and Sulu and Uhura will start snickering and Slim will turn a brighter red than Chekov and not come back up here until he absolutely has to. He’ll be all right.”

Jim couldn’t help but laugh, too. “I still can’t believe you did that.”

“Which part?”

“Well, the part in the lift. It’s not like it’s the first time you’ve seduced me on duty.”

“First time in a long time, though. I really do try to wait as much as I can.”

Jim looked up. “So what was different about today?”

Bones didn’t blink. “It’s Tuesday.”

“That was your excuse for romancing me last week.”

“And it’s my excuse for seducing you this week.” Bones stroked Jim’s cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Do you really think I need a reason to love you, Jim? After all these years, do you still think there has to be something brewing, some big milestone or event on the horizon, for me to want to throw you down on the bed and have my way with you?”

It should not have been possible for Jim to start getting hard again, not so soon after coming as hard as he had in the lift, but his cock apparently hadn’t gotten that memo, because it was definitely stirring again. “Don’t say things you don’t intend to follow up on,” he muttered.

Bones’s dark, husky laugh made Jim’s whole body tingle again. “What makes you think I don’t?”


	88. A Piece of the Action

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is based on the episode of the same name by David P. Harmon and Gene L. Coon.
> 
> And boy howdy, did I have fun writing it.

It was the first time since arriving on the _Enterprise_ that nobody had mentioned his birthday, and Slim was surprised that he was more than okay with that.

He wasn’t in Engineering that day, so he wore his soft, comfortable grey sweater and a pair of khakis. Rather than isolate himself in quarters, he decided to take his practice tests to the rec room and sit with a cup of tea to study. A few people stopped to say hello in passing, but for the most part, he was as much a part of the room as the furniture.

It was nice, he had to admit. He felt…comfortable on the ship, with the crew. In his heart of hearts, he was only reconciled to leaving her in a year or so for the Academy because he knew he was going to request an assignment onboard her after graduation. She was home, the first he’d ever known, and she was his family. It was why he wasn’t trying to get into the Academy at seventeen like so many people seemed to have expected him to do. He wasn’t ready. Not academically—he knew he could probably hold his own on the tests—but emotionally.

The morning idled on and he was just thinking about lunch when the comm unit on the wall next to him crackled to life. “Bridge to Slim Kirk.”

At the sound of Uhura’s voice, Slim started, dropping his stylus, then fumbled to retrieve it as he reached for the controls. “Slim here.”

“Captain Kirk requests you join him in the Transporter Room at once.”

“Copy that. Kirk out.” The “Kirk” came out without conscious thought, and Slim blushed hotly, wondering if he was allowed to use his own surname or if he should have stuck with “Slim.” He didn’t give himself too much time to think, though. Instead, he shoved his belongings into his bag and hurried up to the Transporter Room.

The only person in the room when Slim arrived was Lieutenant Kyle, the senior transporter tech, who looked up with a smile. “Morning, Slim. Seeing the captain off?”

“I don’t know why I’m here,” Slim admitted. “He asked me to meet him.”

“Hmm.” Kyle pursed his lips and tilted his head to one side. “How old are you now?”

“Seventeen. Today, actually.”

“Wonder if—” Kyle broke off as the door slid open.

Jim, Spock, and Leo came into the room, obviously at the end of a discussion of some kind. When he saw Slim, however, Jim stopped and smiled. “Hey, Slim.”

“Hey, Dad.” Slim smiled in reply. “What’s up?”

“We’re currently in orbit over Dana Iotia II,” Jim said, gesturing at the small viewscreen over Slim’s shoulder. Slim turned to see the innocuous-looking planet revolving peacefully. “Officially, this is the first Federation visit to the planet.”

“Officially?” Slim repeated.

Jim smiled. “Caught that, did you? Yeah, the U.S.S. _Horizon_ made a visit to the planet in 2168.”

From the way Spock lifted his eyebrows slightly, and the tilt to Jim’s head, Slim guessed he was being tested somehow. He took a moment to think over the words, then said slowly, “That was in the very early days of the Federation—while the kinks in the system were still being worked out. The Prime Directive wasn’t enacted until 2185. Was there—” he hesitated—“contamination?”

“Probably,” Jim admitted. “We picked up a communication from the _Horizon_ that’s been floating around waiting for a recipient—they only had standard radio communication at the time—saying that they had left something behind and needed someone to go back and check on the planet.”

“It is surely too much to hope that the culture did not grow around whatever was left behind,” Spock said placidly. “We can only hope that it was not something with which the culture was unprepared to deal.”

Slim glanced at the planet again. “Mm, appearance of the atmosphere is consistent with an industrialized society. Not quite as bad as—I mean, it’s not mid-twentieth century-level pollution, but…I’d say early twentieth-century. No later than 1939.”

“Which means?” Jim prompted.

“Radio communication, but nothing more advanced than that. Certainly shouldn’t know about interstellar travel, except they obviously do. Still, whatever the contaminant was, it obviously wasn’t technology.”

“Not necessarily,” Spock told him. “The _Horizon_ reported that the society was at the cusp of industrialization.”

“The first Industrial Revolution on Earth took place from approximately 1760 to somewhere between 1820 and 1840,” Slim countered. “The phrase ‘the cusp of industrialization’ could apply to any point within that time. And there’s no reason to assume that things would develop at exactly the same pace on any given planet, especially if it revolves around its sun at a rate faster than one standard year. This society still could have developed naturally, technologically speaking. Sir.”

Leo burst out laughing. Jim grinned broadly. “Spoken like a true Starfleet officer. Which is why we’ve brought you this.”

Slim frowned, a little puzzled, as Leo held out a tricorder. For the first time, he noticed his stepfather was carrying two. “What do you mean?”

“A man on the planet by the name of Bela Okmyx—who refers to himself as ‘the Boss,’ God alone knows why—asked us to come down,” Leo explained, still holding out the tricorder with a slight wiggle. “Didn’t seem to understand most of what we said, but he seemed friendly enough. Said he’d send someone to meet us.”

“We want you to come, Slim,” Jim said gently.

Slim started. “Me?”

Spock gave a crisp nod. “It will be, perhaps, to your advantage to accompany us. You will gain invaluable experience. And I believe it has been quite some time since you were involved, planetside, in any given away mission.”

Hesitantly, Slim took the tricorder. “I thought—”

“Ordinarily, we wouldn’t allow this,” Jim admitted. “But, honestly, the Prime Directive has already been violated—even though it was done before the Prime Directive was in effect. We can’t very well make things worse. And, after all, it _is_ your birthday.” He grinned and rumpled Slim’s hair. “Happy birthday, son.”

“Thanks, Dad.” Slim ducked and grinned. “I mean—thank you, Captain.”

Jim laughed and swatted Slim’s rear, shooing him towards the platform.

Once they were all in position, Jim nodded to Kyle. “All right, Mr. Kyle. Beam us down.”

“Aye, Captain.” Kyle slid up the appropriate toggle.

The ship disappeared around them, and the four reappeared in the middle of a public square. Tall buildings stretched overhead, made of brick and glass, all in a very old-fashioned style that was, as Slim had said, reminiscent of the early twentieth century on Earth. Most of the men wore suits with short jackets and straight trousers; the women wore dresses with low waistlines and hems above the knees, their foreheads hidden by hats pulled low over the eyes. Every single adult marching by was armed with some sort of firearm. There were no children in sight.

Slim shielded his eyes, looking up at the nearest building. "If I didn't know better, I'd swear this was something you made up for my benefit," he said, mostly to himself.

His father looked at him, eyebrows raised. "What do you mean by that?"

"This whole set-up--" Slim waved a hand. "Feels like something out of 'The Untouchables.'"

"The what?" Spock and Jim said in unison.

Before Slim could respond, a sharp voice from behind them said, "Okay, you four. Let's see you petrify."

Slim and the officers turned to find themselves confronted by two men holding what Slim had no trouble identifying as submachine guns. The feeling of being trapped in a TV show intensified as he took in the outfits--pinstripe suits with narrow lapels, fedoras, and one of the men had a cigar clamped between his teeth.

"Would you mind clarifying your statement, please?" Spock asked.

Slim shot him an incredulous look as the man without the cigar said, "I want to see you turn to stone. Put your hands up over your head--or you ain't gonna have no head to put your hands over."

Slim immediately complied. The three officers did the same. The cigarless man kept his gun on them while the other took their phasers and communicators, as well as the tricorders Leo and Slim were both carrying. Still without speaking, he displayed what he'd taken.

The man without the cigar took one of the phasers and studied it, scowling. "What's this?"

"Be very careful with that, please," Jim said, obviously trying the diplomatic tack. "It's a weapon."

"A heater, huh? The Boss'll love that."

Jim looked even more uncertain. "A Mr. Bela Okmyx invited us down," he said. "He said--"

"I know what he said," the man interrupted. "What he don't tell Kalo ain't worth knowin'. He said some boys would meet you. Okay, we're meetin' you."

"Those guns won't be necessary," Leo said. He acted normal, but Slim heard the thin edge of fear in his voice.

"You tryin' to make trouble, bud?" Kalo asked, eyes narrowing. "Don't give me them doe's eyes."

"What?" Leo looked puzzled.

"I ain't buyin' that innocent routine." Kalo looked at Spock's ears. "You a boxer?"

"No." Now it was Spock's turn to be confused. "Why does everybody carry firearms? Are you people at war?"

"I never heard such stupid questions in my life," Kalo said. He gestured down the street with the muzzle of the gun. "Get movin'."

Slim's sense of disconnect from reality was growing. The Roxie hadn't had holoscreens, just regular twentieth-century projections, and nobody could seriously be convinced that the grainy flatness of the black-and-white film was real. But Slim had always been able to get so caught up in a story he really believed himself to be participating in the events, and this felt like one of those stories he'd watched on Monday afternoons. Except he doubted there was an Elliot Ness anywhere around.

While he was contemplating that, Kalo suddenly shouted, "Get down!"

Slim hit the pavement alongside his father as a big black vehicle bore down on them--it was square and boxy, but obviously patterned on either the Model T or the Cadillac V-63. Two men hung out of its windows, firing their submachine guns rapidly. Kalo tried to return fire, but he was at an awkward angle. Luckily, they were at an awkward angle to be _hit_ as well.

The car disappeared. Leo was instantly up and kneeling by the side of the silent man, but it was obviously too late. Kalo shook his head. "Krako's getting bolder alla time."

Jim looked at Kalo in disgust. "Is this how you greet all your guests?"

"It happens, pal," Kalo replied.

"This man is dead," Leo said, sounding a little angry.

Kalo didn't seem surprised or particularly upset. "Yeah? Well, we ain't playin' for peanuts here. Hey!" he shouted at the pedestrians nearby. "Get out of here, you dopes! Ain't you ever seen a hit before? Get lost!"

The bystanders complied, and Kalo herded the small party from the _Enterprise_ along, leaving his friend's body behind. Jim and Leo exchanged glances, and Slim noticed Leo slide his hand into Jim's for comfort. He prayed that the Iotian attitude towards homosexuality wasn't also patterned on prohibition-era Chicago. Because he was ninety-nine point nine percent certain that, whatever contamination the _Horizon_ had left behind, it had something to do with that.

As they passed a building, two girls stepped out of a store and stood in front of Kalo. One had blonde hair done in finger waves, the other had a sleek brown bob. The brunette spoke. "You. Kalo."

"Get lost," Kalo said.

"When's the Boss gonna do somethin' about these crummy streetlights? A girl ain't safe around here."

"And laundry pickup," the blonde added. "The truck ain't been by in three weeks."

"Write him a letter," Kalo said indifferently.

"I did. He sent it back postage due."

"Listen, we pay our percentages. We're entitled to some service."

"Get _lost_ , I said," Kalo snapped. The girls sullenly moved to one side, although Slim was aware that both of them suddenly noticed him and gazed with undisguised interest as Kalo led them on. "Some people got nothin' to do but complain."

Jim frowned slightly. "Mr. Kalo--"

"Dad," Slim said in an undertone. "Knock it off."

Jim gave Slim a surprised glance, but fell silent.

At last, Kalo led them to a door with a plaque fixed on it that indicated they had at last reached the domain of Boss Bela Okmyx. "We go in here," he said shortly.

Slim slipped one hand in his pocket and nearly cried aloud as his fingers encountered something--an antique fifty-cent coin the Dobsons had given him for Christmas, the only present he'd received until his fourteenth birthday party. He'd hung onto the coin for years, and he usually kept it in his pocket as a sort of lucky piece, but he'd honestly forgotten about it. His hand curled into a fist around it. Now, if he could only remember how to behave...

Kalo led them into an office, a plush, luxurious one, with a heavy desk and framed pictures, including a framed pistol. Behind the desk was a heavy-set, swarthy man Slim had to resist calling "Mr. Capone." A woman in a short fringed red dress with dark hair cut in a bob sat on the corner of the desk, one leg crossed over the other. The man was smoking a cigar, the woman a cigarette in a long holder.

"Got 'em, Boss," Kalo said, swaggering slightly. "No sweat."

The man behind the desk, obviously Bela Okmyx, stood up, grinning. "Well, Captain Kirk," he said in a genial tone of voice. "Come in. Siddown. Have a drink. Good stuff--distill it myself."

"No, thank you." Jim was being very stiff, very formal--very out-of-place in this environment, Slim thought. "You are Mr. Okmyx? This is Mr. Spock, my First Officer, and Dr. McCoy."

Before he could introduce Slim, Okmyx beamed wider. "A real pleasure. Sit down. Kalo, put the heater down. These guys is guests." Kalo set aside his machine gun. Okmyx turned back to Jim. "You gotta excuse my boys. You can't be too careful these days."

"Judging by what we've seen so far, I agree," Jim said stiffly. "They call you the Boss. Boss of what?"

"My territory. Biggest in the world." Okmyx looked proud. "Trouble with being the biggest, though, is that the punks is always tryin'a cut in."

Slim leaned against the wall, seemingly unconcerned, and pulled out his coin. He flipped it absently as Spock said, "Captain, something about this seems familiar."

Jim ignored him. "How many other territories are there?"

"Maybe a dozen, not counting the small fry. And they get bumped when I have time for 'em."

Spock tilted his head slightly. "Do they include, if I may ask, a man named Krako?"

Okmyx's eyebrows rose. "You know about Krako?"

"He hit us on the way here, Boss," Kalo put in. "Burned Mitt."

Okmyx scowled. "I want him hit back."

"Be right on it, Boss."

Jim's attention suddenly seemed caught by something on a stand near where Slim stood. Slim glanced at it out of the corner of one eye, as though it held no importance, and saw a white-bound book, almost like a Bible. Jim moved towards it. Kalo raised his gun, and Slim shifted his stance subtly, still acting as though he didn't care. Okmyx shook his head at Kalo, eyeing Slim with sudden respect, and Jim made it to the book unmolested. He picked it up, showing the crew--and Slim--its title: _Chicago Mobs of the 1920's-30's._

"How'd you get this, Mr. Okmyx?" Jim asked, opening the book and looking at something inside the cover.

"That's The Book. _The_ Book," Okmyx repeated. It was the way Terrans might refer to the Holy Bible. "They left it--the men from the _Horizon_."

"And there is your contamination, Captain," Spock said, hands clasped behind his back. "An entire gangster culture. An imitative people, one book, and--"

"No cracks about The Book," Okmyx said harshly.

"Lay off 'em." Slim spoke quietly, but inserted a faint tone of menace into his voice.

Jim shot him a look, but Okmyx leaned back in his chair. "Look, I didn't bring you here to ask questions," he said. "You gotta do something for me. Then anything you want to know, I'll tell you."

Jim laid The Book down and rejoined his crew. "Anything we can do, we will. We have laws of our own we have to follow."

"Okay." Okmyx picked up a cigar from a humidor on his desk. "I'm a peaceful man, see? I'm sick and tired of all these hits. Krako hits me, I hit Krako, Tepo hits me, Krako hits Tepo. It's too much. We ain't getting noplace. Too many bosses, you know what I mean? Now if there was just one, we could get somethin' done. That's where you come in."

"I don't follow," Jim said.

"You Feds made a lotta improvements since that other ship came here. You probably got all kinds of fancy heaters. So here's the deal. You give me all the heaters I need--enough so's I can take out all the other guys and set myself up as the boss of the whole place. Then you only have me to deal with."

Slim had expected no less, but the officers of the _Enterprise_ were obviously flabbergasted. "Let me get this straight," Jim said slowly. "You expect us to supply you with arms and assistance so you can carry out aggression on other nations?"

"What other nations?" Okmyx shrugged. "I got hits to make. You can help me make 'em."

"Fascinating," Spock said in his flat, unemotional voice. "But utterly impossible."

"I'd call it outrageous," Leo snapped.

"Even if we wanted to," Jim put in, "our orders are very--"

Okmyx gestured to Kalo, who lifted the gun again. A door opened and another armed man came in. Slim tensed, though kept up his air of studied indifference. Jim moved closer to Leo, almost imperceptibly.

"I ain't innerested in _your_ orders," Okmyx growled. "You got eight hours to gimme what I want. If I don't have the tools I need by then, I'm gonna have your ship pick you back up--in a lotta very small boxes. Know what I mean, pal?"

Slim caught the coin sharply and slipped it back into his pocket, straightening up and giving Okmyx his best Robert Stack face. Okmyx's confident look slipped slightly, which was gratifying, but then Kalo began unloading the equipment he'd taken from the _Enterprise's_ men, which he'd stuffed down his trousers. "This here's a heater, Boss," he said, pointing at one of the phasers. "I don't know what this other junk is."

"A heater, huh? Let's see how it works." Okmyx picked it up and pointed it at a wall.

Jim flinched. "Don't _do_ that! You'll take out half the wall!" he cried, losing his composure for the first time.

"That powerful, eh? Well, that oughta do the trick." Okmyx, mercifully, set the phaser down. "Gimme a hunnerd of 'em and we won't have no more trouble."

"Out of the question," Jim said.

"I get what I want," Okmyx said, but Slim felt a small surge of malicious pleasure when the man shot him a slightly uneasy glance before picking up a communicator. "What are these?"

Jim didn't answer. Okmyx turned to Kalo, jerked his thumb at Leo, and said, "Burn him."

"All right," Jim said quickly, shifting position slightly so that he was between Kalo and Leo. "It's a communication device, locked onto our ship."

Okmyx fiddled with it until it snapped open. "Hey," he said. "In the ship."

Slim rolled his eyes as Scotty's voice came over the communicator. "Scotty here. Who's this?"

"This here's Bela Okmyx. I got your Captain and his friends down here. You want 'em back alive, you send down a hunnerd of them fancy heaters, an' some troops to help us learn to use 'em. You got eight hours. Then I put the hit on your friends. Know what I mean?"

"No," Scotty replied, sounding torn between confusion and anger. "But I'll find out."

Okmyx closed the communicator. "Okay, Kalo, take 'em over to the warehouse. Put 'em in the bag and keep a good eye on 'em." He glanced at Slim again, and added, "Treat 'em _careful_ , mind."

"You got it, Boss." Kalo waved his gun at the crew. "Move it, you guys."

Slim kept his eye on Okmyx as he followed the group out the door. He stayed behind the three _Enterprise_ men, glancing at Kalo pointedly every so often, and was pleased to note that Kalo, too, seemed uncomfortable. At any rate, he escorted them down corridors with extreme care and ushered them into the warehouse with almost courtly grace.

The room had a barred window and was sparsely furnished, although there was another copy of The Book. Slim took up a position leaning against the wall again, arms folded on his chest. Kalo looked uneasily at him before heading over to a table, sitting down with two more armed men, and beginning to deal out a hand of cards.

"Slim, what the hell are you doing?" Jim muttered, frowning at the men before turning to his son. "Because whatever it is, I wish you'd teach the rest of us. You've got those men all on the jump."

"Remember what I said when we first got here, about this reminding me of something from 'The Untouchables?'" Slim replied, keeping his voice low. "It's an old television show from the early 1960s, set in 1930s Chicago." Three pairs of eyes turned, almost involuntarily, to look at the copy of The Book before returning to Slim. "It's based on the memoirs of Eliot Ness and his attempts to bring down Al Capone, the biggest Chicago boss of the time. The show dealt with him bringing down a _lot_ of different criminals, all of which were made up, but still. It focused on the squad, of course, the Untouchables, but they had to infiltrate a lot of gangs."

"So you've been acting like Eliot Ness," Leo said, a half-smile tugging reluctantly at his mouth.

"Partly, but I'm not too sure they know who he is," Slim answered. "The Book deals with gangs. I don't know if it says anything about how Capone's gang was brought down--probably not--and I don't want to risk looking at it. But I think what's intimidating them is that I'm acting like some sort of bodyguard. Like I'm not paying a lick of attention, but watching all the time. I think that's why Okmyx had Kalo put the gun down when you went over to look at The Book. That's sure why he told him to treat us carefully."

"But you were not even armed," Spock pointed out. "You were the _only_ one of the four of us who was unarmed before Kalo took our equipment."

Slim caught Kalo's eye and smiled slowly, lazily, raising one eyebrow. Kalo quickly cut his eyes back to the table. "That only worries them the more, Uncle Spock. A professional bodyguard--who's _completely unarmed?_ Much less a baby-faced one?"

Jim grinned. "Good job we brought you along, then."

Leo shook his head, glancing at The Book. "One book, and they made it the blueprint of their entire society. Amazing."

"But not unprecedented," Spock pointed out.

Slim nodded. "The government nearly broke down in Chicago during Prohibition. The gangs came pretty close to taking over."

"Okmyx must be the Capone of Dana Iotia Two, then," Jim said. "Worst of the lot."

"While we may disagree with his methods, he is essentially correct in his goals," Spock said logically. "This society must be united, or it will degenerate into anarchy. It is on the way there already. Recall the young ladies who complained of the failing services."

"If this society's culture is falling apart because of the interference of the _Horizon_ , it's our job to fix it," Jim said grimly. "The Federation is responsible. Spock, if you could get to the sociological banks of the computer, could you come up with a solution?"

"Quite possibly, Captain."

Slim suppressed a grin; if Spock said something was _quite possible_ , it was what other people would call a dead certainty. Jim turned back to his son. "I didn't get to where I am by failing to recognize when other people have talents or knowledge that can help in certain situations, and in this situation, the person with that knowledge is you, Slim. We need a way to get out of here. How can we get those three to stop watching us?"

"We can't," Slim said slowly, turning his full attention to the table for a moment. "Not ordinarily. But I wonder..."

He chewed his lip for a moment, then sauntered over to the table. Kalo and the other two men looked up uneasily, hands on their guns, but they relaxed when Slim pulled out a chair and sat down, going back to their game. It was a basic game of poker--not Texas Hold 'Em, the variety Slim was most familiar with, but one of the variants of stud poker. Kalo was a few points up, to judge by the pile of coins in front of him.

Slim let them play two more hands before saying abruptly, "This game's for chumps."

Kalo stopped and looked at him warily. "That so?"

"Ain't worth wastin' my time."

"Nobody's askin' you to," Kalo said. The other two men looked uneasy.

Slim ignored them. "Where I come from, they play a _real_ man's game. It ain't for pikers, though. Not surprised you ain't heard of it."

"Say, who _are_ you, anyway?" Kalo demanded.

Behind him, Slim heard his father shift uneasily, but he ignored it. "Down home they call me Slim," he said carelessly. "Anyway, forget I mentioned the game. It takes brains."

"Okay, I'll bite," Kalo said, gathering up the hand. "Take the cards, big man. Show us how it's played."

"Don't say I didn't warn you." Slim shuffled the cards with an easy, overhand grace. He resisted the urge to try one of the tricks Scotty had showed him; if he dropped them, he'd look a real idiot, which was the opposite of what he was going for. "Okay. Game's called Fizzbin. Everybody gets six cards--'cept the fella on the right, he gets seven. Second card goes up, except on Tuesdays...hey, Kalo, that's great, you've got a nine. Half a fizzbin already."

"I need another nine?" Kalo asked.

"Hell, naw. That'd be a sralk and you'd be out. You need a king or a deuce, 'less it's after dark, then a queen or a four'd do it--two sixes already? 'Attaboy! You're in the money now--oh, unless you get another six. Then you'll have to turn it in, unless it's black."

"What happens if it's black?" asked the man holding the two sixes, now looking hopelessly confused.

Slim shrugged. "You draw another card, of course. Now, what you're really hoping for is a royal fizzbin, but I wouldn't like to work the odds on that one." So far he hadn't made up a single new rule.

"I'm balled up," confessed the third man.

"I told you this game ain't for pushovers," Slim said. "Dry up or beat it."

"Keep your head in, Timbo," Kalo snapped. "What now?"

"Last card around. Most folks call it the cronk, but the real hard-boiled eggs call it _kree-et_." Slim hoped he had pronounced the word right, and that the others would understand what he meant. "Ready? Here goes." He dealt, making sure to overshoot Kalo, sending the card spinning to the floor. "Whoops, sorry."

"I got it." Kalo bent over.

That fast, Slim flipped the table over, sending it crashing into the other three men. Fortunately, the _Enterprise's_ crew was ready, and before the three gangsters had time to react, they were incapacitated.

"How much of that did you make up on the spot, Slim?" Leo demanded as Jim retrieved the guns.

"Just the part about the last card around," Slim answered, grinning in reply. "The rest of it we've had in place for a while."

"One of these days I'm gonna have to get you guys to teach me that game." Jim hesitated, then looked at Slim. "Can you use one of these?"

Slim took the submachine gun and studied it briefly. "Shouldn't be too hard. It works the same way as a phaser--you hold down the trigger to empty the cartridge. Relatively simple." He started to hand it back to his father, who held up a hand.

"You keep that one. Bones, here, you take this one. I'll keep this one. Spock, find the radio transmission station--Uhura's listening in on their broadcasts. Cut in and have the three of you beamed up to the ship."

"Surely you're coming, Captain," Spock said.

"Not without Bela Okmyx," Jim said grimly.

"Jim, you can't--" Leo began, looking stricken.

"This mess is our responsibility, Bones." Jim softened, came closer, and kissed Leo on the cheek lightly. "You have your orders. Let's go."

Slim took a deep breath and tucked the gun under his arm. "Be careful, Dad. Remember, Okmyx isn't the only boss around here."

"I remember." Jim tousled Slim's hair affectionately, then gestured to the door. "Let's go."

They separated at the door to the warehouse, Jim heading up the street towards Okmyx's office and the other three heading out to the main street. Spock looked around. "Well, Thomas, we will have to rely on your specialized knowledge once again," he said. "Where is the radio communications center likely to be located?"

"Over there," Slim said promptly, pointing ahead of them and to the left.

Leo frowned, looking up as he did. "I can't see an antenna or anything."

"Neither can I. But this city is built looking exactly like old Chicago. And I recognize this area from one of the episodes of 'The Untouchables.' The radio tower is that way."

"We shall trust your judgment," Spock decided. "Onward, gentlemen."

"Wait a sec." Slim's mind clicked into gear. "Uncle Spock, you lead...Pa, walk to his right and a little behind him."

"Why?" Leo sounded curious, not challenging.

"I'm lefthanded and he's not armed. If I'm on the right and you're on the left, our guns'll be closer to him. Which'll make him look like our prisoner. Whereas the other way, we'll look like his bodyguards--which makes him somebody important, someone not to be messed with."

Spock hesitated. "One question, Thomas. Should anyone challenge us, would they be more likely to address the bodyguards or the one being guarded?"

"The one being guarded," Slim replied. "Like I said, you'd be somebody important."

"Then I think it best you hand me the gun and be the important one. I cannot pass as a native of this area. You know the language and the customs."

"Can't deny the logic of that," Leo interjected.

Slim suspected that both men were also hoping to get the gun out of his hands, but he willingly surrendered it to Spock. "All right. Let's go."

No one bothered them on their journey to the radio station. Occasionally people looked at them oddly, but Slim merely fixed them with a raised eyebrow and a slight sneer and they suddenly found something better to do. He wondered--briefly--how they would deal with whomever they found in the studio, but it turned out to not be an issue. The bored-looking young woman manning the switchboard was easily taken out with one of Spock's nerve pinches.

"Either one of you know how to work this equipment?" Leo asked, wrinkling his nose slightly at the primitive radio hardware.

Slim flexed his fingers slightly. He could probably figure it out if necessary. Fortunately, however, Spock replied, "Indeed, Doctor." He connected a couple of wires, flipped a switch, and picked up a huge silver microphone. "Spock to _Enterprise._ "

Uhura's voice, when it replied, was startled. "Spock, what are you doing on this frequency?"

"That is unimportant right now, Lieutenant," Spock said levelly. "Three to beam up. These coordinates."

"Stand by."

A moment later, the sparkle of the transporter beam surrounded the three of them. When they rematerialized on the _Enterprise,_ it was to Scotty standing directly in front of them, looking worried. "What happened to the captain?"

"He stayed behind," Leo answered. "He'll be up soon, I'm sure, but he's going to capture Bela Okmyx first, bring _him_ up here for a chat."

Scotty looked from Leo to Spock to Slim. "And what is a-- _heater?_ "

"A gun," Slim said, hopping down off the transporter platform. "It's a slang term from the 1920s."

"How d'ye know?"

Slim explained--again--about "The Untouchables." Spock filled Scotty in on the _Horizon's_ contamination of the planet's culture as they headed to the bridge. By the time they reached the lift, Scotty looked grim. "An' Jim plans tae take on the whole lot by himself? Is he _insane?_ "

"You mean more insane than usual?" Leo said dryly.

“I think his plan to be not without merit,” Spock said. “Meanwhile, however, I must consult with the ship’s computers. The sociological banks may provide a solution to the problem of the entire planet.”

Slim waited to one side with his hands clasped behind his back, his pose a mirror of his stepfather’s, and watched as Spock began feeding information into the computer and scanning for analogous situations. Twenty frustrating minutes later, he seemed about ready to concede defeat when the comm system suddenly crackled to life. “Hey, you. Up there on the ship.”

Spock strode over to the conn and pressed the appropriate button. “Spock here.”

Okmyx’s voice sounded surprised. “Say, how’d you get up there?”

“Irrelevant, as I am here,” Spock said placidly.

“Uh…yeah. Well, you’d better get back down here. Krako’s put the bag on your captain.”

Spock’s eyebrows drew together in a frown. “Why would he put a bag on him?”

“Kidnapped him, you dope.” It sounded as though Okmyx had gotten himself back on an even mental footing. “He’ll scrag him, too.”

Slim swore under his breath. Spock looked up at him and stepped to one side, then said quietly, “Thomas, I am at a disadvantage here. If you would…” He gestured to the comm.

Taking a deep breath, Slim stepped forward and leaned over the mouthpiece. “That ain’t happenin’, Okmyx. Not on my watch. Now, I figured you for a smart man. You wouldn’t call up here without some idea of what to do, would you?”

“’Course not.” Okmyx sounded a little uneasy, but only a little. “You boys got somethin’ I want. I can help you get your captain back. No reason we can’t make a deal.”

“Oh, yeah,” Slim said scornfully. “We get you what you want and you leave us holdin’ the bag. You must think I’m a regular sap, trustin’ you.”

“What’s to trust? Business is business. We call a truce. You come down. My boys spring Kirk. _Then_ we talk about you givin’ me what I want.”

While he and Okmyx had been speaking, Slim’s brain had been running a mile a minute. Beaming down there again would be beaming into a trap. There was no reason Okmyx, if he was really intending to spring Jim, couldn’t have done it and then held him hostage until they turned over the phasers he wanted. Slim didn’t doubt that the minute they beamed down, Okmyx would “put the bag on” _them,_ too. At the same time, he also knew that Scotty and Leo were right—alone, Jim had no chance of succeeding against the bosses. He’d need backup. Slim retained a childlike faith in his father; if anyone could escape Krako, it would be Jim Kirk. And when he got out, he would need someone to help him.

“All right,” Slim said after pretending to hesitate. “You got your truce, Okmyx. We’re comin’ down to talk. Ten minutes.” He gestured for Spock to kill the signal.

The moment the signal was lost, Leo blurted, “Slim, are you out of your goddamned mind?”

“If we are to save the captain without blatant and forceful interference,” Spock said calmly, “we must trust someone indigenous. Thomas took the correct course of action.”

“You can’t seriously trust Okmyx,” Leo protested.

“We must.” Spock turned to Scotty. “Mr. Scott, although I hope to avoid their use, I think you should adjust one of the phaser banks to a strong stun position.”

Leo smiled grimly. “Now you’re starting to make sense.”

Spock made no reply, merely turned for the lift, Leo and Slim trailing along in his wake.

Slim knew they were heading into a trap. He trusted Spock did, too, but he knew there was nothing they could do to avoid falling into it. Sure enough, they had no sooner entered Okmyx’s office when Kalo stepped out at the head of his now-recovered goons, all of whom pointed submachine guns at the three from the _Enterprise._

“Now then,” Okmyx said with a smug smirk. “Let’s talk about those heaters I want.”

“You ain’t gettin’ ‘em,” Slim said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Not from us.”

“So much for wantin’ your captain back,” Okmyx taunted.

“Slim,” Leo hissed.

Slim ignored his stepfather, laughing derisively at Okmyx. “You’re a regular dope if you think there’s a cell on this planet of yours that can hold my ol’ man for long.”

Okmyx’s confident look slipped several degrees. “Your old man?”

“Sure. You reckon a fella like Jim Kirk lets just anyone trail after him?” Slim shifted his weight onto his back leg and tossed his head back, shaking his hair out of his eyes. It was getting a bit long—maybe he would ask Porter to give him a trim later. “He’s showin’ me the ropes. Taught me just about every damn thing I know. And there’s one thing I know for sure—he’s comin’ for you, Okmyx, and he’s gonna be here any minute now.”

With the kind of perfect timing that only comes once a lifetime if you’re lucky, the door banged open and Jim came in, submachine gun tucked under his arm and his blue eyes flashing with determination.

“Hands up,” he ordered. “Drop the heaters—any other weapons you got. C’mon, you louses, we don’t have all day!”

Astonished—and probably a little afraid—the mobsters did as Jim said, piling an impressive display of weaponry on the desk. Slim laughed again. “What did I tell you?” he crowed. “Go on, Pops, tell us how you did it.”

“Krako left a radio in my cell,” Jim said casually, glaring at Kalo, who reluctantly pulled out one last weapon and dropped it on the pile. “That was all I needed for the ol’ trip-wire trick. Easy as fallin’ off a log. I thought I told you to get back to the ship.”

“We have been there, Captain,” Spock said, looking as unruffled as usual. “The situation required our return.”

Jim chewed his lip thoughtfully. “Might be just as well. Did you get anything off the computer?”

“Nothing useful. Logic and factual knowledge do not seem to apply here.”

Leo scoffed. “You admit that?”

“With the greatest reluctance, Doctor,” Spock replied calmly.

“Then you won’t mind if I play a hunch?” Jim asked.

“I am not sanguine about hunches, Captain, but I have no practical alternative.”

“Good.” Jim grinned.

“What are you going to do, Jim?” Leo asked quietly.

Jim’s grin broadened. “Now that I’ve got Okmyx, I’m gonna put the bag on Krako.”

“You ain’t serious,” Okmyx gasped, the first time he had spoken since Jim’s entrance.

“Why not?” Jim turned and fingered the lapel of Okmyx’s suit. “That’s nice material.”

Okmyx looked a bit uncertain as he answered, “It oughta be, it cost a bundle.”

“Get out of it. You, too,” Jim added, pointing at Kalo.

“Hey, now, wait a minute—”

“Out of it, pally! This time nobody’s gonna put the bag on _me._ ”

Something in Jim’s eyes must’ve told the mobsters he was serious, because both of them stripped down to their underwear without another word. Jim picked up Okmyx’s suit, then eyed Kalo before turning to his men. “All right, Slim, suit up. Time to show the old man if his lessons are sticking.”

“You got it, sir,” Slim said, unable to hold back his grin as he reached for Kalo’s suit.

Leo drew Jim aside as he finished dressing and said in a low voice, “I hope you know what you’re doing, Jim.”

“I do, Bones. Stay here and keep these mooks covered.” Jim handed Leo one of the submachine guns. “We’ll be back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

“Captain,” Spock said, frowning slightly, “the tail movement of an infant sheep is not a precise—”

“Cool it, Spocko.” Jim grabbed two more submachine guns and tossed one to Slim. “Let’s ankle.”

Slim waited until they were outside, then turned to his father with a laugh. “You’re enjoying this.”

Jim laughed, tugging the crown of his fedora forward at a rakish angle. “Damn straight. Aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” Slim admitted. “Where are we going?”

Jim fished about in the suit pocket and pulled out a set of keys. “C’mon. I can remember how to get to Krako’s. We’ll take Bela’s car.”

“You _can_ drive, right, Dad?”

“Well…it’s been a while, but I’m pretty sure this runs the same way my dad’s old Corvette did.”

As Slim slid behind the wheel, he leaned forward and placed his hands against the dashboard, communing silently with the old machine. Looking up at his father, he said in his best Anthony Daniels impersonation, “‘Sir, I don’t know where your ship learned to communicate, but it has the most _peculiar_ dialect.”

Jim laughed again. “You can understand it, though?”

“Yeah…she ain’t aware of the mechanics of a Corvette, obviously, but she’s got a clutch. She ain’t fast, but she’ll get us where we’re going.”

“That’s good enough for me.” Jim started up the car.

It wasn’t a hovercraft, but it was still a pretty smooth ride. When they pulled up at the building, Jim turned to Slim. “Leave these clumsy guns under the seat. We’ll use phasers.”

“Aye, sir.” Slim slid the gun to the floor and accepted the small weapon his father handed him. He was a lot more comfortable with it—and it was far less lethal.

They left several stunned guards in their wake as they headed into Krako’s office. The man, a sharper-faced version of Okmyx, didn’t seem a bit taken aback as they burst through his door, nor did the four men behind him, their guns pointed directly at the door.

“You don’t shoot, we don’t shoot,” Krako said, his voice a harsh rasp.

Slim pulled a face. “I’ve heard that line before.”

“Who’s your baby-faced pal?” Krako frowned at Slim. “Never mind. Ain’t this nice? Here I was wonderin’ how I was gonna get you back, and you delivered yourself! You don’t think you’ll get out of it this time, do you?”

“We didn’t come here to play games,” Jim said. “This is bigger’n you or Okmyx or any of the others.”

Krako scoffed, nudging Jim’s phaser with one finger. “Don’t talk fancy. All you gotta do is tell me how to work these things.”

“Krako,” Jim said in a tone of infinite patience, “can you trust all your men?”

“Yeah, sure,” Krako snorted. “I either trust ‘em or they’re dead.”

“Maybe. But when it comes to weapons like these—well—just one could make a man a pretty big boss around here.”

Krako thought about it for a minute. Slim could almost smell the wood burning. At last, he said, “Zabo and Karf, stay put. You other guys vanish.”

Slim eyeballed them as they left.When they were alone, Krako nodded at the henchmen who had remained. “All right, these two is okay. Now that we got no busy little eyes around, how d’you work this thing?”

Jim moved in closer, sneering at Krako. “Knock it off, Krako. We don’t have time to teach you how to play with toys.”

“Toys?” Krako repeated, looking stunned.

“What, you think we’re here to get a cut of your deal? Fuggeddaboudit! That’s peanuts to an outfit like the Federation.”

“It is?” Krako asked.

“Pos-o-lutely,” Slim affirmed.

Jim dropped Slim a swift wink before turning back to Krako. “We came here to take over, Krako. The whole ball o’ wax. Maybe if you play ball with us, we’ll cut _you_ in on a piece of the action.”

“Not a big piece,” Slim added. “But some.”

“How much is that?” Krako asked.

“We’ll figure it out later.”

“But I thought you had some kinda law about interferin’.”

“Who’s interferin’? We’re just takin’ over.”

“What’s your deal?” Krako looked extremely uncertain.

Jim motioned for the man to vacate his seat. Once he had, Jim stepped around the desk and appropriated it, propping his feet up on the leather-and-wood surface and picking up an unlit cigar, tapping it absently against his palm the way he did his stylus when he was thinking. “Look here. The Federation wants this planet, but we don’t want to have to come in and use our muscle, see? That ain’t subtle. So what we do is help one guy take over. He pulls the planet’s strings—and we pull his. Follow?”

“But what’s your cut?”

“Whadda you care, long as you’re in charge?” Jim cocked an eyebrow at Slim. “Right, Slim?”

“Right on the button, boss,” Slim said with a smirk. He shrugged. “’Course, there’s always Bela Okmyx.”

Krako thought about it, but not for very long. In order for him to resist the lure of what Jim was promising, he’d have either had to be a lot smarter than he looked—which wouldn’t be hard—or a lot stupider, which would’ve been next to impossible. “You got a deal. Call your ship and bring down your boys and whatever else you need.”

Jim’s heels thumped against the floor as he got to his feet and flipped out his communicator. “Kirk to _Enterprise._ ”

“ _Enterprise._ Scott here.” Slim could hear Scotty’s voice faintly across the line.

“Scotty, we made the deal with Krako.”

“Uh—we did, sir?”

“We’re ready to make the hit. We’re takin’ over the whole planet as soon as you can get ready.”

“Uh—is that wise, sir?”

“Sure, we can trust Krako—he’s got no choice. He’s standin’ here right now, _about three feet to my left,_ all ready to be our pal. I’d like to show him the ship, just to let him know I’m givin’ him the straight dope. But you know how it is.”

Slim fought back a grin and could hear the one in Scotty’s voice as he replied, “Oh, aye. I know indeed.”

“We’ll be needing enough phasers to arm all of Krako’s men, plus advisers—troops to back ‘em up on the hit. You movin’, Scotty?”

“Aye, Uhura’s on to the Transporter Room and two of the boys are on their way. Ready when you say the word.”

“Awright, Scotty. Start.”

Krako looked at Jim curiously. “You mean you’re gonna start bringin’ those guys and the equipment down now?”

Jim snapped the communicator closed. “Nope.”

As he spoke, the whine of the transporter beam filled the room and surrounded Krako, who promptly disappeared in a beam of light and energy. Zabo and Karf stared, stunned, at the spot where their boss had been a moment before. Slim caught the quick nod from his father and fired off two shots from his phaser, stunning both of them in a more literal sense a moment later.

“Well played, Slim.”

“Thanks—Pops.” Slim grinned wickedly and dodged his father’s elbow. “So, we’ve put the bag on Krako. What’s our next move?”

Jim brushed off his borrowed pants. “Back to Bela.”

There was a small cluster of children swarming Okmyx’s car when they exited the building. Slim made a brash sweeping motion with his arm. “Get outta here, you little punks. Get goin’.”

“That’s Bela Okmyx’s car,” one of the urchins said, sounding unimpressed.

Jim dangled the keys under the kid’s nose. “Not anymore it ain’t.”

“Didja burn him, Mister?” asked another kid, suddenly looking awed.

“Whatcha doin’ talkin’ to Krako?” asked another.

Slim scoffed. “My kid sister’s got more sense ‘n you lot, and she ain’t hardly outta diapers. If we _did_ burn Bela Okmyx, what makes you think a buncha scrawny rats like you?”

The kids backed off, although they didn’t go far, and Slim noticed them running alongside the car as Jim gunned it away from the curb, cheering raucously. He cocked an eyebrow at his father. “Looks like we’re popular with some of the natives, anyway.”

Jim grinned. “I’m all for fostering a new generation of natives who think we’re the—what’s the phrase I want?”

“The bee’s knees?”

“That’s the one. C’mon, let’s get back to the office before your stepfather paces a hole in the floor.”

Slim grinned and sat back. “Punch it.”

The drive back was uneventful. As they reached the door, Slim could clearly hear Leo’s worried voice demand, “Where _are_ they?”

Bela’s voice sounded somewhere between resentful and resigned. “Knowin’ Krako, we’ll be lucky if he sends ‘em back on a blotter.”

“Wrong again, Okmyx,” Jim said, waltzing through the door. He brushed his hand across Leo’s as he passed him, dropping a swift wink, even as he added, “Outta my way, Sawbones. I wanna talk to this guy. I’m gettin’ real tired of playing patty-cake with you penny-ante operators.”

“Who you callin’ penny-ante?” Bela bristled.

“Nobody but you, baby. Now listen. The Federation’s movin’ in here. We’re takin’ over, and if you play ball, we’ll leave a piece of the pie for you. You don’t, you’re out. Alla way out. Got that?” Jim shoved his phaser under Bela’s nose.

Bela smiled weakly. “Yeah—yeah, sure, Kirk. Whyn’t you say so in the first place? I mean—all you hadda do was explain.”

Jim tilted his head at Slim, who flipped out his communicator. “Scotty, you got Krako on ice up there?”

“Aye,” Scotty replied.

“Keep him ‘til the boss asks for ‘im.” Slim tried to ignore Leo and Spock’s surprised looks, glad he and Jim had had the drive to discuss the plan. “We’re gonna be makin’ some old-style phone calls from these coordinates. Lock on at the receiving end and transport the party here to us.”

Jim eased back slightly. “All right, Okmyx. Start callin’ the other bosses.”

Bela shrugged and walked over to the phone, then dialed four numbers. “Hello, Tepo? Guess who?…Yeah, I gotta lotta nerve. What’re ya gonna do about it?”

The hum of the transporter filled the room, and a man Slim presumed to be Tepo materialized, holding a non-existent phone in his hand. Leo, who seemed to have caught on, moved to disarm him as the man said, “…comin’ over there with a coupl’a my boys, an’—” He stopped, eyes wide as he realized where he was. “Brother!”

A grin split Bela’s face. “Say, this ain’t bad.”

“Keep dialin’.” Jim waved the phaser again.

Slim helped Spock and Leo to disarm the bosses as they arrived. Half an hour later, the office was crowded with dazed mobsters, Krako among them. Jim climbed up onto the desk, a Chicago typewriter cradled in his arm.

“Awright, pipe down, everybody,” he barked. The room fell silent. “I’ll tell you what you’re gonna do. The Federation just took over around here, whether you like it or not. You been runnin’ this planet like a piecework factory. From here on, it’s all under one roof. You’re gonna form a syndicate and run this planet like a business. That means you make a profit.”

“Yeah?” Tepo called. He was a leaner man than Krako or Okmyx, obviously younger—probably not out of his twenties—with dark features and a scar on his nose. “And what’s your percentage?”

“I’m cuttin’ the Federation in for forty percent.” Jim leveled the submachine gun at Tepo. “You got objections?”

Tepo seemed unimpressed. Slim mentally moved him up a couple notches in his estimation. “Yeah. I hear a lotta talk, but all’s I see here is you and a coupl’a your boys. I don’t see no Federation.”

“Listen, they got a ship,” Krako said. “I know—I been there.”

“Yeah, but Tepo’s got a point,” Bela said. “All we ever see is them.”

“I only saw three other guys and a broad while I was in the ship,” Krako said. Spock’s eyebrows drew together at the word _broad._ “Maybe there ain’t no more?”

“Four hunnerd an’—” Jim began.

He got no further. There was an explosion outside, followed by a barrage of shots. Krako, who stood nearest the window, peered out and announced, “IT’s my boys. Must think I’m still in the ship. They’re makin’ a hit on this place.”

“My boys’ll put ‘em down,” Bela boasted.

“Wanna bet?” Krako snarled.

“I got this, Pops.” Slim waved a hand at his father’s brief look of panic, remembering that Jim didn’t know Spock had prepared for something like this, and flipped out his communicator. “Hey, Scotty, that bank you’ve got ready? Fire a burst, one-block radius around these coordinates, excluding this building.”

Thank God, Scotty didn’t question him. “Tell Jim ‘right away.’”

Slim looked over the heads of the confused gangsters and smirked confidently at his father. “Fellas, you’re about to see the Federation in action.”

The noise from outside continued for a couple heartbeats before the window lit up with the phaser effect. Dead silence fell instantly.

Krako turned away from the window with a weak smile. “Some trick.”

“They ain’t dead,” Jim said, having recovered quickly. “Just knocked out for a while. We coulda killed ‘em just as easy, though.” He shot Slim a thumbs-up. “Looks like you been takin’ the ol’ man’s lessons to heart, Slim.”

Slim tipped his hat in his father’s direction. “Learn from the best.”

“Okay,” Bela said. “We get the message. You were sayin’ somethin’ about a syndicate.”

“No, he was sayin’ somethin’ about a percentage,” Tepo corrected him. “You sure forty percent is enough?”

“Yeah, it’ll be just fine,” Jim said. “We’ll send someone around to collect it every year—and give you advice if you need it.”

“That’s reasonable,” Bela said. He glared around at the others. “Ain’t it reasonable?”

The assembled mobsters muttered their assent. Jim’s teeth flashed in a grin. “Well, in that case, pull out some of that rotgut of yours, Okmyx, and let’s get down to the talkin’.”

Slim leaned casually against the door frame to watch the proceedings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be honest. I've had about half this chapter written since I started planning this fic. Some stuff happened that necessitated altering it slightly, but for the most part, I knew where it was going. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to finish it; a combination of real-life pressure and general scatterbrained-ness (I kept forgetting to bring my notes with me to my weekly writing events or didn't have the space to spread them out properly when I got there) made it tricky. But I powered through and finally finished this weekend! Best news--I've gotten about a thousand words written on the next chapter.
> 
> There are at least thirty-odd chapters to go, as far as I have planned. There are five more episodes I plan to adapt (one of which will be a very, very, VERY loose adaptation, keeping only the inciting incident and changing virtually everything else--I'll explain when we get there); one of those will technically be spread over three chapters just because of the sheer length of time involved in it. Slim's gotta sit his Academy exams. I have a storyline to wrap up (and I should probably drop a couple more hints about that storyline, just in case you've all forgotten it's a thing...). I kind of want Slim and Audra to maybe go on a date at some point. And yes, there will in all likelihood be more gratuitous sex.
> 
> I'm not going to promise to get back to updating weekly; I still haven't gotten my buffer back, and until I do, I can't necessarily guarantee a chapter a week, although I'm trying my damnedest. But what I am going to promise--what I've set as my goal for myself--is to have this story completely written by the time Star Trek Beyond comes out on July 8. Obviously, at one chapter a week, I won't have it all POSTED by then, but I'd like to have it all WRITTEN. We'll see.
> 
> I hope you'll all be along with me for the ride.


	89. Now I Know What Scared Is

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two updates in a row? What _is_ this?
> 
> On a more serious note: Upon further research, I discovered that the reason fetal transport was not commonly used in deliveries in the Star Trek universe is because it carries a lot of risks, and that therefore it is used only in high-risk cases. And according to Memory Alpha, the reason Jim was not delivered via fetal transport is because at the time, using the transporter to deliver a baby had a _one hundred percent death rate_ among mothers. However, I have already brazenly declared medical transportation to be the most common method of birth (see Chapter 71 if you've forgotten in the several months since I posted it).
> 
> So...let's just assume that medical science has made a lot of positive advancements in the intervening forty-odd years.
> 
> The hell with it. This story never had a chance of being canon anyway. It is the hell my universe and I will do whatever the hell I want with it.

All Leo wanted was a cup of coffee. Since the food slots in Med Bay were inoperable at the moment, he was in the rec room, getting himself a cup of steaming hot brew as black as the skies without. He had no more than taken his first sip when there was a sudden clatter from the other side of the room and a cry of “Doctor!”

Silently acknowledging that he had no choice, Leo set his cup down with a resigned sigh and turned towards the commotion. When he saw the shock of red hair at the center of it, however, he forgot his coffee in favor of crossing the room as quickly as possible.

Kelly O’Flaherty was on his knees next to an overturned chair, doubled over, his hands clasped in front of his stomach. The only two other people in the room at the time were gravitating towards him, all looking uncertain. O’Flaherty looked up at Leo’s approach, his green eyes large with pain. “Doctor—” he gasped out.

Leo forced himself to stay calm as he dropped down next to the ensign, placing one hand on his abdomen and the other on his wrist. It took no more than a second’s glance to know what was going on. Getting to his feet quickly, he turned to the nearest person and barked out, “Contact the bridge, tell Captain Kirk to meet me in Medical Bay. And you—” He turned to the off-duty engineer behind the first. “Go find Ensign Nic’tlarn, tell xem to get to Medical as quickly as possible.”

Both crewmen scuttled off in separate directions. Leo scooped O’Flaherty up in his arms, silently thankful he’d kept himself in shape, and rushed with him out of the rec room.

“Dix!” he shouted as he burst through the doors of Med Bay.

McCall, who had been chatting with Chapel and the two orderlies, took one look at Leo and O’Flaherty and darted over to one of the supply cupboards. Chapel tapped DeSoto on the shoulder and pointed wordlessly to one side as she made a beeline for the small, private exam room in the back; DeSoto, with Gage accompanying him, ran towards where the medical transporter was kept. Thank God for competent staff.

Leo laid O’Flaherty down on the biobed. The indicators instantly shot up to almost maximum levels. “O’Flaherty, how long has this been happening?”

“S-since last n-night,” O’Flaherty stammered, wincing at a sudden surge of pain. “It wasn’t—wasn’t so bad, but—”

“Why didn’t you come in sooner?”

“I thought—aah!” O’Flaherty curled up as the indicators spiked again. “It’s—it’s hurt the whole time. I thought—”

“Kelly, I told you you could always come to me if you were in pain.” Leo forced his voice to stay gentle. “All right, just lie back. We’ll get the medical transporter in here, key it up—”

“Wait, what—what’s going on?” O’Flaherty interrupted, his voice shaking madly.

Leo paused and came over to the ensign’s bedside. “You’re in labor.”

O’Flaherty looked bewildered. “But—but I’m not due for—five more weeks!”

“Like I said from the beginning,” Leo said, reaching over to take O’Flaherty’s hand as another spasm of pain wracked his body, “this is a high-risk pregnancy. There was always a good chance you’d deliver early. Really, you’ve made it longer than I thought you would.”

“So—” O’Flaherty broke off with another cry.

“Where the hell is that medical transporter?” Leo shouted.

“I’ll see.” Chapel—whom Leo hadn’t even paid attention to as she bustled around the room getting everything organized—darted out of the room.

“Dr. McCoy,” O’Flaherty whispered. Tears stood in his eyes. “I—I’m scared.”

Tenderly, Leo brushed O’Flaherty’s hair back from his forehead. “That’s fair. Don’t worry, kiddo. I’ll take care of you.”

Gage scooted backwards into the room, dragging the medical transporter while DeSoto pushed and steered behind him. Chapel popped up over their shoulder. “The captain’s out here. Says he’s here if you need him.”

“Kelly?” Leo prompted.

“Nico,” O’Flaherty gasped.

“As soon as xe gets here,” Chapel promised.

McCall came in, pushing a tray laden with hypos. Leo patted O’Flaherty’s hand comfortingly. “Just hang on. Won’t be long now.”

The pain indicator shot up as high as it could go. O’Flaherty’s back arched, and his abdomen spasmed. Leo bit back a curse. “Kelly O’Flaherty, you listen to me. Whatever you do, _don’t push._ ”

“Doesn’t that normally go the other way?” Gage called from where he was attempting to fire up the medical transporter.

“Johnny, quit fiddlin’, we gotta get this calibrated,” DeSoto snapped.

“O’Flaherty doesn’t have anything to push the baby out _of,_ ” Leo pointed out. He would have gone to help the orderlies, but O’Flaherty held his hand in a death grip. “If he pushes, it’ll do more harm than good. To you, to the baby.” He realized he’d been speaking about the ensign as though he wasn’t there.

O’Flaherty’s hand tightened on Leo’s fingers again. “I—I think it’s—trying to push _itself._ ”

This time, Leo couldn’t hold back the brief burst of profanity. “This baby wants to be born and it wants to be born _now._ It’s not gonna wait for us. Gage, DeSoto, how much longer on that medical transporter?”

Gage banged his head on the bottom of the unit and cursed. DeSoto was the one who answered. “Ten, fifteen minutes. It’s warming up still, and it won’t let us even start calibrating until it’s done.”

“Dix, the anetrazine,” Leo barked. To O’Flaherty, he said gently, “Kid, do you think you can sit up?”

O’Flaherty shook his head wordlessly, tears in his eyes. Leo nodded and rubbed his thumb across the ensign’s fingers as gently as he could. “Okay. That’s okay. We’re gonna roll you onto your side and give you a spinal block. That’ll ease up on the pain until we can get the transporter up and running.”

Chapel came in to help Leo turn O’Flaherty onto his left side. McCall switched places with Leo, holding O’Flaherty in place and handing off the hypo. Leo’s skilled fingers quickly located the correct vertebrae, and he pressed the hypo to it. There was a faint hiss, and then O’Flaherty’s shoulders sagged in obvious relief.

“It still hurts,” he whispered. “But it’s not half as bad.”

“If it didn’t hurt at all, Kelly, there’d be a problem,” Leo assured him as the nurses got him back onto his back. “You’re going to be okay now. Nico will be here soon, and then—”

There was an ominous crackle and pop, and DeSoto jumped back from the transporter with a yell. Gage scrambled backwards, shouting, “Doc!”

Leo turned and ducked away instinctively at the black smoke pouring from the machine. “Out—everyone out!”

Gage leapt to his feet and came around to the back of the biobed to push it. Chapel kicked off the lock and grabbed the foot of the bed, and between the five of them they pushed O’Flaherty out of the small exam room. The unit’s internal fire suppressants would handle whatever had caught inside of it in a moment or two, and the filters would suck out the smoke, but the room would have to be re-sterilized before it could be used. More seriously, however, was the fact that they couldn’t use the medical transporter now. It could be repaired, but that would take time—time they didn’t have. O’Flaherty was too far gone in labor, and without anywhere to push the baby out of, Leo couldn’t discount the possibility that the child would _create_ an exit passage.

And he wasn’t sure that it wouldn’t kill O’Flaherty in the process.

He didn’t have to tell his staff any of that. They all knew the danger, too. Without a word passing between any of them, they pushed O’Flaherty into the bright, sterile surgery.

“Doctor?” O’Flaherty murmured. There was now more fear than pain in his voice.

Leo paused and took the ensign’s hand in both of his. “Kelly,” he said softly. “The medical transporter blew. We won’t be able to fix it in time. The only way we’re going to be able to get this baby out of you without it finding its own way out is a cesarean section.”

“Cutting the baby out, you mean.”

“Yeah. I know it’s not optimal, but—”

O’Flaherty suddenly broke off in a scream, half-sitting up in the process. Gage yelped, and there was a clatter as though he had jumped back and hit something. Leo turned quickly and gasped at the sight of the sudden bulge in O’Flaherty’s abdomen—a tiny, slightly-peaked bulge that looked remarkably like a hand trying to push its way through.

McCall began grabbing tools. Leo rushed over to the sterilizer and thrust his arms into it, thankful for the device that made long minutes of scrubbing redundant. Chapel, who had already thrown on a surgical gown, came around to the head of the biobed and took hold of O’Flaherty’s shoulders gently. Gage bolted for the door. Leo assumed sourly that the orderly’s stomach couldn’t handle the process and reached for a surgical gown. As McCall finished tying him into it, however, Gage returned, Nic’tlarn in tow and also wearing a surgical gown.

“Kelly!” Nic’tlarn gasped, xyr eyes huge with worry.

“Nico,” O’Flaherty wailed.

Nic’tlarn instantly was at O’Flaherty’s side, taking his hand in xyrs. Chapel gently eased xem up so that xe was out of the way as Leo snapped on a pair of gloves. “Kelly, do me a favor. Keep your eyes on Nic’tlarn’s, okay? Can you do that for me?”

O’Flaherty nodded, fixing his eyes on his spouse’s unwaveringly. Nic’tlarn rubbed O’Flaherty’s hand comfortingly, murmuring softly. Since the words were obviously meant only for O’Flaherty, Leo didn’t listen in. Instead, he came around to the appropriate side and held out his hand. “Laser scalpel.”

Not for the first time, Leo was thankful for what Jim had often told him were _the steadiest hands on the ship._ A c-section was _way_ outside his area of expertise; he’d done his rounds in obstetrics like everyone else, but that had been damn near thirty years ago, and he’d only witnessed a very few surgeries of this kind. Back when he’d been getting his MD, fetal transport was still having the kinks worked out, although at least it was survivable. It was only in the last five years that it had become the _de facto_ means of giving birth among those who didn’t choose to deliver traditionally. Still, he was thankful that he’d at least seen a few c-sections, so he at least sort of knew what he was doing.

The spinal block did its job; O’Flaherty’s scream had likely been more of shock than of pain, because he didn’t seem to feel much of anything other than some slight pressure as Leo cut through the abdomen. Once he could see inside, he saw the pinkish skin of the ersatz uterus and took a deep breath before pressing the edge of the laser scalpel to it.

The organ disintegrated. There was no other word for it. A mere touch of the blade and it was gone, vanishing as though it had never been, leaving only a blob covered in slime and blood. Hastily, Leo got a hold of the baby’s head, supported its backside with the other, and slid the infant out of the cavity. It gave a gurgling cry, waving its little hands in the air.

Nic’tlarn and O’Flaherty both turned to look as Leo gave a relieved laugh. “We’ve got a live baby here.”

The ensigns broke into huge grins, looking at one another with love and relief as O’Flaherty caught his breath. Leo took the baby over to the specially-prepared station, leaving McCall and DeSoto to use the autosuture on the incision. With Chapel’s assistance, he cleaned the baby up, sealed off the remains of the umbilical cord, and ran the standard battery of medical tests. A deep sigh escaped his lips as the reassuring numbers crawled across the screen before him.

“Congratulations,” he said after the tests were done, walking over to the biobed with the naked, clean infant in his arms. Gently, he lay it on top of O’Flaherty’s chest. “Until and unless she grows up and tells you otherwise, genetically speaking, you have a happy, healthy little girl.”

O’Flaherty let out something between a laugh and a sob. “A girl,” he half-whispered. “Nico, we have a girl!”

“She is beautiful,” Nic’tlarn said softly, brushing the back of the infant’s head with xyr long fingers. “Like you.”

Leo motioned to the staff to clear out of the room, leaving the new family alone for at least a little while. He took the PADD with the infant’s numbers on it and stepped out into the main part of Med Bay with the intention of heading to his office and starting a file.

To his surprise, there was a rather larger group of people in the room than he had expected. Jim was pacing slightly, looking anxious; Addie sat on the edge of an exam table, Slim next to her, talking to Cayne. Sulu and Chekov sat on a biobed opposite them, while Scotty paced a counterpoint to Jim’s path. Simril leaned against the wall nearby, his arms folded across his chest. His gaze was fixed on the doorway, so he saw Leo the moment he stepped out, and the color drained from his face as he unfolded his arms and straightened. “Doctor?”

Six more heads snapped around to look at Leo. Cayne gasped softly, her hand coming up to her mouth. Scotty swore. Jim took a step closer, the anxiety on his face increasing. “Bones, is it—how—” He broke off, obviously unsure of how to respond.

For a moment, Leo wasn’t sure why they were reacting the way they were—not until Addie looked up and whimpered. “Papa, you hurt?”

Leo looked down at himself and realized that his surgical gown was covered with a lot of gore, mostly from having cradled the baby immediately following her birth. He quickly shed the surgical gown, balling it up to toss in the incinerator, and gave the assemblage a smile. “Everything’s fine. O’Flaherty’s just fine. The baby’s healthy, too. It’s a girl.”

The looks of worry vanished, to be replaced with broad grins of delight. Leo held up his hands, stemming the instinctive rush forward. “Give them a few minutes, all right? I’ll see in a couple minutes if they’re up for visitors. But for now…just let them be.”

He slipped past the group to his office, where he began pulling out what he needed to start a file. Meticulously, he began filling out the forms, leaving blank only the spot to put the baby’s name. Once he had finished that, he updated O’Flaherty’s records as well as his medical log, dictating the details of the mishap with the medical transporter and the surgery itself. At last, he returned to the main Med Bay.

“I put them back in the private room, Doc,” Gage told him, waving an arm at the room where the whole thing had begun. “Seemed better than leaving them in the operating theater.”

“Thanks, Gage.” Leo nodded to the orderly and made his way over to the room. O’Flaherty’s friends, Jim included, trailed after him. At the door, he motioned for them to wait before stepping inside.

Nic’tlarn sat on the edge of O’Flaherty’s biobed, xyr arm around his shoulders. Someone had wrapped the baby up in a fluffy white blanket with fringe, and O’Flaherty cradled the bundle to his chest as though he’d been doing it all his life. Both ensigns were glowing. When they heard Leo’s approach, they turned identical beams upon him.

Leo smiled back. “I’ve just been setting up her file. It’s almost done, but before I ask you the last question I need for it, I have another question. Do you feel up for visitors?”

O’Flaherty looked surprised. “Is there anyone out there?”

“All of your friends are out there. Including Sulu and Chekov. The captain’s out there, too.”

“How many will you let in?”

“As many as you want,” Leo told him.

“Could you let them all in?” O’Flaherty asked tentatively. “Addie, too, if she’s out there.”

“Of course,” Leo said with a smile. He opened the door and beckoned to the assemblage. “Come on in.”

The room, fortunately, was big enough to hold the entire group. Addie’s eyes got huge and her mouth formed a perfectly round O when Slim lifted her up so she could see. “That a baby.”

“Yep,” Slim agreed softly.

“Congratulations,” Simril said, his voice equally soft. “She’s beautiful.”

“What are you gonna name her?” Cayne asked. Leo noticed her fingers brushing absently against Slim’s hip as she spoke, but he said nothing.

Nic’tlarn and O’Flaherty looked at one another for a moment before O’Flaherty answered, his eyes drifting over to Jim’s. “Jame.”

The shock on Jim’s face was palpable. His mouth moved for a moment, but no sound came out. Leo was surprised as well, although, on reflection, he probably shouldn’t have been. He had observed over the last few months the way the young ensign responded to Jim, the way Jim looked after him and Nic’tlarn. And the memory of Jim, terrified out of his mind, holding O’Flaherty tightly and curling around him—her—to protect her from Apollo’s wrath was burned into Leo’s mind. But it was obvious that Jim had never considered the possibility that the ensigns cared about him that much.

“Hi, Jame,” Addie said softly, waving at the infant, who—as far as Leo could tell—was sound asleep.

Nic’tlarn turned to Simril and said quietly, “Porter…we would be honored if you would agree to be Jame’s godfather.”

Simril’s serious face lit up in a smile. “The honor would be mine.”

O’Flaherty was still looking at Jim. “Captain? Would you like to hold her?”

The question apparently broke through Jim’s shock. He managed a small smile and held out his arms.

Carefully, Nic’tlarn lifted the infant from O’Flaherty’s arms and transferred her to Jim’s. Jim’s face softened, and the corners of his eyes crinkled in the way Leo loved as he smiled down at the baby—just the way he’d smiled at Addie when she was an infant. Leo felt an unexpected lump in his throat as he looked at the little girl in Slim’s arms, no longer even a toddler. She had declared herself a “big girl” when she got to visit K-7 on her birthday, and she wasn’t far wrong. God, where was the time going?

“Hi, Jame,” Jim whispered, something between a laugh and a sob in his voice. “Welcome to the _Enterprise._ ”

Nic’tlarn smiled and brushed xyr fingers along the top of xyr daughter’s head. “Welcome home.”


	90. In My Daughter's Eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So if you look up...you may notice I have a surprise for you.
> 
> That's right, folks. I now know _exactly_ how many chapters long this story is going to be. And I (sort of) have a plan for most of them. There are still a few--quite a few--that I'll be seriously improvising on, probably as I get to them. But I know where it's going. And I know how it's going to end, too. The last chapter is already written. :)

O’Flaherty and baby Jame left Med Bay twenty-four hours later, the infant safely swaddled in the night sky blanket Jim had given her on Christmas. Bones had turned over the bottles and cloth diapers Addie had used as an infant some weeks before, but the idea of the crib had presented something of a problem, since Addie’s had been converted into the toddler bed she now slept in. Slim and his friends had come to the rescue, however, spending several evenings working in secret, and O’Flaherty had burst into tears when they had proudly presented her with a hand-forged cradle.

The day after that was Jim’s day off.

Ordinarily, Nic’tlarn would have taken Addie for the day regardless. Xe was at breakfast that morning, smiling broadly but looking a little distracted. “Good morning, Addie. Good morning, Captain, Doctor, Slim.”

“G’mornin’, Zizi Nico!” Addie burbled happily.

Jim fetched a bowl of oatmeal for both of them; Bones was always on a crusade to get Jim to eat healthier, and every once in a while he did it without his husband’s grousing, just to make him smile. Addie thanked him before digging in.

As Jim began making inroads on his own bowl—which was kind of bland and nearly unpalatable, but he swallowed it down, refusing to add anything to it that Bones hadn’t approved, for once—he glanced over at Nic’tlarn. The ensign certainly seemed ordinary, but he’d seen the look in xyr luminous eyes, and he knew that xe was thinking of O’Flaherty and the baby. Mentally, he kicked himself for not thinking of it sooner.

“Nic’tlarn, I’ll keep Addie with me today,” he said. “You should spend the day with your family.”

“Captain, I—” Nic’tlarn began to protest.

“Everyone is entitled to a day off once in a while,” Jim interrupted. “You’ve been on duty virtually every day since Dr. Marcus left the _Enterprise._ Addie and I will be fine together, won’t we, baby girl?”

“Uh-huh.” Addie beamed up at him. A blob of honeyed oatmeal fell slowly off her spoon and plopped into the bowl.

Nic’tlarn hesitated. “If you’re sure…”

“I’m positive. Go on. You’re her parent, too. Go spend some time bonding.”

Slim grinned. “Tell Kelly we said hi.”

“I will,” Nic’tlarn promised. “Thank you, Captain.” Xe hastily finished xyr food, then disappeared so fast xe might’ve been transported.

“Think xe’s in a hurry?” Bones said dryly.

“Remember how we were when Addie was a baby?” Jim reminded his husband.

Addie stretched her hands, one of which still held her spoon, up in the air. “I not a baby anymore, Daddy. I a big girl!”

“You getting oatmeal in your hair is what you are.” Slim plucked the spoon out of Addie’s hand and set it down on the table.

Jim sighed as Addie ran her hand over the top of her head, effectively smearing the mess into her hair. He knew what the result was going to be and dreaded it. “Looks like the first order of the day is a B-A-T-H.”

Addie’s face instantly fell. “No, Daddy! No bath!”

“Yes bath. You’ll be sticky if you don’t take one.”

Addie pouted. Slim went to ruffle her hair, then stopped and patted her shoulder instead. “C’mon, Addie, you can’t say you’re a big girl then act like a baby. Do what Daddy says. If you’re real good today, we’ll play Candy Land after dinner.”

Jim mouthed _thank you_ at Slim as Addie immediately began stacking her dishes neatly. Bones kissed Jim on the cheek. “Have a good day, now.”

“You, too, Bones.” Jim turned to kiss his husband back.

Bones caught Jim’s chin, brushed their lips together, and murmured, “Don’t think I didn’t notice you’re bein’ a good boy. Keep it up and I’ll reward you for that tonight, too.”

“Dammit, Bones, you don’t play fair,” Jim mumbled, feeling a shiver run down his spine.

Bones’ chuckle stayed in Jim’s ears as he joined the crowd heading for their shift positions.

As soon as they had disposed of their dishes, Jim took Addie’s hand and walked her back to their quarters. He started to pull out the portable tub they’d tucked away, the one they’d been using to bathe her since she was an infant, then paused as an idea struck him. “Hey, Addie. Wanna take a shower like Daddy and Papa and Slim do?”

Addie brightened, then suddenly looked suspicious. “I hafta sing ‘Green Grow Lilas’?”

Jim couldn’t help but laugh. “No, Addie, you don’t have to sing ‘Green Grow the Lilacs.’ You just stand up and take your shower. Like a big girl.”

“You help me, Daddy?”

“Yes, of course I’ll help you.” Jim wasn’t about to let his daughter stand in the shower alone. She’d probably end up drinking shampoo and falling down the drain. She was his daughter, after all. The first time he’d been left alone in the shower, he’d managed to flood the entire bathroom and give himself a concussion. A second wave of inspiration hit him, and he added, “Let’s take a shower together.”

“Okay!” Addie seemed greatly cheered by this.

The logistics proved a little more difficult than Jim had expected; he usually showered with Bones if he showered with anybody. Addie was a little over three feet tall, but she was still half her papa’s height, and she was slender besides, so he kept tripping over her or missing when he reached for her. For a wonder, though, she stayed absolutely still, keeping her e yes tightly closed against the rivulets of shampoo and submitting with meekness to his scrubbing. He washed his own hair quickly, since he’d meant to take a shower that night anyway, then shut off the water and lifted Addie out onto the bath mat.

Once they were both dry, Jim let Addie dress herself—she was definitely getting the hang of it, although she consistently put her shoes on the wrong feet—and then spent several minutes combing out her long, curly hair before leading her back into the living room. “Okay, Addie. How about we work on your puzzle?”

Addie wrinkled her nose, but nodded. She was on the fifty-seventh iteration of her puzzle box, and had been for about the last week. Nic’tlarn had tried to get her to solve it, but xe said that she lost interest fairly quickly because the pieces didn’t go together easily. She had about twenty pieces left to place, but several of them were in a cluster.

Jim brought the puzzle, and the tray with the remaining pieces, down for Addie, then sat and watched patiently as she struggled with the puzzle. Slim had mentioned from a fairly young age that Addie was no engineer, but as she got older, Jim saw more and more evidence of that. She had neither the logical outlook nor the spacial awareness to solve the sorts of problems that Slim and his friends solved as a matter of course.

It amazed Jim that Addie kept at the puzzle for the rest of the morning, and she clapped happily as she slotted the last piece into place. “Look, Daddy, I did it!”

“Way to go, Addie!” Jim enthused. He glanced at the chronometer. “Hey, look, it’s almost lunchtime. Let’s put your puzzle away and then go get something to eat.”

“’Kay.” Addie got to her feet eagerly.

Remembering that Bones had told him to be good—and that he could pull up records of what everybody got from the food slots—Jim got himself a salad and a peanut-butter sandwich for Addie, then a tall glass of milk and an apple for both of them, although Addie’s was in slices. She ate without complaint, probably thinking of her own promised reward. Back in their quarters, Jim read Addie a story, having her sound out a few of the simpler words, then tucked her in for her afternoon nap.

The day was going well—very well—but that didn’t keep Jim from relishing the two hours he had to himself, to read his own book and relax. It gave him a refresher for when Addie came out of her bedroom, rubbing her eyes but smiling broadly. “Hi, Daddy.”

“Hi, pumpkin.” Jim set his PADD on the shelf and glanced at the chronometer again. They had a little over an hour before Slim and Bones came back in. “What do you want to do for the rest of the afternoon?”

Addie considered this for a minute, then suddenly brightened. “Let’s play House!”

“House?” Jim repeated, surprised. “Sure, okay. You’ll have to teach me how to play, though. I don’t know how.”

The grin on Addie’s face probably should have warned him.

Twenty minutes later, Jim was sitting cross-legged on the floor and wondering when his daughter had accumulated _any_ dress-up clothes, let alone as many as she had. Probably every female-presenting crewman she came in regular contact with had given her something, because her collection was varied and extensive. She had made sure that her father was well-decked out before even considering her own appearance. He regretted not giving her limited choices about what to do. A lot.

At Addie’s insistence, they had a pretend tea party, despite the fact that she didn’t have a tea set—even a fake one—for them to play with. Jim was thankful for his vivid imagination, although he’d never stretched it to tea parties—his games as a child had always centered around fighting invisible enemies and executing daring and convoluted rescue missions. He pretended to crook his pinkie over the “teacup,” sending Addie into a fit of chuckles. He drew the line at talking in a falsetto, though. It hurt his voice too much.

“More tea, Daddy?” Addie pretended to hold up the teapot.

“Yes, thank you, Addie, I would love some,” Jim said gravely.

Her little face creased in concentration, Addie carefully “poured” tea into Jim’s “cup.” Once she had poured, she held up something else. “Sugar?”

“Oh, no, thank you,” Jim answered. “I think my tea is sweet enough as it is.”

Addie frowned. “Why?”

Smiling, Jim pretended to blow on his tea. “Because you poured it for me.”

A cough from the doorway startled him, and he looked up to see Bones leaning against the wall, arms folded across his chest, fighting valiantly not to smirk. Addie beamed. “Hi, Papa!”

“Hi, Addie.” Bones’ eyes twinkled. “What are we doing?”

“We having a tea party,” Addie informed him.

“A tea party!” Bones said with fake astonishment. “Why, I hope you aren’t spoiling your appetites for dinner.”

“No, no,” Jim assured him. “Just tea. And cookies. But only the good-for-you kind.”

“Uh-huh. And may I say, Jim, you look absolutely fetching. That hat…it’s _you._ ”

Jim felt a blush spread across his cheeks. Addie had tricked him out in an enormous floppy hat that hearkened back several centuries, made of a pale purple mesh and trimmed with slightly darker purple ribbons, as well as a too-tight and too-short dress from which his uniform stuck out like a sore thumb, a pair of short white gloves that barely covered his fingers, and what felt like several pounds of garish costume jewelry. A bright pink feather boa around his neck completed the ensemble. Addie, for her part, wore a straw hat that kept falling down over her eyes, a glittery black-and-silver dress that pooled around her, a pair of oversized emerald green high heels she could slide her feet into the toes of, a couple ropes of pearls, and long gold gloves that went almost up to her shoulders.

And from the look in Bones’ eyes, he had probably taken several pictures before announcing his presence, damn the man.

“Thanks,” Jim said, trying to salvage what little of his dignity he had left. “Addie picked it out for me.”

“Got it.” Bones grinned. “Tell you what—why don’t you two change back into your real clothes, and we can go have dinner together? And then—was she good today?”

“She was very good,” Jim assured his husband. “We didn’t do a whole lot, but she behaved very well.”

“Then I bet Slim will play Candy Land with you. Long as it keeps up through dinner,” Bones cautioned Addie.

Addie clapped her hands together, the fabric muffling the sound. “Yay! C’mon, Daddy!”

She stumbled for the bedroom. Jim winced as his knees protested him getting to his feet. Bones took his hand and pulled him up.

“Saw the food slot records,” he said in Jim’s ear as he tugged the gloves off of Jim’s fingers. “You’ve been good today, too. But you’re gonna have to wait a little longer.”

Jim shivered, then smiled at Bones. “I can be good for the rest of the night, too.”


	91. And Fly Like a Dove

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear I've had this chapter written for, like, three weeks. I just keep forgetting to post it. I hope this is worth the payoff, as short as it is. The next one will be longer.

With a shout, Sulu lunged forward, his foil bending in the middle as the point buried itself against Slim’s shoulder. Slim lowered his own foil and stepped back, conceding the point, then took off his mask. He was breathless and flushed with exertion, but grinning. “Match point, ain’t it?”

“Yeah.” Sulu took off his own mask, his smile just as broad. “As much fun as I have beating you mercilessly, though, it’s not much of a challenge anymore. We might have to start sticking to the rapier and the saber. If you’re okay with that.”

“I’d be fine with that.” Slim had long ago stopped taking actual lessons; he and Sulu simply met once in a while for fencing or general swordfighting practice. “I’d like to keep practicing with the others, at least once in a while, and hell, I’d love to do more with the claymores. But, yeah, we’re more evenly matched with sabers and rapiers.”

Sulu tapped the point of the foil against the floor. “Want to do something now?”

Slim thought for a minute, but his stomach growled loudly and he couldn’t help but laugh. “It appears that the only ‘something’ I want to do is eat.”

“Fair enough.” Sulu laughed, too. “Think I’m gonna get some practice in with the dummy for a while.”

“You ain’t hungry?”

“Pasha had his forty-five just before you and I came down here. I’m good until Beta.”

Slim nodded. He still wasn’t allowed to be in Engineering more than every other day, and his day off had happened to coincide with Sulu’s, which was why they had decided to meet up midmorning and practice. “Okay. Maybe I’ll see you for dinner then.”

“See you, Slim.” Sulu waved absently as he began peeling off his gear—he didn’t need it if he wasn’t facing off against an opponent.

Slim clipped his foil back into place and headed up to his family’s quarters. A quick shower and a change of clothes later, and he was heading for the mess hall, intent on a chicken sandwich and a chocolate milk. Jim had grumbled good-naturedly about how unfair it was that Slim got away with drinking chocolate milk when Leo was always on Jim about too much fatty or sugary stuff in his diet, until Leo had pointed out that Slim only went for it right after exercising. _Better than a protein shake,_ as his stepfather had said.

Most of the lunch crowd was gone; most of the people on Alpha had returned to their shifts, those on Gamma had gone to bed, those on Beta were still asleep, and those who were off had mostly left to do other things. Only a few people still lingered. Fewer still were just coming in.

As Slim punched his order into the food slots, a cheerful voice at his elbow said, “Fancy meetin’ you here.”

Slim turned and smiled broadly at Audra. “Hey, Auds. Off today?”

“Yeah. Spent the mornin’ workin’ out in the secondary gym. Don’t need the strength trainin’, obviously, but I reckoned I needed to work on my stamina.” Audra’s slot beeped, and she slid out her meal—a grilled chicken sandwich and a large glass of chocolate milk.

Slim burst out laughing, holding up his own identical meal. “Great minds think alike.”

“But fools seldom argue,” Audra reminded him, also chuckling. “Guess you were workin’ out, too?”

“Fencin’ with Sulu.”

“How’d you do?”

“We were on foils.”

Audra winced. “Gotcha.”

They sat down at one of the smaller tables in the corner and fell to eating, chattering occasionally about nonsense—Slim’s studies, Audra’s exercise regimen, the _Enterprise’s_ course. Slim promised to go for a “run” with Audra the next time they were both off; she teased him about not being able to keep up with him. When he found out that she’d come in third place in the cadet marathon her final year at the Academy, Slim privately had to agree with her.

“You got plans for the rest of the day?” Audra asked as she chased the last of her chocolate milk with a straw.

Slim shrugged. “Not really. Finished all my homework. Reckon I’ll just end up sittin’ somewhere and readin’.”

“Me, too,” Audra said, a little ruefully. “I never know what to do with time off by myself.”

Whether she meant it as an implication or not, Slim’s mouth apparently ran off before his brain could kick into gear, because he heard himself ask, “Wanna come watch a movie with me? Seems like the kind of day for it.”

Audra looked surprised, then flushed slightly, then smiled. “Yeah, okay, sounds fun. What did you have in mind?”

Since Slim hadn’t been planning on watching a movie at all, he scrambled for an idea as quickly as he could. Adventure movies, classics, rom-coms…but then he flashed back to probably his favorite movie sequel of all time. “Have you ever seen _The Rescuers Down Under?_ ”

“Can’t say as I have,” Audra admitted.

“Oh, we’re fixin’ that.” Slim smiled. “C’mon, let’s go.”

Slim and his friends had watched movies together a few times—old Disney movies, classic swashbucklers, over-the-top comedies—but this was the first time Slim and Audra had ever watched one alone together. Surprisingly, he wasn’t nervous or feeling awkward. They might have hoped to be more than friends—might even have _been_ more than friends—but ever since they’d gotten everything out into the open—or at least most of it—they were comfortable around each other. Slim felt no compunction about sitting next to her on the couch and picking up the remote to flip through the listings.

“Here we go.” Slim clicked the Play button and settled back against the couch, draping one arm across the back.

To his mild surprise—but not displeasure—Audra leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder and tucking her legs to the side. “This the sequel to the original?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Slim answered. He hesitated a moment before letting his arm drift down to rest lightly on hers. “I saw this one first, actually. Mr. Pinkerton made me watch the original ‘cause he said I had to understand why Bernard an’ Bianca were—well, you’ll see.”

The opening animation, rushing through the grass of the Australian outback, always made Slim smile. The music was bright and catchy, even if there wasn’t a lot of singing in this one—especially for a Disney movie—and the drawings were beautiful. Slim had always kind of identified a little with Cody, and he had secretly decided that, if he ever had a spaceship of his own, he would call it the _Marahute._

But as many times as he’d seen the movie, as much as he loved it, this viewing had to be his favorite. Because even as the little boy flew on the eagle’s back over the rivers and plains, he was aware of the weight of Audra’s head against his side and the warmth of her breath tickling his skin.

“I love how sophisticated and elaborate this setup is,” she murmured as the message about Cody’s kidnapping made its way from Australia to New York. “These mice really know what they’re doin’.”

“They wouldn’t still be in business if they didn’t,” Slim murmured in reply.

It wasn’t exactly a romance, but in a way, it was. Underneath the main plot of rescuing Cody from the poacher McLeach, there was a subplot following Bernard’s attempts to propose to Bianca. Slim found it oddly endearing that he still called her “Miss Bianca” even though they were in love—and even though he’d obviously been upgraded from the mere janitor at the RAS to a representative. For the first time in his life, he found himself identifying with the bumbling little mouse, especially when he finally pulled himself together and managed to save Cody, Bianca, and even Jake from McLeach. And when Bernard finally managed to blurt out his proposal—and Bianca accepted him—Audra gave a little sigh of contentment.

“Good choice, Slim,” she said softly. “That was a real sweet movie.”

“I’ve always liked it.” Slim watched the credits roll without really seeing them. “It ain’t much of a romance, but…”

“I thought it was pretty romantic. Beats the hell outta _Casablanca._ ”

“ _Angels With Dirty Faces_ is more romantic than _Casablanca,_ if you ask me.”

Audra looked up at Slim with a smile. “Yeah? You thought Jerry and Rocky had a thing for each other too?”

Slim gave Audra a crooked grin in reply. “I think they would’ve, if they’d been allowed to back then.”

They sat in a companionable silence for a few moments. Finally, Audra shifted slightly. “I—I reckon I should probably go.”

Slim opened his mouth to say something, then changed his mind and said, “Computer, play audio file Six Romeo Nine One Eight Whiskey Whiskey Nine.”

Audra looked up at him in confusion—a confusion that slowly melted away as the music kicked in, followed by the nearly two hundred-year-old band singing.

_Oh, won’t you stay…just a little bit longer…_

Slim found himself singing along—a couple octaves lower than Frankie Valli, it had to be said—and then slid out from behind Audra and started dancing along. She was laughing by the time he was finished the song, which wasn’t very long. “All right, all right. Can’t you put on somethin’ a bit better, though?”

“Sure.” Slim hesitated a moment before dictating to the computer, “Playlist Sierra Alpha Nine Four Nine Nine Two.”

This time, the music that came over the stereo system in the quarters—just loud enough for the two of them to hear—was a mix of country love songs Slim had put together. He often listened to it while he was studying, at least when he was thinking of Audra at the same time, which was a lot more frequent these days. He bowed and held out his hand to Audra, who was half-sitting up on the sofa. “May I have this dance?”

“You may.” Audra took his hand and let him pull her to her feet.

The song was one of those slow, ballad-y type songs that wasn’t exactly a waltz and would’ve made an all right two-step, but they didn’t bother trying any proper ballroom dances. Instead, Slim slid his arms around Audra’s waist, and she draped hers over his shoulders. Slowly, they swayed back and forth, revolving in a circle. Slim bent his head forward to touch his forehead against Audra’s. They said nothing as they danced together.

Alpha shift would be ending relatively soon. Before Jim and Leo came in with Addie, they would need to be out in the more public areas of the ship, just for Jim’s peace of mind. Outside the door, reality was waiting to creep in on them, to remind them that Audra was twenty-two and Slim was seventeen, that she was a Starfleet officer and he was the captain’s son, that there were a hell of a lot of obstacles between them and making this into something that could last.

But here, for a few, precious moments, was something. And Slim was determined to make the most of it.


	92. I, Mudd

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope some of you are still reading this, even though it's taken me two freaking months to update. (Explanation after the chapter.)
> 
> This chapter is based on the episode of the same name written by Stephen Kandel.

“I’m telling you, Spock, it’s not normal,” Leo said hotly as he and Spock stepped onto the bridge. “There’s something wrong with a man who never smiles, whose conversation never varies from his job routine, and who refuses to talk about his background!”

“Perhaps he is frightened of your beads and rattles,” Spock said, his face placid and without emotion as usual.

Leo glared at him. “I’m gonna rattle _you_ in a minute. If he dodges one more physical—”

“Who are you talking about, Bones?” Jim asked, looking around from his chair.

“Lieutenant Norman,” Leo answered. “That new guy who came onto the ship a couple days ago. I’ve been trying to grab him for his routine physical since he got here and he’s dodged every one of my appointments. Am I or am I not the Chief Medical Officer on this ship?”

Jim frowned. “Norman? We don’t have a Norman on this ship. Lieutenant or otherwise.”

Spock raised an eyebrow. “As I have met him, Captain, I can confirm that we do in fact have a Norman aboard.”

“Well, we’re not supposed to.”

Sulu suddenly started. “Captain, there’s an unplanned course change being fed into our instruments!”

“Correct it, Mr. Sulu.”

Leo watched as Sulu struggled unsuccessfully with the helm for a few moments, feeling worry grip his heart. First an officer Jim didn’t know—hadn’t authorized—and now an unplanned course change…it didn’t take a genius to figure out what was going on. After a second, Jim stabbed at his intercom. “Auxiliary Control, this is the captain. What’s going on down there?”

There was no answer. Sulu’s voice took on a slightly panicked tone as he said, “Auxiliary Control is on complete override, sir! I can’t make the corrections!”

Leaping to his feet, Jim stabbed at his controls again. “Intruder alert, deck eight, Auxiliary Control.”

“On our way, sir.” Dickenson’s voice crackled over the line.

Jim swung back around to Sulu’s side. “What’s our imposed course?”

“Turning to three-oh-seven degrees mark eight,” Sulu said, glancing over his shoulder. “Being executed now.”

Leo looked up at the screen. The stars blurred laterally as the ship turned in the direction Sulu had mentioned. Before he could say anything, the intercom crackled to life. “Security here, Captain, Chief Dickenson. I’m in Auxiliary Control. Ensign Watanabe has been knocked unconscious—he’ll be all right, though. But the directional master controls, sir—they’ve been mangled! They’re completely unworkable.”

“Any sign of the intruder?”

“None, sir. I’ve put out a security alert on all decks.”

“Keep me posted. Kirk out.” Jim turned back to Sulu. “Sulu, cut in Emergency Manual Monitor. I want that override broken.”

Sulu’s expression grew more and more panicked as he wrestled with the helm. “None of the instruments are responding, Captain.”

Jim lunged for his intercom. “Bridge to Engineering. Scotty, an intruder may be in your area. Rig a force field to prevent entry.”

“Aye, sir.” There was no lingering or banter in the chief engineer’s voice, merely a crisp, snappy reply.

Chekov spoke quietly from the navigational console for the first time, his face pale. “Keptin. Mr. Scott has Slim on ze Emergency Manual Monitor today.”

Leo felt the blood drain from his face. Jim remained immobile for nearly a full minute before stabbing frantically at the buttons. “Emergency Manual Monitor, come in!”

There was no response.

A minute of horrified silence filled the bridge, followed by Scotty’s choked, gasping voice breaking through. “The intruder is—” His words choked off.

“Scotty? Scotty!” Jim shouted.

“We’re picking up speed!” Sulu’s eyes were fixed on his console. “Warp five. No, six…warp _seven_ now, sir!”

“Cut power!” Jim grabbed the back of his chair with one hand and Leo’s arm with the other as the acceleration began to make itself felt.

“I can’t, sir, the controls are jammed!” Sulu’s brow was drenched with sweat.

Jim’s jaw tightened, and he went for the intercom again. “Security, the intruder is in Engineering section. All units converge!”

“That will not be necessary, Captain.”

At the sound of the cold, even voice, Jim, Leo, and Spock swung around to see the overly-handsome lieutenant Leo had been complaining about mere moments before stepping from the elevator. Jim’s hand tightened on Leo’s arm for a moment. “Belay that, Mr. Sulu. All right, Lieutenant—Norman, is it? Have the kindness to tell me what this is all about.”

“I am in total control of your ship.” There was no flicker of emotion on Norman’s face, and it sent shivers down Leo’s spine. Even Spock at his most implacable was never so blank, so absolutely frigid and—robotic. The word slammed into the front of Leo’s brain even as Norman continued, “I have connected the matter-antimatter pods to the main navigational banks. A trigger relay is now operational. Any attempt to change course will result in the destruction of your vessel.”

Jim’s face went completely bloodless. Without taking his eyes from Norman, he said, “Mr. Spock?”

Spock crossed over to the computer station and was there for no more than a moment. “Confirmed, Captain. He has removed all override controls. If we tamper without knowing where the trigger relay is, we shall destroy ourselves.”

Leo wrapped his arms around Jim from behind, pulling him close to his chest. He cursed silently as he felt Jim’s erratic heartbeat. It was something he’d been noticing for a while now—that slight arrhythmia when he was under a great deal more stress than usual—something that had started nearly a year before, during their encounter with Apollo. He needed to get Jim into Med Bay for a checkup before it got to something he couldn’t control…like what had happened to his father.

Worry about his husband and worry about his stepson combined to make his voice harsher than he meant as he asked, “Who are you?”

“I assure you, we are no threat to humanity.” Norman nodded towards Spock briefly and added, “Nor to humanoid life. We simply require your ship.”

“Oh, is that all?” Leo said sarcastically. “And what do you mean, ‘we’ are no threat? Who’s ‘we’? And why don’t you consider yourself ‘humanoid life’?”

Norman hesitated for no more than a second, then lifted his shirt, gripped the side of his solar plexus—and opened a panel, exposing a tangle of wires and circuits.

Chekov gasped behind them. “An android!”

“A very sophisticated one.” Spock sounded intrigued—almost fascinated.

Norman replaced the panel and lowered his shirt. “I control the trigger relay,” he said in the same emotionless voice as before, but now that Leo listened carefully, he could hear the faint mechanical lilt to it. “I cannot be overcome by physical means, and if you attempt to use your phasers, the relay will be activated. We will continue on this course for approximately four standard days. At that time, we will reach our destination. Please understand that we mean you no harm.”

“And I ask again,” Leo said, his voice as hard as he could possibly make it. “Who are ‘we’?”

“I am not programmed to respond in this area.” Norman’s face took on an even blanker look than usual, the light in his eyes dimming as he went perfectly still.

There was a moment of silence. Uhura, who had remained silent for the entire conversation, was the first to move, getting up and crossing to stand directly in front of Norman. She waved her hand in front of his face, snapped under his nose, even gave a light shove to the shoulder. There was nothing. No flicker of movement. She couldn’t even budge him.

“What the hell?” she said at last.

“He would appear to have turned himself off,” Spock said, stepping up to examine the android as well. “And as we cannot repair the damage he has done without destroying the ship—”

“It would seem we’re taking a little trip,” Jim said quietly. His voice was rough and brittle, and Leo, whose arms were still wrapped around him, could feel the frantic, erratic fluttering of his heart suddenly quicken. “Oh, God. Slim!”

Without letting go of Jim, Leo reached around him to stab at the intercom on the chair. “McCoy to Security! Have you located the personnel supposed to be on duty in Engineering?”

“We have, Doctor,” Dickenson’s voice replied. “Mr. Scott, Lieutenant Blume, and Slim were all knocked unconscious, but like Watanabe, none of them are seriously hurt. In fact, they’ve all come round just fine.”

Scotty’s voice came in then, sounding equal parts shaky and pissed. “What the devil _was_ that thing?”

“What is right,” Leo muttered. “The ersatz Lieutenant Norman is, in fact, an android who’s hijacked the ship.”

“Hijacked the _Enterprise?_ ” Scotty cried indignantly.

“We can’t undo it. He’s rigged up some sort of trigger relay that’ll blow us all to kingdom come if we try messing with it. Glad you’re okay, Scotty, but head up to Med Bay for a checkup anyway.”

Scotty heaved a sigh. “On my way, Doctor. Scott out.”

Leo leaned his cheek against Jim’s temple. “Slim and Blume are probably on their way to Medical, too. You want to come with me to check on them, Jim?”

Jim took a deep, shaky breath. “Yeah, okay.”

The next four days were fairly routine, if one could ignore the elephant in the room—or rather, on the bridge. Everyone stepped uneasily around the inert Norman, and with the ship locked in, there was no real need for a helmsman or navigator, but for the most part, they tried to keep things as normal as possible. Leo spent as much of his time as he could on the bridge, keeping an eye on Jim. His tests had come back normal, except for some heightened stress levels, but Leo still worried about him. He hadn’t seen his husband like this since the incident at K-7.

Slim was fine, as was everyone else Norman had knocked out. He’d tried, the first day out, to use his gift to communicate with both Norman and the _Enterprise,_ but got nothing from either—which probably upset him a lot more than he let on, but he didn’t say a word. Instead, he threw himself into his studies and his work in Engineering. Nic’tlarn and O’Flaherty, who was slowly recovering strength, had brought Addie and baby Jame up to the bridge to celebrate her tenth day of life; Addie had screamed when she saw Norman, upsetting the baby, and refused to come back up again until the “scary statue” was gone. Leo couldn’t really blame her.

About halfway through Alpha shift on the fourth day, they entered an uncharted sector. Slim was leaning over Spock’s computer and murmuring with him about the interesting features of the immediate area—there weren’t many—when Norman suddenly blinked and came back to life. “Activate your main viewing screen, Captain.”

Jim nodded to Uhura, who nodded. “Aye, sir.”

The viewscreen came to life as Norman said, “At this point, I am programmed to inform you that you will be entering into orbit around our planet in seven point four standard minutes.”

Leo glanced at the viewscreen. The planet that appeared was barely worthy of the title—a barren ball of rock spinning gently in front of them, no sign of vegetation or life whatsoever.

Spock tilted an eyebrow in Slim’s direction. “Thomas?”

Slim studied the screen for a moment, then hazarded, “Class K?”

“That is correct,” Norman said. He turned briskly to Jim. “The following individuals will beam down: Captain. Science Officer. Chief Medical Officer. Navigator. The one called Thomas will come also.”

Jim turned pale, but his voice remained steady as he said, “Any discussions or meetings can be held here, on the _Enterprise._ ”

Norman eyed Jim. “If you do not come with me, I shall destroy your engines and you will remain in orbit here—forever.”

“Do you always abduct your guests?” Leo said bitterly, resting a supportive hand on the flat of Jim’s back.

“That is not our intention.” Norman paused. “There is a word you humans have. Among us there is no corresponding term, but it seems to have an appropriate meaning here.”

“What is that?” Jim asked.

“Please.”

Leo felt Jim sag slightly and knew the battle was lost, not that there had ever been much of one to begin with. They really didn’t have much of a choice. “All right, you heard the—man,” he said with only the briefest of hesitations. “Let’s go. Mr. Sulu, you have the helm.”

As Chekov stood to go, Sulu touched his arm, pulled him down for a kiss, and murmured something against his skin. Chekov nodded, brushing his lips against Sulu’s cheek briefly before gently disengaging and joining the others in leaving the bridge. Leo waited until they were almost to the transporter room before asking quietly, “Everything okay?”

“Just wanted me to be sure to look after myself.” Chekov’s voice was so soft Leo was pretty sure he was the only one who could hear him. “Ze last few times I’ve been on away missions without him have involved beings from ze past and…it hasn’t ended well.”

“Let’s hope we don’t run into any gods this time,” Leo murmured.

The party materialized in what seemed to be some sort of anteroom, a sparsely furnished chamber clearly meant for nothing more than waiting. Slim actually turned in one place to stare around the whole room, but he said nothing. Leo chose not to ask, especially as two women came out of a door just then. They were identical—shapely brunettes draped in rose-colored, flowing garments—except for the pendants around their necks, which had numbers carved into them, a one and a two.

Norman addressed himself to the one with the “1” pendant. “I have brought them.”

“He is waiting,” the first one replied.

Number Two indicated the door with a sweep of her hand. “If you will accompany us.”

The crew followed the three androids wordlessly. The door slid aside to reveal a magnificent chamber carved of purple rock. Everywhere were luxurious couches and gilded mirrors, and there was a truly hideous fountain patterned on the Botticelli painting of Venus rising from a seashell, wrought in gold. From the plush carpet to the silken hangings, the whole thing was a fanciful imagining of a royal audience chamber. There was even a throne on a raised dais.

And seated on the throne was a comfortably fat man dressed in a loose-flowing silk shirt open over a hairy chest, a waxed handlebar mustache curling on a smirking lip, bronzed skin and balding hair and merry eyes—a man who made Jim pull up short. “I don’t believe it!”

“Welcome aboard, Kirk! Been a long time, hasn’t it? Have a drink!”

Jim gaped at the man, obviously torn between astonishment and outrage. “ _Harry Mudd!”_ he practically shouted.

Mudd, who had thoroughly earned the name as far as Leo was concerned, guffawed and took a swig from a heavily bejeweled goblet. “To be absolutely accurate, laddie buck, you should refer to me as Mudd the First.” He held the goblet aloft and declaimed, “To me, ruler of this sovereign planet!”

“ _Ruler—_ ” Jim choked on the word. Leo stepped up to his husband’s side, sliding a hand between his shoulder blades for comfort and support. Rallying himself, Jim pulled out his communicator and said, “Harry, I want control of my ship returned immediately. We will not be your ‘guests.’” Savagely, he twisted the dial. “Kirk to _Enterprise._ Come in, _Enterprise._ Six to—”

Mudd signaled to Number Two. She stepped forward, delicately plucked the communicator from Jim’s fingers, and squeezed. The crushed remains of the device sprinkled on the floor.

“No, no, Kirk,” Mudd said, waving a playful finger in Jim’s direction. “No unauthorized communications. Tut, laddie.”

“Dad, you know this—person?” Slim asked. His expression was something of a milder version of Jim’s—a mingling of confusion and annoyance.

“I know him,” Jim said grimly. “Harcourt Fenton Mudd, thief—”

“Oh, come now,” Mudd protested.

“—swindler, con art—”

“ _Entrepreneur,_ ” Mudd corrected him.

“—liar, rogue—”

“Ah, did I really leave you with such a poor impression of me?” Mudd shook his head almost sadly.

“—who belongs in jail,” Jim finished. “Which is where I thought I left you, Mudd.”

“And thereby hangs a tale.Well, look around, Kirk. Quite a place, no?” Mudd practically leered at Jim, in a way that would’ve had Leo wanting to punch him if he’d thought for a minute the man swung that way. “Enjoy it?”

Jim’s teeth audibly ground together. “Mudd, I want that trained machine of yours to deactivate that trigger relay and free my ship.”

Mudd waved a hand airily. “I’ll take care of that little thing, Kirk. When I’m ready.”

“I’m telling you _now!”_

“On this planet, _I_ am the one who does the telling, Kirk, old chum. _You_ do the listening.”

Jim took a deep breath. “Fine. For the moment, I’m listening. What are you telling?”

A look of supreme self-satisfaction spread over Mudd’s face. “You might as well get used to this planet. You’ll grow to love it, and that’ll be nice. Very nice indeed, because you’re all going to stay here. Quite probably for the rest of your lives.”

Leo felt a stab of dismay—one that was instantly swept aside by other, more powerful emotions as he saw Jim’s face. All the color had drained from it, much as it had when Norman had casually announced that he had rigged the trigger relay to the ship. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He’d gone tense, his fingers trembling faintly. Leo was about to intervene when Jim finally found his voice. “Harcourt Fenton Mudd, you are an outlaw, a liar, and in _very_ deep trouble. _Release my ship—and do it immediately._ ”

“Sorry, old friend. That’d be against the law.” Mudd let out a greasy chuckle. “Against _my_ law, decreed by Mudd the First. Voted in by the resident population.”

“‘You don’t vote for kings,’” Slim said, not quite under his breath, but in an accent that led Leo to suspect that he was quoting something.

Mudd continued as if he hadn’t heard Slim, which he probably hadn’t. “Lovely, aren’t they?” he said, indicating the woman beside him—identical to the two that had brought them in, with the exception of the numbered pendant on her neck. A fourth stood on the other side of him. “It’s my feeling for beauty. I have decreed that I shall be surrounded by it. And all of my decrees come to pass.” He leaned forward conspiratorially and added, “I’ve had five hundred Alices made to attend me—lovely, obedient, compliant…”

“Five hundred, all identical?” Spock spoke for the first time. “If I may say so, that strikes me as rather redundant.”

“I have a fondness for this particular model,” Mudd said, a little dismissively. “Not that I expect you, Mr. Spock, to appreciate it.”

Leo felt some of the tension leave Jim’s body beneath his hand. Only the fact that they had known each other for almost eighteen years, and loved one another almost as long, enabled him to understand Jim’s reaction. Talking with Harry Mudd took on some of the same qualities as dealing with a hookah-smoking caterpillar or a rabbit in a waistcoat. As long as you realized he was essentially a child playing pretend, you could deal with him. Mostly.

“All right, Harry,” Jim said, and if his voice was shaking, Leo was pretty sure nobody but him could hear it. “Suppose you explain. How did you get here? We left you in custody after that incident on the Rigel mining planet.”

Slim let out a small, choked noise of surprise. “That was _him?_ ”

“You’ve heard of that?” Leo asked, also surprised.

“Ben Childress was Mrs. Minnifee’s older brother. He wrote them a letter—that’s why I got moved to the Endicotts’, because they were headin’ out to the Rigel system for a proper weddin’.” Slim cocked his head at Mudd. “Rob read it to me while we were sittin’ in the oak tree out back. Somethin’ about a handful of illegal, experimental drugs an’ a fast-talkin’, overstuffed windbag—”

“Who _is_ this fellow, anyway?” Mudd asked, sounding annoyed.

Jim grinned, and Leo noticed even more of the tension leaving now that they’d pricked Mudd’s bubble of self-importance. “Meet my son, Thomas James Kirk. Now, about why you’re not in custody?”

Mudd cleared his throat and waved a hand airily. “Happenstance. I organized a technical information service, bringing modern industrial methods to backwards planets. I made valuable patents available to struggling civilizations all over the galaxy.”

“Paying royalties to the owners of those patents?” Jim inquired.

Mudd coughed again. “Er-hem. Actually, as a defender of free enterprise, I found myself in conflict with my principles.”

“He did not pay royalties,” Spock said, shooting a glance at Slim.

Taking a gulp of wine, Mudd declaimed, “Knowledge should be available to all.”

“Who caught you?” Jim asked.

Mudd half-rose from his seat, looking slightly put-out. “That’s an outrageous assumption!” Glancing at Spock, he sank back and shrugged. “I sold the Denebians all the rights to the Vulcan Fuel Synthesizer.”

“And the Denebians informed the Vulcans,” Jim added.

“How did you know?” Mudd asked, looking furious.

“It’s exactly what I would have done.”

Mudd slammed his goblet down on the arm of his throne. “Typical police mentality! No sense of humor, sonny boy. They _arrested_ me!”

“Surely not!” Leo said mockingly. “How shocking!”

“That’s not the worst of it,” Mudd said, turning to Leo, having evidently decided his sympathy was unfeigned. “Do you know what the penalty is for fraud on Deneb V?”

“The guilty party,” Spock said immediately, his face perfectly straight, “has a choice: death by electrocution, death by hanging, death by gas, death by phaser—”

“The key word, Mr. Spock, is ‘death,’” Mudd interrupted, his face rippling like the waters of a pond as he shuddered. “Barbarians! I…left.”

“Broke jail,” Jim translated.

“Borrowed transportation.” Mudd glared.

“Stole a spaceship.”

“The patrol reacted in a hostile manner.”

“They shot at you.”

“No respect for private property. They damaged the bloody ship. I got away, but I couldn’t navigate. So I just ran into unmapped space. And here I found—Mudd’s Planet.”

“You would,” Leo muttered, rolling his eyes.

“Harry, get to it,” Jim said, evidently at the end of his patience.

Spock stepped forward. “Mr. Mudd, you went to a substantial risk to bring a Federation starship here. Logically, you must have had some compelling reason to have hijacked our vessel.”

Mudd smiled. It was not a pleasant smile, even had his teeth been pristine white, which they decidedly were not. “You’ll love it here, Spock. Y’see, I found this planet with two hundred thousand androids, ready to serve your every need. It’s paradise.”

“Then I fail to see your problem,” Spock said with a raised eyebrow.

“ _They won’t let me leave!”_ Mudd shouted, pounding the arm of his throne in evident frustration. “They want to study me. They want to learn more about mankind!”

“Zey certainly chose a prime example of it,” Chekov muttered, speaking for the first time since he had beamed down. Leo, glancing over at him, saw that his entire frame was rigid with tension, and he frowned slightly, wondering what was going on.

“Have a care there, laddie! You’re speaking about Mudd the First!” The man in question leaned back in his chair, drumming his fingers against the arm. “Anyway, I ran out of ideas, things for them to do. So they insisted that I bring other humans here for them to study.” He quirked a grin in Jim’s direction. “I promised them a prime specimen, a Starfleet captain—loyal, bright, fearless, imaginative, and so on and so forth. Any captain would have done, really.” Wiggling his fingers at Jim, he added, “I was just lucky to get you, Kirk my friend. You take over here, and I get off this barren rock and back to civilization.”

“No, Harry,” Jim said firmly.

Mudd’s grin didn’t falter, and for some reason, that worried Leo more than had he frowned. That he was right to worry was confirmed as soon as Mudd opened his mouth. “You misunderstand me. I’m not asking you. I’m telling you. You have no choice.” He turned to Norman and the Alices. “Take them to their quarters now.”

“Yes, Lord.” All three androids spoke in unison.

“Now wait a minute!” All the tension that had left Jim returned, with some to spare. “Mudd, damn you—”

The androids didn’t give them a chance to argue, merely surrounded them. Remembering how easily the Alice had crushed the communicator, Leo leaned closer to Jim and whispered, “Play along for now, darlin’. We’ll wait our chance.”

Jim swallowed and nodded. Although none of them were happy, the contingent from the _Enterprise_ followed the androids out the door. Just before passing out, however, Leo noticed what might have been another door next to it, dark and somehow opalescent at the same time. “What’s behind this, Mudd?” he asked, stopping to study the door.

Mudd’s grin broadened. “That, my friends, is a shrine to the memory of my beloved Stella.”

“Who?” Leo, Jim, and Chekov asked in unison.

In answer, Mudd pressed a button, and the “door” revealed itself to be a wall niche. Its cover grew transparent, revealing a tall, gaunt, beaky figure in a long black dress that bore some resemblance to Elmira Gulch. As the niche lit up, the figure began to move.

“M’wife,” Mudd said simply.

“Dead?” Jim asked, and Leo could feel his husband softening slightly. Leo had to admit that he, too, felt a certain surge of pity for the man.

“Oh, no, merely…deserted.” Mudd heaved a wistful sigh. “Behind every great man is a woman urging him onward and upward. My wife urged me onward and upward into space. She didn’t mean to, but she did. Her constant nagging—” He sighed again. “I think of her constantly. And every time I do, I go further into space.”

“Fascinating,” Leo said dryly, any remnants of pity evaporating. “You run away from a woman and then drag her after you, so to speak.”

“Uh, no, not quite. I had the androids build me a replica of her, so that I could gaze upon her and rejoice in her absence.” Mudd touched another button on his console.

The Stella model moved, glaring at Mudd, her red topknot quivering in anger. “ _Harcourt!”_ she shrieked, reinforcing the Elmira Gulch comparison. “Harcourt Fenton Mudd, what are you up to now? Nothing you’d dare tell me, I’ll be bound! How dare you, you good-for-nothing skirt-chase—”

“ _Shut up,”_ Mudd said happily. Stella instantly froze. With a chuckle, the man said, “What do you know—I finally have the last word.” Turning to Jim, he added, “With her—and with you, sonny boy.”

As prisons went, the quarters the _Enterprise_ crew was shown to was fairly comfortable. Leo had certainly been imprisoned in places far worse—and far better, too. At least here he and Jim were together. But it didn’t change the fact that they were imprisoned.

“You’ll find our arrangements quite comfortable,” Norman said.

From the look on Jim’s face, he was fighting to parse out whether the statement was meant as a question, a promise, or an order. Alice 1 spoke next. “If there is anything you require…”

“My ship,” Jim said immediately.

“We are not programmed to respond in that area,” Alice 2 said.

Jim ran a hand over his face. Slim studied the androids with an expression Leo knew well—the look he often got when studying a new machine or one of Spock’s logic puzzles. “Who created you, Norman?”

“The Makers designed us,” Norman replied promptly. “They were from the Andromeda galaxy.”

“Then your Makers weren’t human?” Slim probed.

“They were, as you say, quite humanoid. Robots were a part of their everyday society. We performed all necessary service functions, freeing our Makers to create a perfect social order.” There was a texture of what might’ve been pride in a human in Norman’s voice.

“What happened to them?” Slim perched on the arm of a couch, folding his arms across his chest as he continued to study the robots.

“Our home planet’s sun went nova. Only those on a few remote outposts survived. This unit—” Norman touched his—its—chest “—was on one such outpost in your galaxy.”

“Then some of your Makers also survive?”

“No longer. They all died out over time. We do not die.”

Something flickered through Slim’s eyes, a there-and-gone expression Leo couldn’t identify in its brief lifespan. Spock spoke up then. “And whom do you serve now?”

Norman never took his eyes from Slim, even as he answered Spock. “We serve Harry Mudd. He has given us purpose again. Purpose is necessary. We have lacked it for a very long time.”

“How long have you been waiting?” Slim asked softly.

“In standard measure, one million, seven hundred forty-three thousand, nine hundred and twelve years, thirteen days, four hours, twenty minutes and fifty seconds,” Norman answered promptly.

There was a long moment of silence, which Leo was the first to break this time. “Well, at least we’ll never have to wonder how long we’ve been stuck here. We can just ask…” He gestured sardonically at Norman. “‘This unit.’”

“I don’t plan to be a prisoner,” Jim said.

“You are not a prisoner, Captain,” Norman assured him. “You are free to go wherever you wish.”

“Anywhere?” Jim asked.

“Yes. Is there somewhere in particular you wish to—”

“Yes,” Jim interrupted. “My ship.”

“I am not programmed to respond in that area.”

Jim’s obviously thin patience snapped, and he all but exploded on Norman. “I’m getting a little tired of that phrase! Do you know that my ship could destroy this planet? And all of you along with it!”

“An interesting reaction, Captain,” Norman observed.

“I, too, have always found it so,” Spock agreed. “It is called anger. It is caused by frustration.”

“Or by deliberate provocation,” Chekov said under his breath.

Norman evidently didn’t hear Chekov, or chose to ignore him. “You have a fascinating mental process, Mr. Spock. I sense a kinship with you.”

“There you are, Spock,” Leo said triumphantly, unable to resist the urge to tease the half-Vulcan. “I’ve always said so. Brother to a pile of tin.”

“Beryllium, actually, Doctor,” Norman corrected him. “Along with other alloys.” He turned back to Slim. “We have a very well-equipped library and computer section. Our research laboratories have much to offer. You are welcome to visit there.”

“We might, later,” Jim said, his voice slightly tight. “For now, will you leave us, please?”

“Why should we leave you?” Alice 1 asked.

Jim took a deep breath and bit off every word slowly and distinctly. “Because we do not like you.”

“A very well-motivated request,” Alice 2 agreed. “We will leave you.”

They sat in silence for almost a full minute after the androids left. Finally, Jim spoke. “Opinions, anyone?”

“I think we’re in a lot of trouble, Keptin,” Chekov said.

“Well, that’s very helpful, Lieutenant,” Jim said on a sigh. “Bones?”

Leo wrapped his arms around Jim from behind, pulling him close. “I agree with Chekov. We are in a lot of trouble.”

“Spock?” Jim turned to his First Officer.

“Obviously, Captain, so many androids cannot operate independently,” Spock said calmly. “There must be a central focus, one which directs the android population.”

Jim relaxed, ever so slightly. “You’re right, Spock. That’s where we start. You see if you can locate it. The rest of you, check around. Find out everything you can about this place. I’ll see if I can get more information out of Mudd. Let’s go.”

There was a thoughtful look on Slim’s face as he headed out of the room. Leo stared after him. “Jim, somethin’ goin’ on in that boy’s mind.”

“Like a well,” Jim murmured. “He thinks deep and hard. You said that once.”

“No, darlin’, you said that,” Leo reminded him, planting a light kiss on Jim’s temple. “C’mon, let’s see what we can shake out of Mudd’s bushes.”

They found Mudd easily enough—he was still in the throne room—and he smiled beatifically when he saw them. “Ah, Kirk, my old friend!” he exclaimed jovially. “And how are you liking my little kingdom?”

“I find it a little…samey,” Jim said.

“Samey?” Mudd repeated.

Leo understood what his husband was getting at and slipped an arm around his waist. “The only robots we’ve seen, apart from Norman and Stella, have been Alice. Don’t you ever get tired of them?”

“They do not like us,” Alice 2 interposed, back in attendance on Mudd.

“Ah, well, let us see if we can find you a model more to your liking.” Mudd rose from his seat with a grin, then fixed his eyes on Leo’s hand, resting absently on Jim’s hip. “Then again, it seems I may not have any to your…specifications.”

Jim tensed beneath Leo’s arm, but he only said, “That I chose to marry a man in no way means I can’t appreciate a lovely female on occasion.”

“In that case, come with me. I shall show you our workshop.”

There were two Alices in the workshop, proving Mudd’s statements about his fondness for the model, both of whom looked up when Mudd walked in. “Girls,” he said, at his most convivial. “Captain Kirk and the good doctor wish to see our range of models.”

The first Alice, whose medallion proclaimed her to be the nineteenth, pressed a button on her console. A curtain fell away from a dais, revealing a model of android that put Leo uncomfortably in mind of Jocelyn. He said nothing, however, and Jim asked, “And what might this one’s name be?”

“This is one of our Barbara series,” Alice 19 explained. “The body is covered with a self-renewing plastic over a beryllium-titanium skeleton.”

“Most impressive,” Leo said dryly.

“I’ll say,” Jim murmured.

Leo glanced quickly over at Jim and saw that he was unconsciously running a hand along his upper thigh. There was a scar there, one of the worst, and Leo guessed that Jim was probably wishing that he had self-renewing skin himself. It would’ve made things a little easier on him, certainly.

“She, too, was built to my personal specifications,” Mudd said proudly. “As were the Maisies, the Trudies, and the Annabelle series.”

“Don’t you believe in male androids, Mudd?” Leo asked.

“They have their uses, I suppose.” Mudd shrugged carelessly.

Jim was still staring at the android. Turning to the other Alice, numbered 263, he asked, “How long would a body like this last?”

“I do not know.”

“You don’t know?” Jim repeated.

“None of our android bodies has ever worn out,” Alice 263 explained. “However, the estimated duration on that model on the stand is five hundred thousand years, before it begins to need a few repairs.”

“Economical,” Leo remarked.

“Five hundred thousand years…” Jim said slowly. There was something awed in his expression.

Leo began to feel the first stirrings of unease. The lure of immortality was a strong one, and the idea of five hundred thousand years in a body that couldn’t be damaged, couldn’t be easily destroyed, was awfully appealing to someone who’d been hurt and beaten down as often as Jim had.

Then Jim caught his eye, and winked swiftly before resuming his look of amazement. Leo breathed a silent sigh of relief as he realized that Jim was playing it up, trying to put Mudd and the androids at ease.

“And the best part is, she’ll be beautiful for every last one of those five hundred thousand years.” Mudd looked Jim up and down. “You’re a handsome man, Kirk, but everyone grows old, even with the best geriatric treatments. But here—you could have _that._ ” He gestured grandly at Barbara 4. “Well—not that precisely, but—”

“Our medi-robots are able to place a human brain within a structurally-compatible android body,” Alice 19 offered. “Our Makers had it done occasionally for work on an inhospitable planet.”

“Immortality, eternal beauty—they are possible here,” Mudd told Jim with an enigmatic smile. With a sashay of his hips, he strode out of the room.

Jim sighed and turned to the Alice. “Could you tell me the names of your male model series?”

“We have the Herman series and the Oscar series,” Alice 263 answered promptly.

“Only two?”

“Why do you humans feel diversity in models is so necessary?”

“Variety,” Leo said, “is the spice of life.”

Alice 263 frowned at him. Her pendant glowed for a moment, flashing on and off, and then she took a step closer to Leo. “Life is not a food which needs seasoning. And variety is not a seasoning.”

Leo was slightly taken aback, although he wasn’t sure why—it wasn’t like he’d never dealt with someone who didn’t understand figurative language before. “No, but life can be dull and boring. Variety adds…flavor.”

“Life does not have a taste.”

“It’s a metaphor.”

The pendant flashed a little more insistently. “Explain metaphor.”

“It’s a…” Leo gestured vaguely. “Comparing something hard to explain to something easy to understand. Using one word to mean another. You know.”

This time, Alice 263 froze for a long time. Her pendant glowed the brightest it had yet, and when she spoke, it was in a strangely flat, mechanical voice quite at odds with her usual musical tone. “Illogical. Illogical. All units relate. All units. Norman. Coordinate.” There was a whirring noise, and then she spoke in her regular voice. “Metaphor does not relate. We must consider it.” She turned and walked out of the room.

Leo raised an eyebrow. “Well. That was interesting.”

Spock entered the room and came over to where Leo and Jim stood. “Captain, I believe I have discovered an important inconsistency in—”

Mudd returned before he could finish, followed by Slim, who still had a thoughtful look in his eyes. He grinned crookedly when he saw Jim, though. “Dad, you wouldn’t believe the workshop they’ve got in this place. They’ve got equipment that—well, I could spend the rest of my life—”

“Don’t get carried away,” Leo warned his stepson, since he didn’t want Mudd to realize that Jim’s interest in the android body had been feigned. “Nobody’s staying anywhere.”

“Naughty, naughty, Doctor.” Mudd wagged a finger at Leo with a smirk. “Stubborn, too.”

“Well, I wouldn’t be bored, I c’n tell you that.” Slim folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the wall.

He was the same height as Mudd. It hit Leo suddenly. Harcourt Fenton Mudd was only an inch shorter than Jim, and Slim, walking in behind him, had matched him stride for stride, inch for inch. Leo’d done shipwide physicals on everyone aboard but Jim and Norman just the week before, including internal imaging of Slim and Addie’s hands to check their growth, and he knew Slim wasn’t done growing yet. Likely he’d continue to get taller until his twenty-first birthday, which meant—

Leo terminated that line of thought immediately. The last thing he needed was to think about that—not today, not when he needed to keep his wits about him.

A familiar voice started shouting outside the door. Slim turned his head with a frown, but before he could do more than straighten up, Alice 22 came through the doorway, dragging a protesting Scotty with her.

“Let me go, you—you—” Scotty sputtered. “Captain! What kind of women—?”

Alice 22 released Scotty as soon as he was properly in the room and said serenely, “This is the last, my Lord.”

“Splendid, splendid.” Mudd rubbed his hands together. “Lovely to see you, Scott, old friend.”

“ _Harry Mudd!”_ Scotty shouted. “So you’re behind this, you—”

“Mr. Scott,” Jim said sharply, “you were ordered to stay on the ship.”

“Aye, and so I did,” Scotty said, turning to Jim. “Until this female gargantua threw me onto the transporter beam!”

What the Alice had said finally caught up to Leo’s brain, and he turned pale. “Wait. What did she mean— _this is the last?_ ”

“Didn’t I tell you?” Mudd said, his expression of blank innocence fooling nobody. “I thought I did. I beamed a few dozen androids up to your ship. They’ve been beaming your whole crew down to the surface for the last couple of hours. They’re all down now.”

Leo felt as though he had been physically punched in the stomach. Not just because the ship was empty—because he was now thinking of Addie, and of baby Jame. Slim straightened up so fast Leo thought he was going to hurt himself. “Are you out of what passes for your mind? You can’t beam the whole of a starship down onto the surface of a planet! Someone’s gotta stay on board!”

“Oh, there _is_ someone on board, young feller-me-lad,” Mudd told Slim. “A whole crew of androids, as a matter of fact. They learn very rapidly.”

“Listen here, you flannel-mouthed mudsill—” Slim’s hands balled into fists.

“Slim,” Jim said warningly.

Mudd didn’t look in the least ruffled. “The fact is, gentlemen, I’ve taken over your ship completely. And there’s nothing at all you can do about it.”

Slim took a deep breath. “You’ll never get away with it.”

“And who’s to stop me?”

“Starfleet!”

“Oh? And how? I’ve a ship as fast as any in the fleet. Oh, I’ll get away with it, all right!” Mudd turned on his heel. “Think of it, boyo—Harry Mudd and his crew of lovelies, aboard your _Enterprise!”_

With an airy flutter of his fingers, he was gone.

The moment they were alone, Jim sagged in Leo’s arms. Spock looked concerned. “It is illogical to delude oneself, Captain. He could easily accomplish this. I have questioned a number of androids. They are completely loyal to Mudd. Perhaps what should now concern us is that this android population can now provide literally anything a human could wish for—in unlimited quantities.”

Slim ran a hand through his hair distractedly. It made him look more like Jim than ever. “You know what they say. ‘Be careful what you wish for.’”

“‘Wishes come true, not free.’” Jim nodded wearily. “How will the crew react to a world where they can have whatever they want, simply by asking?”

Leo splayed his hand over Jim’s heart, feeling the erratic flutter again. “Air’s gettin’ a bit close in here, darlin’. Let’s go outside and find you some space to breathe.”

Slim accompanied Jim and Leo as they left the workshop and wandered through the facility. Rounding a corner, they nearly bumped straight into Sulu and Chekov, who had tucked themselves into a corner and were clinging to one another tightly. Chekov had his face buried in Sulu’s shoulder; the helmsman was stroking the navigator’s hair, murmuring softly. At the sound of their footsteps, Chekov flinched and huddled closer to Sulu, somehow.

Sulu looked up, a flash of anger in his eyes, but he relaxed when he saw them. “Oh…Doctor, it’s you.”

Chekov’s shoulders relaxed slightly, too, but he didn’t turn away from Sulu. Leo pulled Jim a little closer. “What’s wrong?”

“A couple of the androids—big blond male types—they’ve been bothering him.” Sulu ran his fingers through Chekov’s hair lightly. “Not that they’ve threatened him or hurt him or anything. They’re all so damned— _polite._ ‘We were created to serve, Lord.’” He accurately mimicked the intonations of the robots. “But these were being pushy. They were being a little _too_ helpful, if you get my drift. They finally pushed him too hard and…”

Chekov mumbled something into Sulu’s chest, the only audible word of which might have been “Andrei.” Leo shook his head. “Well, at least that means we can count on you two to want to get us the hell off this planet.”

“You don’t think the others—?” Sulu frowned.

“We’re on a planet where anything you want can be given to you—in unlimited quantities—if you simply ask.”

“Yeah, well, so was that shore leave planet we went to back on our first mission, and that sucked,” Sulu muttered. “How the hell are we going to go about getting back to the _Enterprise_ and out of this crazy place?”

“That’s the million-credit question, I’m afraid,” Leo said with a sigh.

Jim disentangled himself from Leo’s arm and moved closer to Chekov. With a gentle hand on his shoulder, he murmured something in his ear, too low for Leo to hear, but whatever it was, it caused the navigator to uncoil, nodding slightly, and draw back to face the others. “Sorry,” he whispered.

“Sorry for being frightened? Don’t be ridiculous, kid,” Leo said with a snort. Softening his voice, he added, “I’ve been in my fair share of prisons, but this one’s probably the worst yet.”

“I’d be worried if you weren’t scared,” Jim agreed. Fatigue flashed through his eyes for a moment, but he rallied and straightened. “Come on, let’s go see if we can find the others.”

Slim suddenly stilled. “I’m—I’m gonna go—check on somethin’,” he said, his voice suddenly strained. “I’ll meet y’all back in your quarters, Dad.”

“Okay,” Jim said, looking almost as confused as Leo felt. Slim nodded and strode away, his posture screaming studied casualness.

Chekov took a deep breath and looked at the three older men. “Where do we start looking for ze others?”

“In the places most likely to attract them,” Jim said. “Slim mentioned a workshop—that’s probably where we’ll find Scotty.”

“Spock’s likely in the library,” Leo added. “Place like this must have tons of information in store.”

Sulu nodded thoughtfully. “If there’s a ballroom or a dance studio, I’m willing to bet that’s where they would have taken Uhura. One of the female robots—the black-haired ones—”

“Barbara,” Leo supplied.

“—she kept trying to show me where the gym was,” Sulu finished. “It’s like they know us. Then again, Norman was on the ship for how long before we caught him? Couple days? He could’ve accessed every single record of every single crewman and figured out exactly what would be most likely to appeal to them.”

Jim stared at him. “Sulu, I think you’ve hit on it. They’re deliberately setting out to show everybody the parts of this place most likely to make them want to stay.”

“Honey and vinegar,” Chekov agreed. “If we think zis is paradise, we will want to stay.”

“Whether we want to stay or not is immaterial,” Leo pointed out softly. “They don’t intend to let us leave regardless.”

“Yes, but if the crew is willing to stay, they won’t start looking for escape routes until it’s too late.” Sulu hit the nail on the head again. “Come on, let’s see who we can find first.”

“Together or separate?” Leo looked from Sulu to Jim and back.

Jim hesitated, then said softly, “Bones, you go find Scotty. I’ll get Uhura…Sulu, Chekov, you two go find Spock. Meet back in our quarters.”

“Aye, sir,” Chekov and Sulu said in unison. Their arms around one another’s waists, they set off down the corridor.

Leo held Jim a moment longer, pressing a soft kiss to his forehead. “Be careful, darlin’.”

Jim closed his eyes and nodded. “You, too, Bones. Please. I—I can’t lose you.”

“I won’t leave without you,” Leo promised. Reluctantly, he let Jim go and set off to find the workshop.

Most of the rooms he poked his head into on his way to where he thought the workshop might be turned out to be living quarters, and they were all empty. About five or ten minutes after leaving the others, however, he opened the door to a room only to be met with a frightened squeak and a muffled gasp, and when he looked in, he found his children.

Leo’s heart clenched with a mixture of pity and anger as he saw O’Flaherty clutching Jame to her chest, her eyes squeezed shut and her head bent protectively over Jame and Addie, who clung to O’Flaherty with her face buried in the ensign’s side. Nic’tlarn, Cayne, and Slim had surrounded the other three, wrapping them in a tight embrace, and Simril crouched behind them, scowling fiercely in the direction of the door. His features relaxed when he saw Leo, however. “Doctor.”

The knot of protectiveness eased a little, and Slim turned and rose fluidly to his feet. “Pa,” he said in greeting. Murmuring something to his friends, he got up and crossed the floor to Leo’s side.

“Everything okay?” Leo asked, tilting his chin in the general direction of the young ones.

“Yeah, just…scared,” Slim said quietly. “Apparently children don’t make any more sense to these androids than metaphors do. They keep peerin’ at ‘em like they’re in a zoo or somethin’. How’s Chekov?”

“Better. He and Sulu went looking for Uhura. I’m supposed to find Scotty—I figure he’s probably in the workshop. Can you point me in the right direction?”

“Sure. Straight down the corridor, take your second left, first right, first left after that an’ it’s the third door on the right. Can’t miss it.”

“Thanks,” Leo said wryly.

Slim hesitated. “Pa—I’ve been thinkin’.” He leaned over and whispered rapidly in his stepfather’s ear.

Leo listened intently, then nodded. “If you can get ‘em on board.”

“Reckon I can.”

“Then meet us back in quarters later and we’ll see what we can do.”

Slim nodded. “Good luck, Pa.”

“You, too.” Leo patted his stepson on the shoulder and headed back into the corridor.

The workshop was right where Slim had said it was, and sure enough, Scotty was peering intently at the equipment, accompanied by a robot of a series Leo wasn’t familiar with and Harry Mudd. Scotty looked up as Leo walked in and enthused, “Will ye look at this, McCoy! They’ve got technology we’re years away from perfecting. I could spend years just learning—”

“You’re not staying, Scotty,” Leo said firmly. “No one is staying.”

“Now, now, Doctor,” Mudd said, wagging his finger at Leo again. “Don’t make this harder on yourself. Why can’t you just accept that you’ll be here a good long while? Everyone else has.”

Leo resisted the urge to say _Not everyone;_ he thought of Sulu and Chekov, of Nic’tlarn and O’Flaherty, of Cayne and Simril and Slim, but he kept silent. If Mudd knew how much rebellion there really was, they would never get away with it. “Scotty, come on,” he said abruptly, letting his eyebrows meet in a frown. “General meeting, captain’s quarters. Let’s go.”

Meekly, Scotty complied, Mudd’s chuckles in their ears. Leo tried to block them out, but it was difficult. The man was a nuisance—not as malignant a one as, say, Nylund, but still a hassle they didn’t need.

“Hell,” Leo said aloud as the thought flashed across his mind, stuttering to a stop outside the quarters that had been allotted to Jim—and by extension to him.

“What is it, McCoy?” Scotty asked, but he sounded a little subdued, not as though he was truly interested in the answer.

“Nothing. Just a thought that occurred to me.” They hadn’t heard from Nylund in a while—not since the incident with Sherman’s Planet—which probably meant they were overdue. Leo shuddered to think what the admiral might say if he found out that Jim had “allowed” androids to take over his ship. “Come on.”

They were the last ones to arrive, if Leo didn’t count Slim and his friends. Jim leaned against one wall, his arms wrapped around his midsection and a distant look in his eyes; Uhura stood near Spock, the latter looking implacable as usual and the former looking a touch sheepish; Sulu sat perched on the arm of the couch, Chekov pulled onto his lap, both of them looking a good deal calmer than they had earlier. Leo crossed immediately to Jim’s side and slid his arm around his husband’s waist.

“Here we all are, darlin’,” he murmured. “Let’s start thinking.”

Jim sagged, leaning his head on Leo’s shoulder. “I can’t,” he said, so quietly Leo was pretty sure he was the only one to hear. “I’m just…God, Bones, I’m so tired. I can’t _think._ This—there’s no way out, is there?”

Leo felt Jim’s erratic heartbeat again and was suddenly furious—furious with Mudd, with Nylund, with the androids, with the crew, with whatever divine force propelled the universe. He was _not_ going to lose his husband to this. He didn’t even know if “this” meant the arrhythmia or the depression he was obviously sinking into or the imprisonment or a combination of everything that had made James Tiberius I-Don’t-Believe-In-No-Win-Scenarios Kirk give up hope. He wasn’t going to let it take Jim from him.

Tightening his grip on Jim, he scowled around at the others. “Well,” he said harshly. “Here we all are, in this lovely, comfortable, gilded— _cage._ They’re sapping our will to leave, aren’t they? Workshops—libraries—immortality—anything a man could ask for!” He turned to Uhura. “What did they offer _you?_ ”

Uhura had the grace to look embarrassed. “Um, have you seen the Oscar model of androids? They…” She glanced at Spock, looking uncomfortable, then said in obvious mimicry of the androids, “‘We are programmed to function in all respects as biological males.’”

Spock shifted slightly, his eyebrows twitching. Leo shook his head. “Seriously, people. Didn’t we learn our lesson the _last_ time we were on a planet that promised us everything we wanted? Wishes come true, not free.” He repeated Jim’s words from earlier. “We’ve _got_ to get off this planet. Does anyone have any ideas?”

“Transporters are out,” Scotty said. “There’s no one aboard to beam us up—unless those androids missed someone, which I doubt. They’re too bloody efficient.”

“Building a shuttle would take too long,” Sulu said. “And if Mudd had had a way of leaving the planet before now, I get the impression he would have.”

Chekov suddenly straightened up. “But zere _must_ be a way of getting off ze planet. How else did Norman get onto ze _Enterprise?”_

“Kid, you’re a genius,” Leo muttered. Chekov flushed with evident pride. “Mudd said that he commandeered a ship. All that’s wrong with it is the navigational system. How long would it take you to fix it, Scotty?”

“Without seeing it, I can’t be certain,” Scotty said with a shake of his head. “But I don’t imagine it would take long.”

“If all that’s wrong is the nav system, I can fly it,” Sulu offered. “I’d just need a star map of the sector.”

“I am certain that such a thing exists in the library.” Spock spoke for the first time.

Leo looked down at Jim. “What do you say, Captain?”

Jim managed a small smile. “Why don’t you and I go find Harry Mudd? We can at least get some idea of where the remains of his vessel might be.”

“Good idea.” Leo pressed a kiss to his husband’s temple. “We’ll be back.”

“Doctor—maybe you should stay here,” Chekov said a little hesitantly.

Leo frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You are—you have made it clear you want to leave. Ze androids will not be fooled if you suddenly seem okay with staying. But ze keptin—”

“He’s right,” Sulu broke in. “You couldn’t ask and not raise their suspicions.”

“I’ll be fine, Bones,” Jim promised, kissing Leo’s cheek and gently disengaging himself. A moment later, he was gone.

There was a moment of silence, and then Spock tilted his head at Leo. “You are displeased with this, Doctor.”

“Your powers of observation never cease to amaze me, Spock,” Leo said dryly.

“Why, thank you, Doctor.”

“I was being sarcastic.”

Uhura crossed her arms over her chest. “Jim’s a big boy, Leo. He can take care of himself.”

“I know that, dammit,” Leo said, his voice beginning to rise, but just as he was getting good and worked up, the door opened and one of the Alice models walked in.

“Is there anything you require, Lords?” she asked in her musical voice.

“Yes,” Leo said tightly. “Our ship.”

“I am not programmed—”

“To respond in that area,” Leo chimed in. “Yes, I know.”

The Alice, whose number read 471, blinked at him. “Is there anything any of you require to please you?”

“Alice,” Leo tried again, “give us back our ship to please us. Return our ship because we desire it.”

“We are programmed to serve,” Alice 471 said. “We shall serve you to your best interests to make you happy.”

“But we’re _unhappy_ here!” Leo burst out.

“Please explain _unhappy._ ”

“Unhappiness is the state which occurs when human wants and desires are not fulfilled.” Leo could feel his patience beginning to snap.

“Which of your wants and desires are not being filled?” Alice 471 asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

“Haven’t you been listening?” Leo asked. “We want the _Enterprise!”_

Alice 471’s pendant flashed, just like her counterpart’s had earlier. “The _Enterprise_ is not a want or a desire. It is a mechanical device.”

Leo suddenly unleashed all of his pent-up aggression at the android. “She’s a beautiful lady, and we love her! We want—more than that—we _need_ her!”

The flashing light got more insistent, and then, again, the Alice model spoke in a truly robotic voice. “Illogical. Illogical. All units relate. All units. Norman. Coordinate.” She stood stock-still for a moment, then said in her usual tones, “Unhappiness does not relate. We must study this.”

Turning on her heel, she left the room.

Spock raised an eyebrow. “Fascinating.”

Leo took a deep breath, realizing he suddenly felt a lot better. “One of the other Alices said the same thing earlier.”

“Really, Doctor?”

“Yes—when Jim and I were in the workshop. I said something about variety being the spice of life…I tried to explain what a metaphor was, and the same thing happened. The flashing light, the coordination of all units…” Something clicked in Leo’s brain. “ _The call to Norman._ ”

“You sound like you’ve just had a revelation,” Scotty observed. Something like hope began to dawn in his eyes.

Leo spread out his hands. “Anyone know how many androids are on this planet?”

“Two hundred and seven thousand, eight hundred and nine,” Spock replied promptly.

“How do you know zat?” Chekov asked.

“I asked them.”

“Oh.”

Leo nodded. “There are at least five female android series and two male series. We’ve seen numbers up to the hundreds on all of them. But has anyone else noticed that there’s only one Norman?”

Spock stared at Leo. “Of course, Doctor, you are correct.”

“You sound surprised, Mr. Spock,” Sulu said dryly.

“Norman showed me a device he claims to be central control, which is, however, totally inadequate for the purpose,” Spock continued as if he hadn’t heard. “To function as they do, each android mind must be one component of a mass brain linked through a central locus.”

“Forming one giant, highly intelligent mind,” Scotty said, nodding. “The glowing badges must indicate who’s using the brain at the moment.”

“Logical,” Spock allowed.

“Logical,” Leo repeated. “That’s it, that’s the answer.”

Uhura looked puzzled. “What is?”

Leo glanced over his shoulder, then gestured for the others to come closer. “Slim had an idea, and now I’m sure it’ll work, but I’ll need all your cooperation to make it happen.”

Dropping his voice to a whisper, he hastily explained the plan. Uhura still looked skeptical, but the others all nodded.

“Are you going to tell ze keptin?” Chekov asked.

Leo hesitated. Before he could make a decision, however, Jim came in—and with him was Harry Mudd. Both of them looked somewhat shaken.

“Jim? What’s wrong?” Any thoughts of warning his husband about the plan went out the window as Leo reached out.

Jim let himself be folded into Leo’s arms. “The androids are leaving. And they’ve refused to take Mudd with them.”

“That at least shows some sense,” Sulu muttered.

“Impertinence,” Mudd fumed. “They said that I— _I,_ Harry Mudd—was flawed, ‘even for a human being!’”

“Remarkably perceptive,” Chekov said, the beginning of a smile tugging at his lips.

“They also said,” Jim said quietly, “that humans are self-destructive, and that they cannot allow any race as greedy and corruptible as ours free range of the galaxy.”

“I can only speculate, then, on what they will think of the Klingons or the Romulans,” Spock said.

Leo focused on Jim. “Did they say how they plan to stop us?”

“‘We shall serve them,’” Jim said in a perfect mimicry of Norman’s voice. “‘Your kind will be eager to accept our service. Soon they will become completely dependent on us.’”

Chekov shuddered. Leo could feel Jim shaking in his arms and held him a little tighter. “Classic abusive relationships. Seems even androids aren’t immune to that sort of thing.” Clearing his throat, he added, “So far, this thing has had its funny parts, but that threat the androids made about taking over the human race isn’t one of them.”

“Indeed, it is not,” Spock agreed. “They may actually be able to accomplish it.”

“Trust me, they can,” Mudd replied.

Spock cocked his head at Leo thoughtfully. “If we are to stop them, we must make haste. They need only to install some cybernetic devices on the _Enterprise,_ and then they’ll leave orbit.”

“How do you know so much about them?” Jim challenged.

“I asked them.”

“Oh.”

Leo suppressed a smile—it was almost word-for-word the conversation Chekov and Spock had had earlier. “Why shouldn’t they answer our questions? They don’t think we can do anything to stop them.”

“You’re so smart, Kirk,” Mudd said, scowling slightly at Jim. “You and this pointed-eared thinking machine of yours. Well, you’d better do something, because I’m as anxious to get off this ruddy rock as you are.”

“You wanted to leave us on this ruddy rock and leave by yourself,” Scotty snapped.

“Oh, yes.” Mudd seemed almost embarrassed, although that was almost certainly from having been caught.

Jim sighed deeply. “So then, what are we going to do?”

Leo exchanged a glance with Spock, astonished to realize that they seemed to understand each other’s meanings quite easily. Spock gave a slight nod, then turned to Mudd. “Sir, you indicated that you desired to help us. Do you?”

“Mr. Spock, the kind of wholesome, antiseptic galaxy these androids have planned would be purgatory for a man like me.” Mudd shuddered theatrically.

“Excellent,” Spock said blandly. “We have a plot to make a break for it. That is where you come in.”

“What do you need me to do?” Mudd asked, brightening.

“Nothing.” Leo let go of Jim and reached into his medical kit. “Just…go to sleep.”

“What?” Mudd looked confused until he saw the hypo in Leo’s hand, whereupon he immediately began panicking. “Oh, now—now wait a minute, gentlemen. No, what I—I—”

Leo flicked off the cap on the hypo and pressed it quickly to Mudd’s neck. The man babbled on. “—had in mind was more along the lines of a few words of sage counsel, as it were. Advice—”

His eyes rolled back in his head, and he sagged to the ground. Spock and Scotty caught him as he fell.

“Oh, Mudd,” Scotty grunted, dumping Mudd’s limp frame on the couch. “I do believe you’ve gained weight.”

Leo dug through his medical kit, looking for what he needed. “Someone go find an android, will you? Tell them we’ve got a medical issue and I need to get Mudd to the _Enterprise_ right away.”

“I’ll go,” Jim offered. Before anyone could stop him, he was gone.

Sulu sighed. “I don’t think you’re going to get to explain the plan.”

“I think you’re right.” Leo sighed, too.

Jim returned a few minutes later with Alice 1, who tilted her head to one side, observing Leo as he bent over Mudd’s unconscious body. “He is malfunctioning?” she asked at last.

“He’s dying,” Leo said shortly.

“If you take him to your Sickbay, will he be repaired?” Alice 1 asked.

Jim nodded. “Oh, yes.”

“No,” said a voice from behind them.

Jim whirled around, shock stamped on his features. Alice 1 turned, too, and eyed the small figure standing in the doorway. Addie was clutching Gottlieb tightly under one arm, her thumb poised in such a way that indicated she wanted desperately to start sucking it, but was trying to be a “big girl”. Her blue eyes were fixed on Alice 1. Leo caught sight of Slim, pressed into the corner just outside the door, having obviously walked her to the correct room, but since he was staying out of the way, Leo ignored him.

“They lying,” Addie continued, her voice small and shaking but perfectly clear. “Papa gave the fat man med’cine to make him sleepy. It a trick.”

“Your request is denied,” Alice 1 said to Jim.

Jim still looked astonished—and afraid—and a little hurt. “Addie, why—why would you tell them that?”

“I wanna be a big girl, Daddy,” Addie said seriously. “I wanna be a big girl _now._ An’ I wanna live forever.”

“You have been of assistance,” Alice 1 said. “We will fulfill our obligation.”

“T’ank you.” Addie actually managed a smile, although Leo could tell it was costing her dearly.

“The programming to your body will be completed before we leave.” Alice 1 turned and strode out of the room without seeming to even notice Slim.

Addie watched her go for a long moment, then turned anxiously to look at Slim. “I did good?”

“You did great, Addie,” Slim assured her, scooping her up in his arms and settling her on his hip, even though she was a little big for it now. “I’m real proud of you.”

“You—what?” Jim looked bewildered.

Leo came up behind him and slipped his arms around Jim’s waist, pulling him close. “We were going to warn you, darlin’, but you ran out of here too fast,” he said softly. “The androids were expectin’ us to make an escape attempt. Well, now we’ve made it.”

“And failed,” Sulu added. “So what do we do now?”

“Now?” Leo couldn’t help the grin that split his face. “Now we take the Alices on a little trip through Wonderland.”

Slim grinned at his sister. “How ‘bout it, Addie? You wanna help us break some robot brains?”

“Yeah!” Addie grinned in reply. “How we do it?”

Jim looked over his shoulder at Leo. “Yeah, how _do_ we do it?”

“Remember what that one Alice said when I tried to explain metaphor to her?” Leo asked. Jim nodded. “Well, another one said the same thing when I told her the _Enterprise_ was a beautiful lady. An’ Slim said that one of the Trudies got confused by the concept of children, which is why they offered to make Addie a grown-up now. They live by logic—they’re a completely logical race. So the only way to defeat them is by wild, insane, irrational logic—aimed directly at Norman.”

Slowly, Jim began to smile. “I think I’m going to enjoy this.”

After a few minutes spent coming up with ideas, they left the living area and split up in the hallway. Leo, Jim, Sulu, Chekov, and Uhura headed towards the throne room; Jim went in alone, while the others waited outside.

“Is there something you require, Lord?” asked one of the Alices.

“Your attention.” Jim seated himself on the throne, then clapped his hands officiously.

Leo and Sulu entered the room and bowed to one another theatrically. Leo then began pretending to play a flute, while Sulu mimed playing the violin. Chekov and Uhura came in next and began waltzing with one another. They were a surprisingly well-matched pair.

“What are they doing?” asked Alice 2.

“They’re celebrating,” Jim explained.

“What are they celebrating?” The other Alice’s pendant read 118.

“Their captivity,” Jim replied blithely. “Do you like the music?”

“Music?” repeated both Alices. Their pendants began to flash.

Encouraged, Leo pretended to end with a flourish. Chekov spun Uhura, then bowed. “Thank you, gentlemen. And thank you, lovely lady.”

“Thank you, kind sir,” Uhura said, also bowing deeply. As she straightened up, she hauled back and slapped Chekov hard across the face.

“You dance divinely,” Chekov shouted, reeling back slightly.

“Thank you,” Uhura yelled back, slapping him on the other cheek, this time hard enough to knock him down.

“Why does she strike him?” Alice 2 asked.

“She likes him,” Jim said dryly. “Mr. Chekov! The floor is no place for an officer. Attention!”

Chekov jumped to his feet. Jim nodded. “Now, stand absolutely still!”

“Yes, Keptin!” Chekov dropped low and began doing an energetic cossack dance—surprisingly well-done.

“That’s better!” Jim said approvingly.

“It is illogical,” protested Alice 118.

“Your statement is illogical,” Jim retorted.

Both androids’ pendants changed from flashing to a steady glow, and after a moment, both sagged, their heads tilted at opposite angles and a blank look in their eyes.

“How does it look?” Sulu asked.

Leo walked over and peered into the eyes of Alice 118. “Completely inwardly-directed. Oblivious to everything.”

Jim hopped off the throne. “Two down. About two hundred thousand to go.”

“It won’t come to that, Jim,” Leo assured him. “We don’t have to take them all out, just enough to weaken Norman.”

“And there are enough groups working at it that we should be okay,” Sulu added.

Leo slipped his arm around Jim’s waist. “Let’s go see how Spock’s doing.”

They encountered Spock in a hallway, along with Harry Mudd, Slim and Addie, Cayne and Simril, and Nic’tlarn, O’Flaherty, and the baby. O’Flaherty still seemed shaken, but everybody else seemed buoyant.

“It’s worked so far, but we’re not out yet,” Simril cautioned.

Leo glanced at Spock. “Well?”

“Success, Doctor,” Spock replied. “We have been pruning the leaves and branches of the tree. Now it is time to strike at the root.”

“If Norman’s the control center, he’s probably in a bind by what we’ve done,” Slim told them. “I reckon we oughta be able to overload him an’ immobilize all of them.”

“Does everyone remember what to do?” Leo looked around the group.

“Affirmative,” Spock said with a crisp nod.

“Aye,” came the chorus from the others.

Jim smiled. “Let’s do this.”

The whole crew marched down to the computer room like a battalion of soldiers. Norman looked up when they entered the room. “What are you doing here?”

“I want you to surrender,” Leo said boldly.

Norman didn’t seem impressed. “This is illogical. We can move more quickly than you. We are invulnerable to most attacks. We are much stronger.”

“No, we are stronger,” Leo told him. “I’ll prove it to you. Can you harm a man you’ve been programmed to serve?”

“No,” Norman replied.

“But you already have, Norman, laddie,” Mudd told him, wagging a finger. “Human beings do not survive on bread alone, you poor, soulless creature, but on the nourishment of freedom. For what indeed is a man without freedom? Naught but a mechanism caught on the wheels of eternity.”

“You offer us only well-being,” Nic’tlarn said in a monotone.

“Food and drink and happiness mean nothing to us,” Simril said, and his voice was so blank and devoid of emotion that it almost scared Leo out of his act for a second. “We must be about our jobs.”

“Suffering, in torment and pain,” Nic’tlarn said. “Laboring without end.”

“Dying and crying and lamenting over our burdens,” Simril added.

“Only this way can we be happy,” both said in unison. They curtsied dramatically.

“This is contradictory,” Norman protested. “It is not logical. Mr. Spock, explain.”

“Logic,” Spock informed Norman, “is a little tweeting bird chirping in a meadow. Logic is a wreath of pretty flowers that smell bad.” He tilted his head and examined Norman. “Are you certain your circuits are functioning correctly? Your ears are green.”

Scotty clutched his chest and staggered about theatrically. “I cannae go on! I’m tired of happiness! I’m ready! Kill me! Kill me!”

As one, everybody—including Addie—pointed two fingers at Scotty and whistled (well, in Addie’s case she puckered her lips up and blew air soundlessly, but at least she made the effort). Scotty fell to his knees heavily. “Goodbye, cruel world,” he declaimed, and then dropped in a boneless heap to the ground.

“He’s dead!” Leo declared.

“You cannot have killed him. You have no weapons.” Norman was beginning to look quite distressed.

“Scotty’s dead,” Jim said, and if his voice was less brash and confident than usual, Norman didn’t know it. “He had too much happiness. But now he’s happier he’s dead, and we’ll miss him.”

“Let’s hear it for our poor, dead friend,” Sulu cried.

All of them broke into wild, hysterical laughter for a minute before Leo signaled and everyone stopped at once.

“Ah, truly these are the times that try men’s underwear on for size!” Slim spoke in a voice of feigned mysticism, spreading his arms wide. “What is man but that bold spirit, who art free to rove amid the starry courts of Jove? He is that which mortals name enterprise, devotion to something that cannot be sensed, cannot be realized, but only dreamed!”

Mudd applauded. “Brilliant, brilliant! Bravo, laddie!”

“That is illogical. Irrational,” Norman said. “Dreams are not real.”

“Our logic is to be illogical,” Leo told him. “ _That_ is our advantage. Spock, it’s time.”

“Very well, Doctor.” Spock reached under his shirt and pretended to extract something.

“Explosive!” Scotty shouted, scrambling up from his “deathbed” on the floor.

“Don’t panic. Women and children first,” Mudd told him.

On cue, Addie, O’Flaherty, Cayne, and Uhura all screamed and scattered to the four corners of the room. Leo ignored them in favor of studying the “object” in Spock’s hands. “Mr. Spock, isn’t that a little much for our purposes?”

“I believe it to be the correct amount, Doctor.” Spock turned to Mudd. “Mr. Mudd, are you ready?”

“Aye, aye!” Mudd crouched down slightly, his hands held out in front of him like a catcher’s mitt.

“Be careful,” Spock cautioned. “I would not want you to drop it.” He mimed an underhand toss. Mudd pretended to fumble for a moment before catching whatever Spock had just thrown him.

“Easy now,” Leo said.

Mudd pretended to set the thing on the floor and held out his hand. “Detonator.”

Slim carefully handed Mudd nothing, which he accepted and attached to whatever was on the floor. “Fuse.” This, too, was handed to him. “Primer.” A third component was added. “Mashie.”

Slim made a show of patting down his pockets before Nic’tlarn tapped him on the shoulder and “gave” him the object, which he passed to Mudd. The man busied himself with the object on the floor, then adopted a golfer’s stance.

“There is no explosive,” Norman insisted.

“No? Observe.” Leo turned to Mudd. “Fore!”

Mudd gave a mighty swing. As he hit the upswing, Leo yelled out, “BOOM!”

Everyone except Spock began staggering around, clutching their ears. Addie began wailing in distress, which confirmed to Leo that she had long ago learned to fake-cry at the drop of a hat in order to manipulate adults. Jame, too, began to cry, although as little as she was, it wasn’t an act—the noise was probably upsetting her. O’Flaherty quickly bounced her, soothing her.

“Are you all right?” Leo asked, and his anxiety, as he looked at Jim, wasn’t totally feigned.

Spock quietly edged out of the room. Norman looked absolutely bewildered. “But there was no explosion.”

“I lied,” Mudd said.

“What?” If anything, Norman’s bewilderment got worse.

“He lied,” Leo repeated. “Everything Harry Mudd tells you is a lie. Remember that. _Everything he tells you is a lie._ ”

Mudd grinned. “Listen to this carefully, Norman. _I am lying._ ”

Norman stiffened, his pendant rapidly flashing. “You say you are lying, but if everything you say is a lie, then you are telling the truth, but you cannot tell the truth because everything you say is a lie. You lie. You tell the truth. But you cannot for—illogical! Illogical! Please explain!”

Smoke began curling out of the android’s head. Norman turned to Leo, his eyes wild, pleading. “You are human. Only humans can explain their behavior. Please explain.”

Leo leaned closer, unable to hold back a smirk of sheer malicious satisfaction, or to hide the glee in his voice as he spoke. “I am not programmed to respond in that area.”

With a small _pop_ and an additional puff of smoke, Norman went blank, the light in his pendant fading out.

There was a split-second of silence before Simril turned to look at Slim. “‘These are the times that try men’s _underwear on for size?’”_

“Don’t ask.” Slim looked slightly sheepish.

“They appear to be immobilized,” Spock reported, peering into Norman’s face.

“Good.” Leo crossed over to Jim and slipped his arms around him. “You okay, darlin’?”

“Yeah—I’m good.” Jim smiled up at Leo. “Brilliant thinking, Bones.”

“Thank your son. It was mostly his idea.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Slim protested, blushing.

Mudd grinned. “I’m beginning to like you lot.”

“Why, thank you,” Leo said sarcastically, rolling his eyes.

“Would you consider a partnership arrangement with me? I’ve got some ideas.”

“A partnership?” Jim repeated. “Us and you?”

“That’s right,” Mudd said hopefully.

Slim and Cayne exchanged glances. The slow grins that were beginning to roll across their faces probably should have worried Leo.

“I’ve got a better idea,” Slim said, actually rubbing his hands together. “C’mon.”

Surprisingly, it didn’t take long for Slim and his friends to get the android population back up and running. Slim supervised most of the reprogramming and had a long talk with the now-revived Norman while Leo, Jim, and Spock helped out elsewhere.

“Well, Mr. Spock, you must be very unhappy,” Leo said at last as they headed back for the throne room.

“That is a human emotion, Doctor, and as such one with which I am unfamiliar,” Spock said with a quirk of his eyebrow that Leo had long ago learned was a peculiar brand of Vulcan humor. “Why should I be unhappy?”

“Well, we found a whole world of minds just like yours,” Leo began, raising his own eyebrow in reply. “Logical, unemotional, completely pragmatic. And we poor, irrational humans whipped them in a fair fight. Now you’ll find yourself back among us illogical humans again.”

“Which I find eminently satisfactory,” Spock said calmly, clasping his hands behind his back. “Nowhere am I more desperately needed than among a shipload of illogical humans.”

Jim laughed. “He’s got you there, Bones.”

“I’ve never heard of anything so revolting! We’ll soon get to the bottom of this!”

Harry Mudd’s voice echoed from outside the chamber. As Slim finished his conversation with Norman, Mudd came storming into the room, accompanied by two of the androids. “Kirk!” he bellowed. “What’s this I hear about my having to stay here?”

“That’s right,” Jim said pleasantly. “You’ve been paroled to the local android population.”

“We’ve just finished the last of the reprogramming,” Slim told him. “The androids were originally supposed to adapt this planet for productive use. They’ll be starting that work again.”

“But what can I do?” Mudd protested. “I’m no scientist.”

“No, you’re an irritant,” Leo said.

“You’ll serve as an example,” Slim explained cheerfully. “A first-class example of a human failure. They’ll learn by observing you what kinds of people to avoid.”

Mudd looked a little uncomfortable. “How long?”

“As long as you continue to be an irritant,” Jim said. “It’s up to you, Harry.”

Mudd looked around, eying the androids lining the room. Leo counted three Alices, four Barbaras, two Trudies, and what might have been an Annabelle. “I suppose,” he said slowly, a small grin beginning to grace his features, “that taking everything into consideration, as it were, and noting all the different possibilities…I could manage. And as detention sentences go, this one isn’t too uncomfortable. And I’m back in the galaxy again!”

“Yes, you are,” Jim agreed.

Slim smiled broadly. “Oh! There’s one more thing. We’ve programmed a special android attendant for you, to take care of your every need. She’ll give you _good_ motivation to work with the androids, ‘stead of exploiting ‘em.”

“I call that unexpectedly civil of you, laddie,” Mudd said with a broad grin.

“I thought you might.” Slim pressed a button.

A door slid open and the Stella model, the number 1 on a pendant around her neck, came rushing in. “Harcourt! Harcourt Fenton Mudd, what have you been up to? Have you been out drinking again? Answer me!”

Mudd’s grin slipped and his eyes widened. “Shut up!”

“You miserable, conniving toad!” Stella 1 continued.

“I order you to shut up!” Mudd said desperately.

“Staying out all night and then giving me some silly story!” Stella screeched.

A second Stella model, this one with the number 2 around her neck, came rushing over. “Harcourt! Harcourt Fenton Mudd, you’ve been overeating!”

“Kirk, you can’t do this to me!” Mudd protested.

“You need constant supervision!” Stella 2 scolded.

“It’s inhuman!” Mudd wailed.

“I can see I’ve got my work cut out for me!”

A third Stella ran out and added her voice to the nagging. “ _Harcourt!_ ”

“No,” Mudd cried. Then his eyes fell on the pendant around the woman’s neck, and he went paler than Leo had ever seen him. “Number five _hundred?_ No, no, no…”

_“What have you been up to?”_   Stella 500 demanded.

All three Stellas surrounded Mudd, nagging and scolding and shaking their fingers. Mudd desperately stretched a hand over their heads at the group from the _Enterprise._ “Kirk! It’s inhuman! Mercy!”

Jim and Slim had identical looks of unholy glee on their faces. Jim fluttered his fingers gaily at Mudd. “Have fun, Harry.”

The last thing Leo heard before they beamed out, other than the screeches of the Stellas, was Slim’s mischievous chuckle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am really, really, REALLY sorry about how long it took me to write this chapter. I'm not sure what happened, exactly. I think a big part of it is that work abruptly got super crazy. I went permanent at the beginning of April, and around that same time, my boss switched me to a different type of mail. Shortly afterwards, I was given a couple of e-mail inboxes to handle, as well as being trained on the faxes, and it just...got hectic. Then the girl who had been training me on all this, and whom I was supposed to be the backup for, moved back to South Carolina. She was our team lead...and apparently now I am? (One of the other managers came over to congratulate me on being made Team Lead a couple weeks ago, but my manager hasn't actually said anything, so I don't know what's going on there.) Anyway, I've got a whole lot more responsibility at work now, and that makes things a little hectic.
> 
> I also may have misplaced the book I was using for reference. (I did find it again, eventually, which is good because trying to do it from memory wasn't working out very well.) And I wasn't really expecting it to be as long as it was.
> 
> You'll be pleased to know, however, that I'm a little over a thousand words into the next chapter...and I kind of know what's going to happen in the chapter after that. (That being said, if anyone wants to make suggestions for date ideas for Audra and Slim, feel free! I can't promise I'll use them all, or any of them, but I'd love to see your ideas...)
> 
> Okay, hopefully I'll see you guys next week. <3
> 
> Oh, PS: When Slim starts rambling to fry Norman's brain, the line about man being a "bold spirit who art free to rove amid the starry court of Jove...while mortals name him Enterprise" is from the poem "To Enterprise" by William Wordsworth. The line "These are the times that try men's underwear on for size" is from the "registration" questions at the beginning of the old Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail computer game. (The question was "These are the times that try men's..." and your choices were "Souls," "Tempers," "Patience," and "Underwear on for size." My brother always picked the last one.)


	93. Come Let Me Hold You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Independence Day to my US readers! And Happy Monday to everyone else!
> 
> I've actually had this chapter finished for almost two weeks now, but every time I've gone to post it, the internet has crapped out on me--and when the internet was working, I'd forget I hadn't posted it. But I just finished the _next_ chapter (*angels sing the Hallelujah Chorus*) and suddenly realized I hadn't posted. So...here.
> 
> This chapter got a little heavy, so be warned.

Jim had a long list of things he preferred to avoid, and physicals were pretty high on the list. Even with Bones as his attending, he got the screaming meemies when people started prodding and delving and asking questions. It brought back too many memories of shady clinics and lying about injuries. He had always gotten away with it before by claiming that he was fine, that he knew his body, and that he’d definitely come to Medical if he needed something. The problem was that Bones saw right through him.

In this case, he’d managed to avoid being swept up in the shipwide physicals because Bones was so concerned about Norman, and afterward they’d just been too busy to think about it, but Jim had never held out hope that he’d be able to get away with it forever.

Sure enough, the morning after they left Harry Mudd to the tender mercies of the androids, Bones walked onto the bridge mid-shift, while Jim was doing his rounds, and slid his arms around Jim’s waist.

“Hey, darlin’,” he murmured in Jim’s ear.

“Hey,” Jim murmured back, leaning into his husband for a moment. “What’s up?”

“Mmm.” Bones tucked his chin onto Jim’s shoulder and looked up at Spock. “Can the captain be spared for a few minutes, Mr. Spock? Say…an hour, tops?”

Spock lifted an eyebrow. “Adequately.”

Uhura stifled a giggle at her console. Bones rubbed his cheek against Jim’s for a moment, then spoke in a brisk, cheerful voice. “Good, because I can’t submit my report to Starfleet until I’ve done _all_ the physicals, and I’m still missing the captain’s. Hell, I’ve even got Jame O’Flaherty’s neonatal report in there. C’mon, Jim.”

Jim’s breath caught in his throat for a minute. He was trapped—in every sense of the word—and he could barely manage to stammer out, “Mr. Spock, you have the conn.” Reluctantly, he let Bones lead him to the lift.

The minute they were alone, Bones pulled him flush against himself again, splaying one hand on the left side of Jim’s chest gently. He’d been doing that a lot lately; Jim wasn’t even sure he was aware he was doing it. At the moment, though, Jim was too busy trying to remember how to breathe to worry too much about it.

“I’m sorry, Jim,” Bones said quietly, rocking Jim gently back and forth as they descended. “I know you hate this. I don’t like forcing you into this. But it’s not just about the report. Hell, I could fake it. Your physicals are usually consistent enough that I could just copy the results from last year, alter a couple pertinent details, and submit it.”

“Then why didn’t you?” Jim muttered. Bones had done that a couple of times, usually when Jim was too busy or stressed around annual physical time to make it down to Medical before the bundled report was due.

Bones’ hand pressed a little more firmly against Jim’s chest, and this time, Jim knew it was deliberate. “Because of this.”

“My left pectoral?”

“Your heart, Jim. I’ve been trying to get you in for a physical for the last nine months.”

“I’m fine,” Jim protested, even though he could feel his heart fluttering in his chest.

“Jim.” Bones let go of Jim, then turned him around so they were facing one another and looked seriously into his eyes. “Your heart always races when you’re under stress. It was a big part of the reason I was so reluctant to tranq your double last year. But ever since we faced Apollo…I’ve been noticing an arrhythmia, too. You’re skipping beats, pounding out of sync. Maybe it’s something he did to you—something that lightning of his did when it hit you. Maybe it’s natural. But, Jim…this is how it started with my dad.” His voice trembled on the last word. “ _Please,_ darlin’. Please let me take a look. I can’t—I can’t lose you. Not while it’s in my power to save you.”

Jim’s breath caught in his chest. He had held Bones through enough long nights over the years—even before they were a couple—to know that he’d suffered violently over losing his father, that he’d been miserable he hadn’t been able to keep his father alive a mere six weeks longer to find the cure. And there _was_ a cure for the disease that had taken David McCoy, but the thing was that the later it was caught, the more difficult—and painful—the cure would be.

Jim wouldn’t put Bones through that again. Not for anything.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry, Bones, I…” He swallowed hard. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

“Thank you.” Bones pulled him in for a tight hug, then let go of everything but his hand when the lift doors slid open. “I promise I’ll be quick.”

“I’ve heard that before,” Jim said lightly, which at least had the effect of pulling a smile out of Bones.

They walked into Med Bay to find Chapel and McCall quietly chatting with one another. Chapel was the first to look up and spy them. “Captain, hello. What’s up?”

Jim smiled. “Just here for my physical.”

McCall looked around her, eyes comically wide. “Are we in the middle of the apocalypse and I missed it?”

“Apocalypse Then,” Chapel quipped.

Bones tensed at Jim’s side, but for once, Jim didn’t take the teasing maliciously. After all, he _was_ notorious for avoiding any and all medical procedures, no matter how routine—or how desperately necessary. “I promise you, Nurse McCall, if the scanners happen to pick up four horsemen riding by, you will be at _least_ the third to know about it.”

Both nurses laughed as Bones led Jim into the exam room.

The moment the door closed behind them, to Jim’s surprise, Bones turned him and gave him a gentle, tender kiss. “’M proud of you, darlin’,” he murmured. “Thought for sure you were gonna get upset.”

“I know they weren’t being mean,” Jim murmured in reply, slipping his arms around Bones’ neck for a moment. “Besides, they’re right. Me getting a physical without a massive, drawn-out fight probably _is_ a sign the universe is going to end.”

“Doesn’t count if you were guilt-tripped into it,” Bones pointed out with a slight smile. He kissed Jim again, then let go and pointed to the exam table, suddenly all business. “Right. Shirt, shoes, socks. Keep the pants on, otherwise I’ll never be able to get through this.”

“Spoilsport,” Jim teased, but he did as Bones requested.

Physicals with Bones were a lot easier than they’d been with literally any other doctor he’d ever dealt with. In the first place, Bones knew him; he knew every scar on his body, knew who and what had made each one, knew why Jim hid them. Jim didn’t have to explain, didn’t have to experience the rush of shame that always came when someone saw the scars from Frank or the stuttering moments of fear when they asked about the scars that had come from Tarsus. Over the years, Bones’ fingers and then his lips had traced every single one of them, murmuring reassurances over them, promising Jim that what had happened to him wasn’t his fault, had never been his fault. Maybe Jim didn’t always believe him, but he could relax under them anyway.

In the second place, Bones was gentle and tender with him. Most of the doctors he’d seen had been very clinical and impersonal, poking, prodding, grabbing. A few had been highly unprofessional and groped him while he lay on the table, exposed and helpless. But Bones’ hands, steady and capable, had always reassured Jim that he was safe, made sure he was on solid ground, and never touched without permission or harder than necessary. He always told Jim exactly what he was doing and why, even when it was the same thing year after year.

Really, that was what it boiled down to, in the end. He was safe with Bones, and he knew it. Nothing would hurt him as long as the man he’d loved almost as long as he’d known him was there.

It didn’t change the fact that the procedure was God-awful boring, but at least Jim wasn’t jumping out of his skin every time something touched him.

Bones ran diagnostics, listened to Jim’s lungs, checked his ears, eyes, and throat, and tested his reflexes. He had Jim lie on his back and perform a couple of strenuous activities—no sweat, really, Jim kept himself in good shape, especially for his age—and even did a hearing test.

“All right,” he said at last, and from the way his voice shook, Jim knew what was next. “Time for the heart test. C’mon, Jim, come over here.”

Jim followed Bones to the highly-sophisticated machine designed for close examination of the heart. It was a simple matter of stepping up to the screen and standing perfectly still while Bones ran the scanner, but he’d never done it before. And, truthfully, he was a little nervous about it. He didn’t know if there was a history of heart disease in his family…and he wasn’t sure what he would do if Bones found out there _was_ something wrong.

Still, he dutifully stood where he was instructed to stand and waited patiently. Bones switched on the machine, pressed a couple of buttons, and then stepped back to watch. The machine beeped and whirred for a moment, then settled into a low, steady hum. Jim kept his eyes fixed on Bones, who studied the screen carefully. His expression never changed, never faltered, but Jim saw the blood slowly drain from his face.

After several long minutes of silence, he said quietly, “Bones?”

“Well,” Bones said, and his voice cracked slightly. “It’s not what my dad had.”

“That’s good, at least,” Jim said, a little uncertainly. “Right?”

His heart had begun to beat a little faster, and this time, Jim could feel the skipping Bones had mentioned. He tried to force himself to calm down, but that only made him panic more.

“C’mon down, darlin’,” Bones said softly, holding out his arms. “C’mere.”

Jim stepped off the dais and went straight into Bones’ embrace, slipping his own arms around Bones’ waist and resting his head on his husband’s shoulder. Bones held him close, rocking him back and forth. Gradually, Jim felt his heart slow down, the beat turning steady once more.

“Bones,” he said softly. “What’s wrong with me?”

“There’s—there’s some damage,” Bones admitted. “It’s not…it can be repaired. But it’s going to be complicated. You’ll have to have at least a month to convalesce.”

“Bones…I can’t do that. Not while we’re in deep space. I have to be in command, unless there’s an emergency.”

“I know, darlin’, I know.” Bones pressed a kiss to the top of Jim’s head. “It’s not that bad—yet. You should be all right until we’re back on Earth, unless…unless it starts gettin’ worse.”

Jim didn’t want to know, but he had to ask. “How much worse can it get?”

“A lot,” Bones admitted. “I hope it doesn’t come to that, though. I really do.”

They stood in silence for a long minute. Finally, Bones took a deep breath and spoke more normally. “The rest of your exam looks good, though. Except for some scarring to your heart, you’re healthy as a horse.” He smiled down at Jim, although his eyes were extremely wet. “A bit of a pudgy one, but still.”

Jim smiled, but he didn’t respond.

The rest of the day passed more or less normally, although Jim knew he was quieter than usual. He couldn’t stop thinking about the tests that had been run, what Bones had told him…and at the same time, a passing comment Bones’ aunt had made almost fifteen years before, one Jim had never brought up. They both had their ghosts, their demons, and while Bones had gently pried most of Jim’s into the light and helped him deal with them, Jim had never been quite sure how to drag out Bones’.

But some conversations were better had in the darkness. That night, as they lay in bed, Jim curled against Bones’ chest and Bones resting one hand on Jim’s heart, Jim spoke quietly. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course, darlin’,” Bones murmured, stroking Jim’s hair with his free hand.

Jim swallowed hard, twice, before speaking. “It’s—remember that first Christmas you took me to Georgia?”

“Yeah?” Bones sounded confused. “You been thinkin’ about takin’ the kids out there?”

“No. Well, yeah, but…” Jim took a breath. “Your aunt Norma Jean said something…she didn’t really explain it, but I think I know…and I’ve been thinking about that all day. She said—she was talking about your dad, and she said that—that you couldn’t ignore his dying wish, but that your grandfather couldn’t forgive that part.”

Bones went completely still. For a moment, Jim was afraid he’d had a heart attack, except that he could feel his heart thumping rapidly in his chest. Jim waited for a moment, then said softly, “He didn’t want to suffer, did he? He asked you, if it was getting too bad, if there wasn’t any hope—he wanted you to, to—”

“To kill him,” Bones whispered harshly. “Told me he wanted to be put down like an animal if there was no chance for him. Said he didn’t want to be hooked up to a million machines, hoping they’d keep him alive long enough to find something to let him live longer. He was always more interested in quality of life over quantity, and he said he’d rather die young than live forever in pain.”

Jim could see the pain in Bones’ eyes. The guilt. Forget his grandfather refusing to forgive him—Bones couldn’t forgive _himself._ Jim lifted one hand to cover the one Bones had resting on his chest. “You just did what he wanted, Bones.”

“No, I didn’t,” Bones admitted, his voice low and raw. “I _couldn’t,_ Jim. Not at first. Suzanna was only eight when he was diagnosed, and Mama…she wasn’t ready to quit. He held on for them, but he told me that if he ended up bedridden, he wanted me to end it. OD him on morphine, pump too much potassium into his IV, something like that. He knew as well as I did that if he got in that bed, he’d never get out of it, especially since what he had meant his body would reject any attempts at a transplant. But I—I didn’t, Jim. He was bedridden and I kept making excuses not to go see him…Joss used that as an excuse for our marriage startin’ to fall apart, that I was too cold to visit my dying father. Then she got pregnant…I tried to convince Daddy to stick around long enough to meet his grandbaby, and he tried, Jim, he tried so hard. But it finally got so bad—I went to see him a month before Jo was due, and he was just so weak, he was in so much pain…I gave in. I gave him the out he wanted.” He drew a deep, shuddering breath. “And then three weeks later, they found a cure.”

“Bones,” Jim whispered.

“Dammit, the whole reason I didn’t let him die was I was hoping—and then they found it that soon after I gave in! And then three months later, Jo died in her sleep, and everything fell apart…” Bones buried his face in the top of Jim’s head. “I made my father suffer when he didn’t want to. I made _me_ suffer, because I had to watch him waste away. I either waited too long to give him the peace he’d asked me— _begged_ me for—or I didn’t wait long enough. And in the end, it doesn’t really matter, because I lost everything I had anyway. I can’t—” His voice broke and he pulled Jim tighter. Jim felt tears dropping into his scalp.

Jim clung tighter to Bones. He hated that he’d done this, hated bringing this sort of thing up…but it was important. To Bones, to him, to _them._ He held his husband for a moment that stretched out into eternity, wanting to take that pain away from him, silently promising that he was there, no matter what.

“Bones,” he whispered at last. “If this thing I’ve got—if it couldn’t be repaired and you couldn’t replace my heart—would you put me down rather than see me suffer?”

Bones took a deep, shuddering breath, but his reply was almost instant. “Yes.”

Jim exhaled, a long, deep sigh that seemed to come from the depths of his soul, and sank closer to Bones.

“Promise?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise he's gonna be okay. I just needed to address this since I kept bringing it up.


	94. Between a Backwoods Boy and a Fairytale Princess

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had way too much fun writing this chapter.

It wasn’t, Slim thought, staring into the tiny storage space of his closet, as though he had a lot of options. He’d outgrown most of the clothes he’d come on board with and had to be outfitted from ship’s stores, and since ship’s stores had limited options outside of the official uniform and clothes designed to fit in with the approximate cultures of various pre-first contact planets, he didn’t have much. But for this particular venture, he wanted to look his best.

He just wasn’t sure what his best _was._

The chime of the door startled him out of his thoughts and nearly sent him into a panic. _I thought we were supposed to meet outside the Transporter Room!_ He glanced at the chronometer quickly, wondering how late he was, then cleared his throat and called in a voice at least half an octave above normal, “Enter!”

“Sulu asked me if I’d bring this by for you.” The deep, rumbling voice made Slim sigh with relief. “Single red rose, love at first sight, et cetera. He thought that—dude. You have to wear a shirt. Societal conventions aside, I’m pretty sure it would ruin your date if Audra got thrown in the brig for beating someone to death for ogling you.”

Slim found himself blushing. “Shut up. That ain’t gonna happen.”

Porter appeared at Slim’s elbow. “Right, because you’re gonna get dressed, Stud.”

“What are you talking about?” Slim frowned at him.

“Shirt,” Porter said slowly, gesturing to Slim’s torso. “A cloth garment for the upper body. Originally worn as an undergarment by men and women, the term has—”

“I _know_ what that is, idiot. I’m talkin’ ‘bout the ‘stud’ thing.”

“Have you looked in a mirror lately?”

“Yeah, which is why I’m confused.” Slim knew what he looked like. He was sixteen and a half, gangly and awkward, overdue for a haircut, and more often than not had grit and grease smeared into his skin from where he’d been crawling around under things in Engineering. About the only thing he’d been spared was acne.

Porter shook his head. “Then I think you need a new mirror, friend. You’re impressively built. You’ve got a complexion most people would kill for. You’ve got a face Michaelangelo would have loved to sculpt. And when you dance, I could almost believe you were the reincarnation of Fred Astaire. Combine that with the muscles you’ve built up fencing with Sulu, and yeah, I’m pretty sure you’d get mobbed if you went out there without a shirt.”

Startled, Slim turned to look at his friend. “Port, you’re straight.”

“You sure about that?” Porter shot back. “I told you about that guy I fell for. Anyway, even if I am, so what? I thought that nebula Captain Kirk had named after Allyn was gorgeous, too, and I sure as hell didn’t have the desire to have sex with _that._ You can appreciate beauty without being sexually attracted to it.”

If Slim blushed any harder, he was going to overheat. Porter studied him. “Your shoulders are turning red, too. That’s interesting. You’re practically a full-body blusher. Seriously, though, unless you want to risk a galactic incident, you’re gonna want a shirt.”

“That’s the problem,” Slim admitted, gesturing to his closet. “I don’t know what to wear.”

Porter studied the meager options with a critical eye. “What are you guys planning to do? No, wait,” he interrupted as Slim opened his mouth, “let me guess. You have no idea.”

“Well…not really,” Slim admitted. “Dinner, at least, but…I don’t know what people actually _do_ on dates.”

“Could be anything,” Porter said. “Holopics, concerts, sporting events. My dad’s best friend once told the guy he liked that he’d take him on a date like he’d never been before and took him to the supermarket to watch the lobsters fighting in their tank.”

Slim coughed. “Seriously?”

“Hey, you know what you should do?” Porter reached into Slim’s closet and pulled out a shirt Uhura had given him. It was made of Triaxian silk, of a pale peachy-pink shade, with pearl buttons and a spread collar. “Wear this and take her dancing.”

“Dancing?” Slim considered it. It was something he and Audra had in common, and something they hadn’t done alone on the _Enterprise._ She’d joined a couple of Uhura’s lessons, but they’d never practiced on their own. “Is there somewhere to do that on this base?”

“The Savoy Ballroom,” Porter said with a nod. “Run by an Andorian and a human from New Chicago. They apparently retired from the competitive swing circuit about fifteen standard years ago and came out here.”

Slim bit his lip. He wasn’t competition standard, not by any means, but the idea still appealed to him. Finally, he laid the shirt carefully on his bed and reached into his closet again.

“What are you doing?”

“Well, if I’m going to a ballroom run by a competitive dancer, I’ve gotta dress properly.” Slim came out with a white vest, an untied bow tie draped over the top of the hanger. “The shirt’s a dance shirt. Aunt Nyota bought it for Uncle Spock to take him dancin’ after their first five-year, but he didn’t want to go, so she set it aside an’ ended up givin’ it to me for my birthday. Thanks, Port, that’s a great idea.”

Porter stepped back, watching as Slim pulled on the shirt and swiftly did up the buttons, then reached for the bow tie, slid it under his collar, and tied it swiftly and easily. His eyebrows shot up. “How’d you do that without looking?”

“Practice.” Slim smoothed the ends of the bow tie, using his fingertips to check if it was even, then shrugged into the vest and buttoned it up, smoothing it over his waist. He turned to Porter, spreading out his arms. “There, what do you think?”

“I think you need to do something about your hair. Got a comb?”

Slim gestured to the nightstand, where a brush and comb sat. Porter moved quickly, smoothing all of Slim’s hair flat to his head, then parting it on one side. “There. That’s better. Going in those shoes?”

“Nope. If we’re goin’ dancin’, gotta wear my dancin’ shoes.” Slim toed out of his boots and made quick work of lacing up his dancing shoes, then slid his wallet into his hip pocket and grabbed the flat cap Chekov had given him for Christmas. “There. Now I’m ready.”

“All right.” Porter grinned. “Let’s get going, then.”

Slim tried to ignore the wolf whistles as he walked down the corridors towards the transporter room, but it was hard going. Porter being at his side helped a lot. At last, however, they made it, and Slim took a deep breath before stepping through the door.

Audra was leaning on the control panel, chatting idly with Kyle. She had drawn her hair up into a series of tucks and rolls that reminded him of Ginger Rogers in _Follow the Fleet_ , and she wore the flowing purple dress she’d worn to his birthday party. Glancing down at her feet, Slim couldn’t help but smile as he realized she’d worn _her_ dancing shoes, too.

Kyle looked up and did a double take, his eyes widening and his jaw dropping slightly. Audra looked over her shoulder, then gave a small squeak and fumbled, managing to get to her feet and swirl around to face him. “Slim!” she gasped. “Uh—hi. Wow, you—uh—wow.”

“Yeah.” Slim grinned crookedly, feeling a little shy. “You, too.” He held out the rose. Audra blushed, then accepted it.

“You both look amazing.” Kyle smiled warmly. “Ready to go?”

Slim held out his arm, elbow crooked. Audra linked her arm with his, and together they stepped onto the platform. As soon as they were in position, Slim nodded at Kyle. “Energize.”

A moment later, they stood on the concourse of Starbase 26. It was a bustling place, and Slim noted without surprise that they were far from the only couple wandering around. Pulling Audra to one side of the doorway to the transporter room, he asked her, “Where would you like to go for dinner?”

“Do you like Italian?” Audra asked, a little hesitantly.

“I love it. Now let’s see if we can find it.”

It turned out that the starbase was laid out in a fairly logical fashion. Three rings, connected by narrow walkways, surrounded a single inner core, where the transporters were, as well as a few shuttle bays. The first of the rings, which took them about twenty minutes to circumvent, seemed to be comprised entirely of boutiques selling flowers, chocolates, jewelry, and such things. They headed up to the second ring and found that its total makeup was that of restaurants.

“I begin to suspect,” Audra said thoughtfully, “that this entire station was designed for dating.”

“Suspect you’re right.” It certainly explained why there were no single people wandering around, only couples— _mostly_ couples, Slim amended as he saw a group of three humanoid males with their arms around one another’s waists, weaving back and forth and laughing. Polyamory worked for some, and in some species it was actually the default. As long as everybody involved was happy and safe, Slim didn’t really care.

They set off clockwise around the circle, looking at the various restaurants. Slim was unsurprised to see a wide and varied number of restaurants, from all corners of the galaxy—or at least the Alpha Quadrant. A Tellarite natural-foods store rubbed elbows with a Denobulan raw bar on one side and a Szechuan restaurant with spices hot enough to singe Slim’s eyebrows on the other. A bakery featuring breads and pastries from Rigel IV mingled its appealing odors with the tantalizing smell of Vulcan mocha from the cafe across the concourse. There was an entire stretch of restaurants dedicated to variants on Latin-American cuisine, including one that, mysteriously, had a gigantic neon light in the shape of an old-fashioned ship’s bell hanging over the door.

“How big is this place, anyway?” Audra asked as they passed the halfway point from where they’d started.

Slim guided Audra with a light touch around a couple squabbling about whether the Germans had stolen their sauerkraut recipe from the Talosians. “Transporter room is ‘bout six meters wide at the back wall. Ten transporter rooms on the station make up a quarter of the core of the base, meanin’ one-quarter of the circumference is ‘bout sixty meters, so the total circumference is two hundred forty. Factor in two meters for the width of the corridor, that extends the circumference of the core to two hundred fifty-three meters. Those walkways were ‘bout forty meters, I reckon—that’s ‘bout average—which effectively doubles the radius, so that first ring is five hundred three meters at the inner wall. Figure the ring’s another forty meters wide, since those shops weren’t too big, an’ then another forty meters for the next walkway, an’ you’ve doubled again. I reckon the inner part of this ring is ‘bout a kilometer around. An’ I figure, law of averages an’ all that, the third ring beyond this, where all the entertainment is, is ‘bout two point five kilometers at its outermost point.”

Audra stopped dead. Slim turned to find her staring at him. “What?”

“You mean to tell me you didn’t read a schematic of this place or anythin’?” she demanded. “You just worked that out in your head while we were gettin’ here?”

Slim blushed. “Uh, yeah.”

Shaking her head, Audra tugged him to get him moving again. “You’re gonna kick _serious_ ass at the Academy.”

Slim blushed, but thankfully, Audra dropped the topic.

They found an Italian bistro about three restaurants down, and fortunately, there were a lot of empty tables about. Slim and Audra were shown to a discreet table off to one side and presented with menus written in Standard. After placing their orders and reassuring the waiter for the tenth time that they really didn’t want any wine, they lapsed into a slightly awkward silence, staring at one another and trying not to fidget.

“I don’t know how this is supposed to work,” Slim finally blurted, keeping his accent under control—barely. “I’ve never done a date or anything before.”

“Me, neither,” Audra admitted. “I mean, I know you’re supposed to go someplace special and talk, but…we do that anyway. It’s not like we’ve got to get to know each other or anything.”

Slim couldn’t help but laugh. “Well…maybe this is just about the someplace special, then.”

Audra laughed, too. “Yeah. Let’s just…talk. Let’s not force that part to be different.”

It got a lot easier after that. They talked shop, chatted about Slim’s studies and Addie’s development and the latest technical journals. They stole bites off one another’s plates, refused wine about twenty more times, and shared a dish of salted caramel gelato. Finally, Audra sat back and sighed. “I ate too much, but oh, that was delicious. Not sure how to work it off.”

Slim double-checked his math on the bottom of the credit slip, signed his name, and set it aside for the waiter to collect before standing and offering Audra his arm. “I can make a suggestion.”

Audra looked up at him and blushed. It took Slim a moment to realize what he’d said, and then he blushed, too. “No! No, it’s—Port told me there’s a place on the entertainment ring—the Savoy Ballroom. It’s a swing ballroom. I thought maybe…” He trailed off, biting his lip.

“Oh.” Audra chuckled slightly, then rose and accepted Slim’s arm. “ _That_ I’d like.”

Jim hadn’t given them a time limit on the starbase this time; they would be in orbit for twenty-four standard hours, and as long as everyone was back on the ship by the time they were ready to leave, it would be fine. Slim was thankful for that; he hadn’t worn his chrono, but he knew they’d spent close to an hour looking for the restaurant, plus the time eating their meal. He had no idea how long it would take them to find the Savoy, and he certainly didn’t want to have to rush away once they’d found it. But considering they’d come over fairly early in the leave period, they’d probably be okay.

Unlike the other two rings, where everything was somewhat haphazardly arranged, the outermost ring was laid out in a logical, orderly fashion. Slim was relieved to learn that the walkway they headed up separated the quadrant where all the holopic theaters were from the quadrant with all the nightclubs. Some of the clubs had long lines of people waiting to get in, with bouncers screening guests and flashing neon lights. Others had no more than one or two couples going in and out. There were clubs advertising rock, country, techno, and jazz music from all planets. One of them, the Abusive Basement, left Slim in no doubt what it was for, and he found himself unconsciously hastening his steps until he was past it.

The Savoy Ballroom was tucked between a club called Pulse, with a line that snaked across nearly the entire corridor, and a simple front with Vulcan script next to the door that Slim wasn’t sure the translation of. It resembled the front to an old Earth hotel, with a large potted plant on either side of ornate double doors of a polished, reddish-brown wood. The fixtures were brass, trimmed in white, and a discreet white sign on a wrought-metal easel read DANCING TONIGHT in an elegant script.

Slim opened the door and bowed to Audra. “After you.”

The Savoy wasn’t very crowded. In fact, there were fewer than a dozen couples in the room, mostly human. Slim was a little nervous about that, because it meant they would be conspicuous on the dance floor. Then, as they descended the three steps into the ballroom proper, the song that had been playing ended, to be replaced with a song he recognized as “Pennsylvania 6-500.” He found his toes were tapping along to the rhythm, and when he glanced at Audra, he saw that she was, too.

Holding out his hand and grinning, he asked, “May I have this dance?”

Audra accepted his hand, grinning in reply, and they stepped onto the edges of the floor. Slim had gotten pretty good at swing dancing over the last few months. He’d even convinced Uhura to teach him the basics of Lindy hop. He was still a little rough around the edges, and he couldn’t do the aerials, but he acquitted himself well. “Pennsylvania 6-500” wasn’t a Lindy, though, just a basic swing, and he and Audra moved through the steps easily enough. It was the closest thing to flying he’d ever felt outside the bridge of the _Enterprise._

And he never wanted it to end.

They danced through the next four songs before deciding they needed a break. Laughing, they sat at one of the small tables to catch their breath. A tall Andorian appeared an instant later with two glasses and a pitcher of ice water.

“You dance quite well,” he said as he poured for both of them. “May I ask where you learned?”

“Starfleet Academy,” Audra said, a little breathlessly. “Henry Rawlins.”

“My godmother’s been teaching me,” Slim admitted.

“I’m impressed. And pleased. My mate and I feared that swing and Lindy were a dying art in the galaxy, but it’s good to see that it’s still being kept alive.” The Andorian smiled. “My name is Hjalmar th'Vhishria.”

“I’m Sl—Thomas Kirk,” Slim said, correcting himself quickly, “and this is Audra Cayne.”

“Kirk?” Hjalmar seemed surprised. “As in Captain James T. Kirk? Are you a relative?”

“Hjal, not everyone with the last name Kirk is related to the captain.” A tall, muscular man with close-cropped steel grey hair appeared at Hjalmar’s side. “I’m Chazz Manning. Hjal and I co-own the Savoy…so what ship are you on, if you don’t mind my asking? Heard you say you were an Academy grad.”

“The _Enterprise,_ ” Audra and Slim said together.

Hjalmar nudged Chazz. “So you _are_ related to the captain?”

“I am,” Slim admitted. “He’s my father.”

“No kidding?” Chazz seemed impressed. “Well, then, welcome to the Savoy. Listen, you two want a lesson in Lindy?”

Slim glanced at Audra, who nodded. “Sure, we’d like that a lot.”

“Come on, then, we’ll have the band play something simple,” Hjalmar said, laughing at what was obviously a long-standing joke.

The Savoy never really got much more crowded than it was. There was plenty of room for Slim and Audra to dance, to practice, to laugh when they made errors and correct their steps. They even managed to learn an aerial well enough to satisfy Chazz, who turned out to be descended from the man generally credited with inventing most of the original Lindy hop. Eventually, however, Slim could feel his energy starting to flag a little, and he could tell Audra was getting tired, too.

“You ready to call it a night?” he asked her softly.

“As much as I don’t want this to end,” Audra replied, her voice just as soft, “I am startin’ to get a little tired. Say one more dance and then we’ll go?”

“Sounds good to me.”

As if someone had heard them, the next song was decidedly not a swing tune, although it was the right era. Frank Sinatra’s voice crooned through the sound system. “ _Moon River, wider than a mile…_ ”

Slim took Audra’s hand and placed his other hand on her waist; she rested her free hand on his shoulder, and they began to dance.

The waltz was still his best step, even as good as he’d started to get at swing. As he lifted his arm to spin Audra before bringing her back into the hold, he somehow felt even lighter and airier than he’d felt on his birthday. Audra’s eyes never left his, and he could feel the same smile on his lips that he saw on hers.

As the song wound itself down, Slim was once again struck with the urge he’d been struck with when he waltzed with Audra before—to bend forward and kiss her. He started to lean forward, but at the last minute, he chickened out a little, changed his aim, and pressed his lips gently to her cheek. Her skin was soft and smelled faintly of rose petals. For as long as he lived, Slim knew he’d never smell roses without thinking of Audra.

Audra gave a soft sigh and slid her arms around his neck, then turned her head and kissed his cheek, too.

“Thank you,” she said in his ear. “This has been the perfect evening.”

Slim couldn’t help but smile. “I thought so, too.”

They really did have to go then. Chazz and Hjalmar waved to them as they left, telling them to come back any time they wished, and they set off for the transporter rooms hand in hand.

As they reached the innermost ring, another couple came out of the shop nearest their walkway, their arms around each other’s waists and their heads very close together. It took Slim a minute to come out of his fog of contentment and recognize Sulu and Chekov.

Chekov saw them first and offered them a broad, bright smile. “Did you have a good time?” he asked them.

Slim and Audra looked at one another and grinned. No other words were needed.


	95. The Unreal McCoy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is based on the episode of the same name written by George Clayton Jones, which was renamed "The Man Trap" when it aired.

“Okay, Jim, I know why _I’m_ going on this mission, and I know why _Johns_ is going on this mission, but why the hell are _you_ going on this mission?”

“Boredom,” Jim said with a casual shrug of the shoulders and an impish smirk. “Curiosity. How often do I get the chance to meet one of your exes?”

“I regret telling you that _so_ much,” Leo muttered under his breath.

Federation regulations stated that research personnel on alien planets had to have their health certified by a starship’s surgeon once per year. Regulus VIII was one such alien planet—a barren rock, dotted with stubborn bits of scrub between vast craters, each of which seemed to have been inhabited at one point. This particular crater hosted a campsite known as the Bierce campsite, named for the archaeologist digging about in the ruins, Robert Bierce. Bierce had been accompanied by his wife, Nancy.

The _Enterprise_ had been the closest starship when the statutory time for check-ups came about, and it had been the work of a moment to divert. Everything was perfectly routine. Except that Leo had made the mistake of mentioning to Jim that he and Nancy had dated—briefly.

_Very_ briefly.

“You know we only went out for maybe a month or two, right?” Leo pointed out as they energized on Regulus VIII. “I did mention that?”

“Yes, you did,” Jim agreed. “Still. An ex.”

“She’s also the one who introduced me to Jocelyn,” Leo told Jim. “They were sisters.”

Jim winced. “That—that you didn’t mention. She’s your _sister-_ in-law?”

“ _Sorority_ sisters, Jim. Not actual sisters. Nancy was Joss’s maid of honor at our wedding, and Joss did the honors for her when she married Bob. They’re—they _were_ best friends. Not sure how long it’s been since they’ve seen each other.”

“Reports indicate this campsite’s been here almost five years, Doctor,” Johns volunteered. The security guard had been recruited to beam down with them in case of incident, not that it seemed likely. There were no other reported life forms on the planet. Still, it never hurt to be prepared.

Leo pondered that for a minute. Depending on how many messages had come this way, it was probable that Nancy didn’t know Joss was remarried. He wasn’t sure if he relished being the one to tell her about it.

Actually, he wasn’t sure he relished _any_ of this. Nancy had been very firmly on Jocelyn’s side during the divorce. He still remembered her high, twittering voice, apologizing over and over for “putting Joss through” such a “terrible ordeal” as having been married to Leonard McCoy. And he was pretty sure Nancy had no idea he was bi, unless Jocelyn had told her. Loving people of the same gender, or multiple genders, or no gender at all wasn’t really an issue in most parts of the Federation anymore, but then again, Georgia wasn’t exactly most parts of the Federation. There were few places more resistant to change in terms of traditional way of thinking. Leo was just thankful he hadn’t grown up in Texas.

They were walking towards the ruins of what Leo guessed to have been a temple of some ancient civilization. Certainly it bore similarities to temples he’d seen on a lot of planets Jim had dragged him to. But that was where the Bierces had set up camp, so that was where they were headed.

And then Nancy Bierce walked out of the ruins, smiling broadly, and the day took a left turn into surreal.

“Nancy,” Leo stammered, stunned. “You—you haven’t aged a day.”

It was a phrase of Southern courtesy, a honey-laden lie Leo had slid off his tongue to countless women who in fact had aged so much as to be almost unrecognizable. But in this case, it was astonishingly accurate. Nancy looked exactly the way she had the night she and Leo had taken a riverboat cruise, down to the dimple in her chin and the beauty mark on her cheek. Her plump lips were parted slightly over pearly white teeth, her eyes sparkling with life and joy, and her slender, surprisingly white hands were extended in welcome.

There was a flash of amusement in Jim’s eyes, there and gone in a moment. Leo recovered himself and indicated his companions. “This is the captain of the _Enterprise,_ Jim Kirk, and this is Officer Deray Johns.”

Nancy turned her smile on the two of them. Jim responded with a smile and a nod, but Johns’ jaw dropped and he took a half-step back, staring at Nancy in astonishment. Jim shot him a look, but Nancy didn’t seem to notice. “Come in, come in. We may have to wait a little bit for Bob. You remember how he is—once he starts digging, he forgets time. We’ve set up quarters in what seems to be an old altar chamber…not luxurious, but lots of room. Come on in, Plum.” With that, she ducked under the stone lintel.

“Plum?” Jim repeated, sounding like he was struggling not to laugh.

“An old pet name.” Leo was surprised at just how embarrassed he was at hearing the nickname again. Nancy’d been rather tipsy when she’d hung it on him; she’d said he was dark and sweet and plump and juicy. Jocelyn had called him that, too, up until their marriage started going south. It kind of surprised him to hear Nancy pull out the nickname, considering what it represented. And the _last_ thing he wanted was for Jim to pick it up.

He followed Nancy into the coolness of the abandoned temple. A minute later, Jim came in as well, without Johns.

“He’s going to look around for a bit,” Jim said quietly in response to Leo’s quick glance. “Apparently he finds your Nancy attractive.”

“She’s not _my_ Nancy,” Leo hissed, flushing. “Heavens.”

Nancy twittered around the chamber, plumping pillows and fussing a bit, but Bierce didn’t appear. Finally, Nancy flapped her hands in a way Leo remembered. “I’m so sorry, Plum. I’ll go see what’s keeping him…my apologies, Captain.” With a flutter of her fingers, she quit the chamber, leaving Jim and Leo in a surprisingly awkward silence.

Leo hoped Bierce would show up soon. Something about this planet gave him the willies. He could have attributed it to the loneliness of the camp or the potential arcane significance of the temple, but truthfully, he was pretty sure it mostly had to do with Nancy. She reminded him of the past—of pain and despair and colossal fuck-ups—and he wished this was a task he’d been able to hand over to M’Benga or Weaver or even Brackett.

Fortunately, Bierce did arrive soon. Unlike Nancy, the years and the climate hadn’t been kind to him. He was a weathered, grizzled old man who’d been getting his Ph.D at the same time as Leo himself, all elbows and knees and craggy features. And he didn’t look pleased to see them.

“Dr. Bierce,” Jim said in greeting. “I’m Captain Kirk of the starship _Enterprise,_ and—”

“I know who you are,” Bierce interrupted gruffly. “We don’t need your kind here. If you’ll just fill us up on aspirin, salt tablets, and the like, you can be on your way.”

“Sorry, Bierce, regulations,” Leo said apologetically, unslinging his instruments.

Bierce squinted at Leo. “You—McCoy? Leonard? Bloody hell. When did you go Starfleet?”

“Hands out from your sides, please, and breathe evenly…and to answer your question, right after the divorce.” Leo began scanning Bierce. “Didn’t Nancy tell you I was here?”

There was a pause before Bierce spoke again. “You’ve…seen Nancy?”

“She was here when we arrived,” Jim said. “She went looking for you.”

“Oh, yes. Quite. I’m…pleased, of course, that she can meet an old friend,” Bierce said, his voice suddenly taking on a much more affable aspect. “Have a chance of some company. I enjoy solitude, but it’s difficult for a woman.”

Leo’s sense of unease was growing. Either Bierce was remembering the past very imperfectly, or there was more going on than he knew. Combined with Nancy using the old nickname—sounding _affectionate,_ for God’s sake—it certainly didn’t make Leo want to stay any longer than absolutely necessary. Or, really, even _that_ long. He wanted off this planet, regulations be damned.

“I understand,” Jim said, not sounding at all as if he did.

Setting aside his tricorder, Leo pulled out a tongue depressor. “Open your mouth, please.” Sensing that perhaps he should contribute to the conversation, he added, “She hasn’t changed a bit.”

Bierce reluctantly opened his mouth. At the same instant, a high-pitched scream echoed through the chamber, making Leo jump and drop the tongue depressor. There was a second scream, and all three of the men took off running for the entrance. Leo didn’t know who was screaming, but it was either Nancy or Johns, and they were obviously afraid of something…which meant there was a possibility that he would be needed for something.

Out in the open, Leo and Jim quickly outstripped Bierce, who didn’t seem to be much of the athletic type, but they didn’t have far to go. Just beyond the rim of the crater stood Nancy, both hands pressed to her mouth. At her feet lay Deray Johns.

Nancy turned and started for Leo, but he ignored her, focusing on his patient. Kneeling on the ground, he pressed two fingers to Johns’ neck. Nothing. No pulse, no heartbeat. Gently, he turned the man’s head to one side and made an interested grunt in the back of his throat.

“Bones?” Jim sounded a little unsure.

Leo turned Johns over and looked up at his husband, sympathy in his eyes. He knew he didn’t need to say it. Even Jim could clearly see that the security officer was dead. His face was mottled with ring-like red marks that were rapidly fading. Jim’s face went flat. “What hit him?”

“Don’t know,” Leo said, resuming his inspection. “Petachiae a little like vacuum mottling, or maybe an immunological—” He stopped, his eyes suddenly straying to Johns’ left hand. “Hello, what’s this?”

As Bierce finally, huffing and puffing, made it to their side, Leo pried open the dead man’s hand, revealing a twisted, scabrous root resembling a mummified parsnip. Leo had always hated parsnips, the one vegetable he agreed with Jim on, and he was even less inclined to eat this one. Someone, however, evidently had; there was a clear bite mark in it.

Jim stared for a second, then spun about onto Nancy. “What happened?”

“Don’t snap at my wife, Captain,” Bierce brayed. “Clearly, it isn’t _her_ fault!”

“One of my crewmen is dead,” Jim said, and there was no doubt he was snapping this time. “I accuse nobody, but Mrs. Bierce is the only witness.”

Leo was a little startled that Jim’s diplomacy was failing him so badly, but he figured he would do what he could to salvage the situation. Getting to his feet, he spoke gently to Nancy, who after all still looked like the young and rather silly girl she’d been rather than the middle-aged woman she was now. “Just tell us what you saw, Nancy. Take your time.”

Nancy pulled her hands away from her mouth, gulped twice, and then said in a low voice, “I was just…I couldn’t find Bob, and I was just coming back to you when I saw your crewman. He had that borgia root in his hand and he was smelling it. I—I was just about to call out to him when he took a bite out of it. I had no idea he was going to—and then his face twisted about and he fell—”

She broke off, burying her face in her hands. Leo put a hand on her shoulder, comforting her as best as he could. Jim spoke evenly. “How could you tell what the root was if you were so far away from him?”

“This cross-examination—” Bierce began.

“Stop it, Bob.” Nancy looked up at Jim, her eyes round and tear-laden. “I didn’t, of course. Not until I was right on top of him. But of course, it’s dangerous to handle strange plants on a new planet.”

She was right, Leo acknowledged, and what’s more, Johns knew that. The man was an old hand—Jim had told him once that he’d refused promotion to chief of security, despite having more years in Starfleet than Dickenson, because he would rather do his job than worry about managing people. Not the sort of person who’d pick up a strange root on a strange planet and sniff it, let alone bite into it afterward. There was something screwy going on here.

Jim’s face changed not a whit as he turned to Leo. “Pack up, Bones. We can resume the physicals tomorrow.”

Leo closed up his tricorder as Bierce protested, “I’m sure that won’t be necessary. If you could just disembark our supplies, Captain—”

“It’s not going to be that easy, Dr. Bierce,” Jim replied, flipping out his communicator. “Kirk to Transporter Room. Lock and energize. Two transportees and a corpse.”

The last thing Leo saw of the planet was Nancy’s worried eyes.

The worst part of beaming back from an away mission with a corpse was the way everybody they passed on the way to the morgue stopped and stared. Leo knew that they weren’t curious, merely paying respects to a fallen comrade, but it was still unpleasant to be stared at, and even more unpleasant knowing that the reason why was that he was bearing the limp corpse of what had once been among the longest-serving members aboard. Still, Leo kept his eyes ahead of him on his way to the small exam room they used for autopsies.

“Do you need assistance, Dr. McCoy?” Chapel asked quietly as Leo pushed Johns’ body through the main medical bay and into the autopsy room.

“No, thank you,” Leo told her, flashing her a brief but tired smile. “I can handle this one myself.”

It was, he thought, the least he could do for the man. He laid Johns’ remains onto the exam table, scrubbed up, slipped into the surgical gown, and picked up his laser scalpel. Poised over the body, he made the first cut.

An autopsy generally took anywhere from two to four hours for the initial examination, but the more he dug into the man’s body, the more Leo could see that this was not going to be anywhere approaching a simple case. Sighing, he squared his shoulders, fought back the surge of tired rolling over him, and kept patiently digging and examining and recording his findings.

Jim came in after he couldn’t even tell how long, and he stopped in the doorway and flinched. “Jesus, Bones.”

“Hmm?” Leo looked up to see his husband’s face, white and bloodless, and then glanced down at his bloodied hands, which were cradling one-point-four kilograms of grey matter. “Oh.” Carefully, he laid Johns’ brain into a shallow bowl, then turned to the sink and began washing his hands, scrubbing at them until they were as pristine as he could get.

“Anything?” Jim sounded a little shaky, not that Leo blamed him. Jim Kirk had been through things that would destroy most men and they’d just rolled off of him; he’d seen crewmen killed, watched his father die—twice—and stood helpless as his family was butchered before his very eyes. But this kind of death—seeing a man’s skin peeled back, his internal organs weighed and set to the side, his insides poked and prodded and examined—was something few men got used to. Not that Jim ever got used to seeing death at all, but this wasn’t something inside his realm of experience at all.

“I can’t rule out poison,” Leo told him, stripping off the surgical gown and tossing it towards the incinerator. “Not entirely. Some of the best-known ones act just as fast and leave just as little trace—botulinus, for example. But there’s no trace of any woody substance in his stomach, or even in his teeth. All I can say for sure is that he’s got massive capillary damage—which could be caused by anything, even shock—and those marks on his face.” He tugged the sheet up to cover Johns’ remains. “I’ll be running some blood chemistry tests, but I’d like to know what I’m testing _for._ I’d also like to know what sort of symptoms this ‘borgia root’ is supposed to produce. Until then, Jim, I’m really in the dark.”

“Slim’s running a search on the planet,” Jim said, coming a little closer now that Johns was covered up. “It shouldn’t take long. But honestly, what you’ve said so far doesn’t really surprise me. Johns was too old a hand to bite into any old thing he happened to pick up.”

Leo shrugged, since he agreed, but he had to point out the obvious. “Then what does that leave? Nancy? Jim, I’m not quite trusting my own eyes lately, but believe me, if she were the kind of person likely to kill, I wouldn’t be here right now. And a perfect stranger to boot!”

“People aren’t the only ones who kill—” Jim began, but was interrupted by a knock from behind him. He turned, and Leo looked up to see Slim hovering in the doorway, a PADD cradled in one arm and wearing his serious face. “Slim, you have a report for me?”

“Not much, I’m afraid,” Slim admitted, coming forward. “The only information we have on the borgia root is what the Bierces themselves reported in their project proposal six years ago. Their report calls it—and I’m quoting here—‘an aconite root resembling the _Lilium_ family,’ which incidentally made Sulu twitch like nobody’s business when I read it—”

“Why?”

“Well, _Lilium_ ain’t— _isn’t_ a family, it’s a genus. And aconite is in a separate family altogether. Besides, he called up a couple pictures of aconite roots, and saying borgia root was an aconite root would have been sufficient—it looks pretty standard for the genus.”

“Bierce is an archaeologist, not a botanist,” Leo said, a little snappishly.

Slim grinned. “That’s what Mr. Spock said. Anyway, it’s said to have twenty to fifty different alkaloids, none then identifiable specifically with the equipment to hand. The raw root is poisonous to mice. No mention of human symptoms, except…”

“Except?” Leo prompted when Slim hesitated.

“Well, it’s not a symptom, exactly,” Slim said slowly, looking down at his PADD again. “The report adds that the root has a pleasant odor, bland but edible-smelling, kind of like tapioca.” He shrugged, looking up again. “And that’s all there is—there isn’t any more.”

“Thanks.” Jim gave Slim a brief half-smile, then turned to Leo. “Bones, I can’t picture Johns having been irresistibly driven to bite into an unknown root just because it smelled like _tapioca._ Hell, he wouldn’t have bitten into something that smelled like a brandied peach unless he knew its pedigree. He was too old a hand for that.”

Leo spread out his hands, palms up. “You know your man, Jim. But where does that leave us? Superficially, the symptoms do resemble aconite poisoning. Beyond that, we’re nowhere.”

“Not quite,” Jim replied. “We still have to check on the Bierces, I’m afraid. And for that I’m going to need your help.”

“You’ll have it,” Leo said, turning back to finish washing his hands and not sure why the idea irritated him so much.

“Thanks,” Jim said quietly. “I’m going to have them beamed aboard. Can you finish their physicals here?”

Leo huffed, casting a glare over his shoulder. “Jim, I’m standing in the middle of one of the most advanced medical facilities in the Federation, and you’re _seriously_ asking me if I can do here what I can accomplish on a back-rock planet with a tricorder and a tongue depressor?”

“I mean can _you_ finish them, or do you need to call M’Benga in?”Jim clarified. “You were up all night with Addie, and that’s after a full shift yesterday.”

“I’m not tired.” It was only partly a lie. Mostly, Leo was just annoyed at the fact that they couldn’t get rid of the Bierces as easily as he wanted to. He found that he really didn’t want his past—or at least that part of his past—interfering with his present, his future.

Jim studied him skeptically, but only said, “All right, Bones.”

As it was, Leo was spared the veritable shit storm that accompanied Jim forcibly bringing the Bierces onto the _Enterprise._ He had to set aside Johns’ tox screens when a small stream of people came in. Something in Engineering appeared to have exploded, causing several crewmen to get scalded with hot steam, and in the middle of it Nic’tlarn brought in Addie, whose stomach bug from the night before had reappeared with a vengeance, and baby Jame, who had developed a cough. Nic’tlarn was nearly frantic with concern, and Leo spent almost half an hour reassuring him that the infant was past the three-month period where a cough was at its most worrying and would be just fine—a half-hour during which Addie threw up twice, the first time pretty spectacularly splattering a nearby wall and the second over Leo’s shoes and pants. If the universe had decided to pay Leo back for throwing up on Jim in a similar fashion when they first met, he had to give it credit for patience.

He changed his clothes and finally got around to the reports on Johns’ body. Staring at the results, he read them over twice, then closed himself in his office and called up the vid-screen. “McCoy to Kirk.”

A moment later, Jim’s face appeared, sitting in the ready room off the bridge, looking weary. “What’s up?”

“I’ve got the reports on Johns.”

Instantly, Jim appeared more alert. “What killed him? Was it shock?”

“It was shock, all right,” Leo said grimly. “But shock of a most peculiar sort. His blood electrolytes were completely deranged. Massive salt depletion, hell—there wasn’t a microgram of salt in his whole body. Not in the blood, the tears, the organs—not _anywhere._ I can’t even begin to imagine how that would have happened at all, let alone all at once.”

“What about the mottling on his face?” Jim asked.

Leo sighed. “Broken capillaries. There are similar marks all over his body. They’re normal under the circumstances—except I can’t explain why they’re most prominent on his face, or why the mottling should be ring-shaped. Clearly, though, he wasn’t poisoned.”

“Then the broken root was a plant—in the criminal sense, rather than the botanical,” Jim said, his voice as grim as Leo’s. “A blind. That implies intelligence. I’m not sure I like that any better.”

“Me, neither.” Leo looked away as he realized that the most obvious culprit—which didn’t mean anything—was Nancy Bierce.

“All right. That means we’ll have to waste no time grilling the Bierces.”

Leo had known that was coming, but he still felt something sink in the pit of his stomach. Oddly enough, it wasn’t about Nancy’s feelings. What they’d had had been real and it had been powerful, but it had also been more than twenty years ago. A lot of water had passed under the bridge since then. But he didn’t relish the idea of being in contact with her long enough to grill her.

“I’ll take that on,” Jim said softly, and when Leo looked back up, he saw his husband’s blue eyes full of concern. “Bones, this has been a tremendous strain on you, I know, and you’ve been without sleep for two days. Better take a couple of tranquilizers and lie down for a bit.”

“I’m all right,” Leo said, but it was starting to feel less true than before.

“Orders,” Jim said. He gave Leo a small smile, and the screen went black.

It wasn’t until Leo was halfway back to quarters that he realized Jim probably thought he would be too emotionally invested in Nancy to be impartial.

Muttering about stubborn-ass captains and damned foolish insecurities, Leo shed his shoes the minute he stepped through the door and sank gratefully onto the sofa, suddenly hit with a wave of exhaustion. He wasn’t as young as he used to be, and days like today seemed to last longer than they had when he’d first become a doctor. He was alone for the moment. As late as it was, Addie was still with Nic’tlarn and O’Flaherty, probably sleeping off the last of her bug. Slim was either on the bridge helping out or hanging out with his friends, either of which was fine with Leo.

He stuck himself with the tranquilizer, feeling his muscles begin to loosen as the drug hit his system. Sighing, he leaned back against the sofa’s back, then lay down, thinking he’d just nap for a little while—just until Jim came in.

The door slid open then, and Leo half-sat up, but to his muffled surprise, it was Nancy who stood there, not Jim.

“Nancy?” he mumbled. “What are you—?”

“Leonard,” Nancy gasped, throwing herself to her knees and reaching for Leo’s hand. “Oh, Leonard, I’m so unhappy!”

“Unhappy?” Leo repeated. The tranquilizer was beginning to fog his brain—he couldn’t think clearly.

“With Bob. Everything was so lovely at first, but these last few years…” Nancy sighed unhappily. “I don’t love him anymore, Leonard. Oh, why did I marry him instead of you?”

Leo frowned. “Probably ‘cause he asked you and I didn’t.”

“I forgive you!” Nancy implored. “Oh, please, Leonard—take me home. Take me back to Earth. I…” Her lip trembled and her eyes filled with tears. “I always loved you.”

Leo struggled up on his elbows, blinking to try and clear his brain of the drug’s effects. “Nancy,” he managed. “ _You_ broke up with _me._ You’re the one…who introduced me to Joss. And you…you took _her_ side in the divorce.”

“Don’t you still love me?”

“Nancy.” Leo forced himself to speak distinctly. “I’m married to Jim.”

Nancy’s eyes widened, and she stammered for a minute. And then he noticed something in her hand, and he tried to resist, but he felt the pinch of the hypo against his arm and heard the hiss, and the world went black.

“Bones? Bones, wake up! Bones!”

“Hmm? Wha…?” Leo dragged himself out of sleep to find Jim kneeling over him, his eyes wide with terror. “Jim? Jim, what’s—”

“Bones, you’ve got to help me.” Jim sounded frantic, his breathing shallow.

The sight shook Leo free of the ravages of the double tranquilizer, and he sat up, feeling clearer-headed than he had in days. “What’s wrong, darlin’?”

“They’re trying to kill me.”

“They—who?” Leo was bewildered. “The Bierces?”

“You have to help me,” Jim repeated. “They’ll kill me!”

“Easy, Jim,” Leo soothed him. “Nobody’s going to kill you.”

He got to his feet. Jim stood with him, his blue eyes imploring. “I don’t know what the hell’s going on, but—I was trying to interview Bierce, and all of a sudden—”

Leo turned, startled, as the door opened, revealing Spock and Slim. Jim yelped; Leo instinctively shifted to protect him, his eyes widening in shock as Slim raised his phaser, his arm rock-steady and his face impassive. “Get away from him.”

“Slim, what is this?” Leo protested. “What’s going on here?”

“That isn’t Dad, Pa.”

“What? Of course it is.” Leo shot a bewildered look at Jim. “Are you out of your mind?”

“It’s killed two crewmen,” Slim said quietly.

“Bierce, also.” Spock was also pointing a phaser at Jim.

“ _It?_ ” Leo repeated, practically snarling the word.

“It,” Slim confirmed. “Let me show you.” He held out his free hand and slowly unclenched it, revealing a pile of small white crystals. “Look,” he said coaxingly. “Salt. Free for the taking. Pure, concentrated salt.”

Jim took a step forward, almost hesitantly, then froze.

“Bones,” he said in a low voice. “Send him away. If you love me, get him out of here.”

Slim tensed visibly as Leo wrapped an arm around Jim, pulling him close. He was preparing to snarl an order for them to get the hell out of his quarters and get to Med Bay for a psych eval—indeed, his mouth had already opened—when his brain caught up to what he was feeling, what he was sensing. Jim’s heart, directly beneath his palm, was beating a rapid, frantic beat.

But it was a perfectly steady beat.

Shocked and frightened, he let go of Jim and stepped back. Slim thrust his palm a little further forward, and Jim took another small step forward—and then suddenly practically flew at Slim. Leo’s eyes widened as the creature transformed from the man he knew and loved into something solid and blocky—man-sized and yet not human at all—with what appeared to be tentacles reaching out for Slim’s face. There was a sudden blast of sound and light; the creature disappeared and Slim fell towards the ground. Spock caught him and glanced over his shoulder. “I will take him to Medical Bay, but he should be fine.”

“Thanks, Spock.”

The voice was a familiar and welcome one, slightly tired-sounding but real. Leo gasped in relief when he saw Jim slip past his first officer, his face pale, and head straight for Leo, where he wrapped him up in a bear hug. Leo hugged him back just as hard. His knees gave out, and both he and Jim sank onto the sofa, still holding on to one another.

“God,” Jim whispered, his face muffled in Leo’s neck. “When I saw that—that thing in here with you—I didn’t know what was going to happen. We didn’t want to scare you by having me come in, but…”

“What the hell _was_ that thing?” Leo asked. “And did it really kill Bierce? Where’s Nancy?”

Jim took a deep breath and pulled back—just a little, not a lot. “It’s—it _was_ the last of its kind. Some sort of creature that lives on salt. When it couldn’t get the pure stuff, it would suck the nutrients it needed out of living creatures. According to Bierce, they all died out. That one was the last.” He hesitated. “It killed Nancy.”

Leo felt a pang of regret, though not much of one. “So that’s four people in two days.”

“No, Bones. Three. Two crewmen—Johns and one of the engineers, Watanabe—and Bierce, just a little while ago.”

“But you said it killed Nancy.”

“It did, Bones.” Jim looked up at him. “Two years ago.”

Leo’s stomach dropped into his shoes. “ _What?_ ”

“The creature could become anybody it wanted. It’s been Nancy for the last couple of years—Nancy, and anybody else Bierce wanted it to be. It was _you_ earlier—that’s how it got to Bierce to kill him. I called to wake you up to administer sodium pentathol, and I guess it answered instead.”

“And I’d told—it—that I was married to you,” Leo said grimly. “So when it realized the jig was up, it came to me for help, pretending to be the one person I’d help without question. And I’d likely have kept protecting it if I hadn’t realized…”

Jim touched Leo’s face. “How’d you know?”

For an answer, Leo laid his palm lightly over Jim’s heart. Jim covered it with his own hand, and they stared at each other for a long moment.

“It was frightened,” Leo said softly. “Its heart was beating so fast I almost couldn’t tell one beat from the next. But it was steady, Jim. It was fast but steady.”

Jim laughed weakly. “Never thought we’d be grateful for that arrhythmia of mine.”

“I still plan to fix it,” Leo warned him. “But yeah, right now, I’m damned glad it was there.”

They held each other for a long moment. Finally, Jim pulled back, got to his feet, and took Leo’s hand. “C’mon, Bones, let’s go up to the bridge and get out of here.”

Leo was grateful, when they stepped onto the bridge, to see Slim up and about, his arms folded over his chest as he talked to Spock, who stood beside the captain’s chair. Bierce’s planet, now completely abandoned, was already receding from view.

“The salt was an inspiration,” Spock was saying as they approached him. “It appears that it only hunted when it could not obtain the pure element; that is how Bierce kept it in control.”

“I don’t think lack of salt was the only reason that species died out, either,” Jim said. “It wasn’t really very intelligent—didn’t use its natural advantages near as well as it could’ve.”

“They might’ve been residual,” Slim pointed out. “We still have teeth and nails, but we don’t bite and claw too much these days.”

“True,” Jim allowed.

“There is one thing I still do not understand, however,” Spock said, turning to look at Leo. “How did the creature gain access to your cabin in the first place, Doctor? Or do you mind mentioning it?”

“I don’t mind,” Leo answered. “Though I do feel six kinds of foolish. She came in just after I’d taken the tranquilizer and was feeling a little afloat. Said she didn’t love her husband anymore and wanted me to take her back to Earth. I wasn’t thinking too clearly, but I think she was banking on me still being in love with her. I pointed out that she’d been the one to end things with us—and then I told her I was married to Jim. Didn’t realize before then that she had another hypo in her hand, and she stuck me with it before I could react. I guess that’s why I slept through everything that went on afterward.”

“Here’s what _I_ don’t understand,” Jim said, looking at Spock. “That creature was alone in there with you and Bierce—and it was probably twice as strong as a man anyhow, at least. How did you manage to get away with losing nothing but your gun?”

Spock actually smiled. “Fortunately, Captain, my ancestors evolved in a much different ocean than yours. My blood salts are quite different. Evidently, I was not appetizing enough.”

“Of course.” Jim smiled.

Leo glanced at Slim, who had a faraway look in his eyes as he gazed vacantly at the viewscreen. “You seem a little pensive, Slim,” he said softly. “Is there still something else wrong?”

“Mmm?” Slim looked over at Leo, his eyes focusing. “Wrong? No, not really. I was just thinking of the buffalo.”


	96. You Pray I Will, But I Won't

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to the _special_ hell. In the short handbasket.

Jim hadn’t necessarily planned on celebrating Christmas. He’d never really celebrated it growing up—his first Christmas ever had been the year he’d gone to Georgia with Bones—and on the _Enterprise,_ they’d always made up a holiday of their own as an excuse for the senior command to give one another gifts, since none of them had ever had traditions before.

But now there was Addie. Addie, who was smart and learning not only to read and count and tell time but also to read a calendar. Addie, who had a memory at least as good as Jim’s, especially for things that were important to her.

Addie, who had started asking as soon as she got over her stomach bug when Christmas was.

Jim blamed Spock. Spock hadn’t realized why Addie was asking when Christmas was, had thought she was simply asking for information, and had quite blithely told her when it was. She had then gone to Jim and asked when they were going to put up the tree. Since Jim didn’t have the heart to disappoint his daughter, he’d agreed to let them decorate their quarters.

And, of course, it had snowballed. Gage, who Jim suspected was actually twelve years old, had convinced Bones to let them put up a small tree in a corner of Medical Bay. An approximation of fairy lights had appeared along the corridors on Deck Five, which led to garlands on Deck Three, which led to mistletoe in the rec room. Someone—Jim had a feeling it was Riley—had rigged the intercom system to play Christmas carols softly for almost two hours straight one day. (Rahaim had retaliated by playing _three_ hours of Islamic music the following afternoon.) There was even a fake mailbox set up next to the main mess hall for “letters to Santa.”

Jim had considered curtailing the celebrations, but it was good for morale. Everyone seemed to be enjoying the celebrations; the religious aspect had gone out of it, except for a few of the carols, and even the crewmen who didn’t traditionally celebrate Christmas were getting into the spirit of things. He suspected that a big part of that was that Addie had a lot of the crew wrapped around her little finger, and you couldn’t help but get involved when she flashed her baby blues, gave you a dimpled grin, and asked in a charming lisp if you’d hung up your stocking.

Surprisingly, the presents didn’t seem to be Addie’s main concern. She was looking forward to the _fun_ of the holiday. And that, in turn, was kind of making Jim enjoy it a little more, too.

Christmas was still a couple of days away, but Jim still had a few things he needed to do yet. He’d been looking forward to a quiet Alpha shift and then some peace with his family in the afternoon, but of course, it hadn’t gone that way at all. Well, most of Alpha had been quiet, but there was less than an hour to go and Jim was starting to think of whether or not he could convince Bones to let him off his diet for the evening when Chekov turned from his console. “Keptin, scanners are picking up an unknown wessel.”

_Of course they are,_ Jim thought wearily to himself. “Show me, Mr. Chekov.”

After a moment, a ship appeared on the viewscreen, just outside the limits of both weapons and communications. That was rarely a good sign. Squaring his shoulders, Jim said, “Yellow alert. Let’s not be stupid about this.”

Lights began flashing, but there was no yelping alarm yet. Jim didn’t want to tense the whole ship up for something that might be minor. “Mr. Spock, Mr. Chekov, are we getting _anything_ off of that ship?”

“Nothing, Keptin,” Chekov replied.

“It is not a vessel I can recognize from this distance,” Spock added.

The door slid open behind them, and Jim spared a glance over his shoulder to see Slim coming in. He was wearing what Jim wagered was the ugliest Christmas sweater in the Federation and a floppy Santa hat, and somehow managed to look serious in spite of it. “Sorry, sir, I was already halfway up here when the yellow alert started.”

“It’s fine, Slim. You can stay.” Jim waved his son up to his side. “We’re just not sure what that vessel is, and it’s hanging just out of range.”

As he spoke, the ship drew closer, still hanging back a ways. Spock peered into his scope. “Fascinating.”

“What is, Spock?”

“The vessel appears to be a small scout craft, designed to hold perhaps two men. There is no known habitable planet within a dozen light-years in any direction, which means it must have traveled quite some distance. And yet, its technology appears to be extremely basic and simple.”

“Sensors are picking up the registration of the wessel,” Chekov reported. “It is called…ze HMS _Joseph Smith?_ ”

“ _HMS?_ ” Slim blurted. “Uh-oh.”

Uhura suddenly turned in her seat. “Captain, they’re hailing us, but…”

“But?” Jim asked. Something was niggling at the back of his brain. A two-man craft…basic technology…Joseph Smith…

“Well, it’s an odd tone. Almost like…a doorbell.”

Jim suddenly stiffened, turning white. “Oh, hell,” he breathed. “Do not answer that hail, Lieutenant Uhura. I repeat, _do not answer it!_ Mr. Sulu, change our course to get us out of that ship’s path, but…fly casual.”

Sulu tossed a confused look over his shoulder. “Sir?”

“Don’t make it obvious we’ve seen them,” Jim clarified, gripping his seat tightly. “Cancel yellow alert…Scotty, internal power at a minimum, lower all lighting!”

“Aye, sir.” Scotty’s voice over the comm sounded as confused as Sulu’s had.

Slim, on the other hand, sounded as though he was trying not to laugh. “Dad, I really don’t think we can just turn off the lights and pretend we’re not home.”

“We can damn well try,” Jim muttered.

Sulu’s look of confusion turned to one of horrified comprehension. “Easing out of intercept course.”

The lights on the bridge dimmed as the _Enterprise_ swung slowly to the left, as though that had been her intended path all along. The little ship on the screen jigged to the side, sliding over to maintain its intended interception, still sending out its hail.

The door opened again and Bones came in. “What the hell is going on?” he demanded. He saw the ship on the screen. “What the hell? Jim, if we’re being attacked, why aren’t we at red alert?”

“What good would that do?”

“Captain,” Spock protested, “your course of action seems illogical. Scanners indicate neither weapons nor shields aboard that vessel. Surely it is harmless.”

“The hell it is,” Sulu mumbled. “Sir.”

“It’s an _LDS-_ class _,”_ Slim explained. “Two-man scout craft, basic technology, designed for long distances on little to no fuel. Capable of warp four, but only once every twelve hours. No weapons—no _physical_ weapons, anyway—but they’re best avoided, just the same. Trouble is, you can’t outrun ‘em, they’ll chase you down if they sense you’re trying to escape. Your only hope is to make them believe you didn’t see them.”

“How do you know all this, Thomas?” Spock asked.

“That’s what I was studying today—ship identification and classification. There’s a big section on it on the Academy exams and I only got the study guide last night.”

“I am unfamiliar with _LDS-_ class ships. Are they new?”

“No, but they’ve never been part of the Academy curriculum until now. They aren’t Starfleet.”

“Klingon? Romulan?” Uhura asked.

Slim shook his head. “Worse. Much, much worse.”

“Asteroid belt ahead, sir,” Sulu reported. “We might be able to get in there and hide behind the sofa, so to speak.”

Bones clapped a hand to his forehead. “Oh, no. Don’t tell me.”

Jim looked up at his husband. “Yep. We’ve been lucky to not run into them so far.”

“We’re in deep space! What the hell would _they_ be doing all the way out here?”

“Looking for a planet they haven’t been warned off of yet.”

Chekov was looking back and forth between Jim, Sulu, and Bones, his expression one of worry and concern. Spock still looked bemused. Uhura put her hand to her ear. “Hails are getting more insistent.”

“The ship’s between us and the asteroid belt,” Sulu said in almost the same instant, sounding panicked. “We can’t get to it without going through them.”

“They know,” Jim said grimly. “ _Damn_ it!”

“Maybe we can scare them off?” Bones said a little desperately. “What with…us being us and all?”

“God, I hope so,” Jim sighed. “I know that there are two groups…one will take one look at us and run like hell, and the other it’ll just provoke them further, but I can never remember which one is more likely to be which.”

“Think it depends on the individual,” Slim said apologetically.

“Well…there’s nothing else for it.” Jim took a deep breath and steeled himself. “Halt course, Sulu. Scotty, bring the lights back up…and Uhura, answer that hail.”

Sulu looked as though he were about to be sick as he brought the ship’s course to a halt. The _Joseph Smith_ flew a little closer, then stopped, and a moment later, the viewscreen jumped to life. The bridge of the craft—actually the entire interior—was simple and spartan, done in plain brown with a single golden symbol on the back wall. The two figures in the seats before them were both human males, clean-cut and clean-shaven, wearing crisp white button-down shirts, black suit jackets, black ties, and warm, welcoming smiles.

“Good afternoon, sir,” one of them said with the utmost politeness. “Can you spare a moment to hear the good news of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ?”

Uhura and Sulu both groaned loudly, the latter leaning back as if to distance himself from the proselytizer. Jim kept his expression neutral, but he agreed with them. Bones wrapped his arms around Jim’s neck and kissed his cheek, leaning forward.

“I’m sure we can spare a moment, sugar,” he practically purred.

Jim smiled, sliding his hands up Bones’ arms. “My husband and I are all ears,” he assured the two men.

Their smiles slipped slightly as they took in Jim and Bones’ embrace, the way Sulu and Chekov twined their fingers together on top of the console, Slim’s obviously secular appearance, and the garish decor on the bridge. For a moment, Jim let himself feel a moment of triumph.

And then the man on the left, whose name tag read ELDER BRANDON, began to talk.

Jim tried to listen, he really did. He made it a point to learn about whatever religions he could, because it was good training for diplomatic missions and it also helped him to get to know his crew. But while there were quite a few members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints working for the Federation, there weren’t many who worked for Starfleet, and none had ever been assigned to the _Enterprise._ He wanted to learn about the denomination as best as he could.

It quickly became clear, however, that the two missionaries were more interested in converting the captive crew than in explaining the history and conventions of their faith. After about five minutes, Jim could feel his brain starting to dribble out his ear. At about that point, Bones started rubbing his cheek against Jim’s, stroking his collarbone with his thumb, and generally doing all the little, subtle gestures he often did in order to get Jim aroused without anybody noticing. Except that he was being as obvious about it as possible. Elder Brandon kept talking, but both he and his companion, whose name tag proclaimed him to be Elder Hall, were growing visibly uncomfortable. Sulu glanced back over his shoulder, gave a little half-smile, and reached over to stroke the back of Chekov’s neck. Chekov flushed pink and leaned a little closer to his boyfriend. Jim couldn’t swear that he wasn’t actually purring.

Jim couldn’t focus on what was being said anymore—he was too focused on Bones’ hands and lips. He half-closed his eyes, struggling to keep his composure as the missionary’s voice droned on. Technically, Starfleet rules said they weren’t permitted to be outright rude to LDS vessels, and they had to agree when asked to be spoken to. Provisions were also in place, however, permitting them to make things uncomfortable until they left of their own free will.

They didn’t extend to actually having sex in front of them, but hey, Jim would take what he could get.

These two were made of stern stuff, though. As uncomfortable as they were, they were actually attempting to get out their entire spiel. Jim suspected they had a quota to make, and in this part of space, there wasn’t really anyone else to talk to.

“Would you like to have a Bible study with us?” Elder Brandon said, sounding hopeful—about what, Jim couldn’t say.

“Sorry,” Slim said, and he actually sounded sincere. “Normally we would welcome the opportunity, but my sister will be up from her nap shortly, and she’s gonna want to do all sorts of family stuff with us.”

“I understand.” There was no doubting the relief in Elder Brandon’s voice. “The peace of Jesus Christ be with you, now and in all seasons. And please, feel free to contact us, should you have any questions at all.”

“Live long and prosper,” Spock said gravely.

Both missionaries flinched, and their faces disappeared from the viewscreen.

“Well,” Slim said dryly. “That was fun.”

Sulu slid his hand off of Chekov’s neck. “Resume previous course, Captain?”

“Onward ever onward,” Jim agreed, turning his head to kiss Bones’ cheek. “And you quit starting stuff you don’t intend to finish,” he added, low enough that only Bones could hear him.

“Who says I don’t?” Bones whispered back.

“Okay, quit starting stuff you _can’t_ finish yet.”

Beta shift came in about then. Relieved, Jim got up. “Come on, let’s go get something to eat. I’m starving.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I REGRET NOTHING.


	97. Ma'am I Am Tonight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before we get started: I have seen Star Trek Beyond, and if you haven't, GO SEE IT. Best movie since Wrath of Khan, and I'm not the only one to think so! But obviously, this story is no longer canon compliant (not that I ever really expected it to be, but still). Surprisingly, there are really only two or three relatively minor things invalidated by the new movie. Nevertheless, I am officially stating for the record that this story **does not follow the canon of Star Trek Beyond.** (Obviously, since I started writing it while Into Darkness was still in theaters...)
> 
> I will, however, try to integrate a few things from the movie into this story. Whatever I can. Nothing majorly spoiler-y, but some of the more minor stuff, settings and characters and things. I hope you'll enjoy it.

“I’m gonna throw up.”

“Go right ahead, son.” Leo patted Slim’s back encouragingly. “It’s okay to be nervous.”

“Don’t know why,” Slim muttered, biting his lower lip. “Not like this is a big deal or anything. It’s only the most important exam I’ve ever taken in my life. No pressure or anything.”

The Starfleet Academy entrance exams had to be given at supervised testing facilities—which Slim both understood and appreciated, you didn’t want applicants taking their tests in the comfort of their own homes and cheating by looking up answers or hacking the tests because they were unsupervised. And they all had to be administered on the same day, to reduce the risk of potential cadets sharing information about the tests. The nearest testing facility to the _Enterprise’s_ course was on Kappa Draconis II—the planet they were now orbiting. Slim would be beaming down at 0900 hours.

“No, there’s absolutely no pressure,” Leo said calmly. “If you don’t get in this year, you can take the test again next year. This isn’t a one-and-done thing. And you won’t be letting anybody down if you don’t go until you’re eighteen—or even later.”

“Really. I won’t be shaming the Kirk name if I’m not a captain by the time I’m twenty-two.” Slim’s voice was flat, slightly bitter and he knew it, but despite all the time that had passed aboard the _Enterprise,_ he still wasn’t one hundred percent convinced that he would ever live up to anyone’s expectations of him, his family’s name. And what if he let everybody down?

Leo stopped. They’d been walking down the corridor together to the mess hall for breakfast—Jim had taken Addie down earlier, muttering something about her being impatient—but now he turned to face Slim and put both hands on his shoulders, looking him in the eye.

“Kid,” he said gently, “your dad was twenty-two when he _joined_ Starfleet. And he joined on a dare. And you _know_ how much trouble he got into while he was there—but he turned out all right. Besides, I thought you didn’t want to be a captain.”

“I don’t,” Slim said immediately. “I don’t even want to be a chief engineer, necessarily. I just want to…hell, I don’t know, Pa. I don’t want to let you down.”

“You won’t.” Leo pulled Slim into a hug. “Just be yourself. Your dad wasted years—and I do mean _years_ —trying to be _his_ father. I took him to task for that—for trying to be George Kirk for so long he didn’t know who James Kirk was. He knows himself now, and it’s better. But trust me. You don’t have to be James Kirk, or George Kirk, or, hell, Alice Johnson. Just be Thomas Kirk. Be Slim.”

Slim couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at his throat as he glanced down at the muscles building in his arms and chest. “I don’t think that’s much of an option anymore.”

“That’s the spirit.” Leo clapped Slim on the shoulder. “Come on. You need your strength for this.”

_And we’re back to the nerves,_ Slim thought as he fell into step with Leo once more. “Seriously, Pa, I feel like I’m gonna throw up. How can I _eat_ like this?”

Leo shook his head. “You’ve got a long day ahead of you, Slim. You won’t be able to concentrate if you’re hungry—even if you don’t think you are now, you will be later. You need fuel, energy. And you don’t want to distract the other test-takers with your growling stomach.”

“True,” Slim admitted. “But I’m pretty sure throwing up on them would be bad, too.”

“Just aim for the floor. You’ll be fine.”

Since the ship was in orbit, it maintained no more than a skeleton crew on duty at any given time. Slim expected there to be more people than usual in the mess hall. What he hadn’t expected was to find the entire senior command, his sister, and all of his friends sitting around a table and grinning at him.

“Have a seat,” Leo said, nudging him towards the table. “I’ll get your breakfast. I know you Kirks. If I let you do it yourself, you’ll get a crust of dry bread and tepid water.”

“In a chipped cup.” Slim’s lips twitched upwards in a reluctant grin. It was kind of a running joke.

“Siddown,” Leo said gruffly, but he was smiling, too.

Slim slid into one of the two open seats at the table. Audra studied him. “Nervous?”

“Extremely,” Slim admitted.

“You’ll be fine,” Uhura said reassuringly. “It’s really not that intimidating.”

“Your aptitude scores have been excellent, Thomas,” Spock said. “You certainly do not lack the knowledge, or intelligence, to do well on the examination.”

“Ye certainly know the inner workings of a starship better than most applicants,” Scotty offered.

Slim smiled feebly. The truth was, the more his friends and family tried to reassure him that he’d be fine, the more nervous he got. Even Nic’tlarn’s reminder that xe had barely spoken Standard and still managed to pass the exam didn’t help. When Leo came back and set down a plate of toast, eggs, and bacon with a glass of orange juice and a mug of coffee—how he’d carried all that plus his own meal, Slim had no idea—he stared at it for a moment, wondering if it would be possible to drown in the coffee if he poured it directly into his nasal passages.

Porter suddenly started. “Oh, hey, Slim, I almost forgot. I brought you this.” He fished something from his belt and handed it over.

Slim took the object. It was a coin that felt like it might have been made of brass-plated steel, with eleven sides that made it look more or less circular. On one side was the image of a woman’s head in profile, her hair carefully coiffed; on the other side, some sort of bird flapped its wings triumphantly as it floated on a lake facing a stand of pine trees. In the top left of the design was a maple leaf, surmounting five interlocked rings.

“What is it?” he asked, turning it over several times.

“It’s a ‘lucky loonie.’”

“A what?”

“A ‘lucky loonie.’” Porter shrugged. “Back in the twenty-first century, when currency was still widely used, Canada had a coin called a ‘loonie’ that was worth a dollar. It’s called that because, well, it had a loon on it. The legend is that, during the Winter Olympics one year, they buried a loonie under the ice, and it brought the Canadian hockey teams luck, so they started hiding them under the ice or the basketball hoops at all the Olympics and it mostly brought them victory. Anyway, the Royal Canadian Mint would print commemorative ‘lucky loonies’ for every Olympics. That one was from the 2028 Toronto Olympics, which was the first time in history that Canada came in first at the Summer Olympics.” He hesitated, then added, “Mom gave them to Allyn and me when we took our Academy entrance exams. Figured…a little luck never hurts anyone.”

“Thanks, Port.” Slim slipped the coin into his pocket and smiled. And then, to his surprise, he was able to pick up his fork and tuck into his breakfast.

It tasted like sawdust, but at least he was able to eat it.

Once he had managed to choke everything down, Jim winked at him and got to his feet. “Mind if I walk to the transporters with you?”

“Not at all.” Slim did, kind of, but he was willing to make the concession for his father. He got to his feet. “See y’all tonight, I guess.”

“Good luck, Slim,” Audra said, squeezing his hand lightly. The others, with the exception of Spock, echoed the sentiment as Slim set out.

They walked in silence for a while before Jim said, “If there’s a ‘lying’ portion on the exam, you’re going to do well on it.”

Slim smiled feebly. “Not if it’s that obvious.”

“It’s only obvious to me because I’m your father, I do the same thing, and I know you would rather walk alone,” Jim replied. “I just…this isn’t for you, Slim. It’s for me. I have to remind myself that you’re not a little boy anymore, and the only way for me to do that is to be there when you get on the transporter to take your entrance exams…and be there when you get back. If you don’t mind.”

“Now that, I won’t mind,” Slim admitted. “I just…I don’t want to listen to another litany of ‘you’re gonna be fine, you’ll do so well,’ et cetera.”

“Truthfully? I don’t know if you’ll be okay or not. I don’t know what the Starfleet exams are like.”

“They can’t have changed that much in less than twenty years. I mean, yeah, there have been new advances, new cultures and all, but—”

“Slim, I never took the entrance exams.”

Slim tripped over his feet and stared at his father. “What?”

Jim shrugged. “Christopher Pike wrangled me a spot without me having to take the entrance exams. Probably because of my dad. I think they waived them for Bones, too, because he was changing careers and we were both older than most cadets. So I honestly don’t know what they were like then, and I don’t know what they’re like now.”

A small smile quirked Slim’s lips. “Yeoman Rand said they were along the lines of whether or not you can tie your shoelaces without help.”

“Yeah, well, _she_ didn’t take the exams, either. Yeomen are enlisted.” Jim winked at Slim, who couldn’t help but laugh.

The transporter room was deserted except for Lieutenant Kyle, who gave Slim a broad smile and a wink. “One to beam down?”

Slim took a deep breath and nodded. Jim squeezed his shoulder briefly. “Good luck, son,” he said quietly.

“Thanks, Dad.” Slim smiled at his father, then stepped onto the transporter platform and squared his shoulders. “Ready, Lieutenant Kyle.”

The transporter beam sparkled around him and the _Enterprise_ faded from view. In a moment, he reappeared in a small, dark grey room with blood-red carpeting, barely large enough to hold a single transporter pad and the technician. Said technician didn’t look much older than Slim, his face scarred by acne, but his smile was bright. “You here for the Academy testing?”

“That’s right.” Slim stepped down from the platform, gave the guy a quick scan, and held out his hand. “Thomas Kirk.”

“Thomas Allenson.” The technician laughed as he shook Slim’s hand. “Turn left down the hall. You ought to see a guy with a PADD checking people in.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Nah, I work for a living.” Allenson winked. “Good luck, Kirk.”

Slim couldn’t help but grin. “Thanks, Allenson.”

The requisite PADD-carrying man stood right where Allenson had said he would, about twenty yards down the corridor. He wore a vice-admiral’s uniform and a bushy mustache, and he eyed Slim suspiciously. It should not have been possible for a man six inches shorter than he was to look down his nose at him, but this guy managed it. “Name?”

Slim came to attention and saluted. It wasn’t commonly done in Starfleet, since it wasn’t a military organization, but the vice admiral seemed to be the sort of person who demanded that level of respect, to himself and to his position. “Thomas James Kirk, sir.”

The admiral nodded, scanned his PADD, and made a tic mark with his stylus. “Go right in. We’re waiting on two more before we can start.”

“Yes, sir.” Slim remained at attention as he passed the man and entered the door behind him.

Like the transporter room, the chamber in which Slim found himself had dark grey walls and blood-red carpeting. There were a few chairs scattered about, uncomfortable-looking and upholstered in something black and unpleasant. Another door on the opposite wall, resolutely sealed, gave Slim the impression that this was a holding chamber or waiting room of some sort.

There were three others in the room, all of them standing in a small cluster rather than sitting in the chairs, and they all turned to look when Slim entered the door. The nearest, a human—or at least humanoid—male of about Slim’s age, gave him a quick smile. “Hi,” he said, his voice unexpectedly high-pitched. “You’re not from Kappa D, are you?”

“No, I’m from Earth. Originally,” Slim amended.

“So’m I, but I’ve lived here since I was ten.” The young man held out his hand. “Braeden Rocheford.”

“Thomas Kirk.” Slim shook Braeden’s hand.

“Kirk?” The second occupant of the room resembled nothing so much as one of the wildcats in the Redwall books Slim had loved as a kid—a broad-shouldered humanoid with pointed ears and silky orange-and-black-striped fur covering his entire body, his features distinctly feline and his eyes glittering golden. Neither the fur nor the sweater and trousers he wore—very similar to Slim’s—did anything to disguise his powerful musculature. “I’m sorry, is that a common name among humans?”

He spoke with a roll to his Rs, reminiscent of a cat’s purr. Slim guessed the other potential candidate to be a Caitian, a species he’d up till now only heard of. “It’s the five hundred an’ twenty-sixth most common surname among humans, so I reckon that depends on your definition of ‘common.’”

“Fair enough,” the Caitian conceded. “I am M’err. My clan has lived on Kappa Draconis II for fifteen standard years—since I was a cub of two.”

“It’s nice to meet you, M’err.” Slim remembered to roll the R’s, earning him a sharp-toothed smile of admiration.

“Likewise. Tell us, Thomas Kirk, if you are from Earth, what are you doing so far out here?”

Slim shrugged a little self-consciously. “This was the nearest testing facility to the _Enterprise’s_ current trajectory.”

Braeden straightened. “The _Enterprise?_ You’re—holy—are you enlisted trying to become an officer?”

“No…” Slim hesitated, then admitted, “My dad—the admiralty’s running an experiment, to see if families are viable on a starship. It was the only way my dad would agree to go out on another five-year mission.”

“And who is your father, that the admiralty would make such illogical accommodations for him?”

The tone of the question was one Slim knew well, but he was surprised that the voice was not quite so precise as he was accustomed to. Turning to face the remaining potential applicant, he found a slender female, her hands clasped behind her back and her head tilted slightly to one side as she awaited his answer. Dark hair was tucked behind pointed ears. There was no doubting her heritage.

Before he could answer, however, Braeden rolled his eyes. “Oh, come _on,_ T’mel.”

“My question is a perfectly valid one,” T’mel, if that was the Vulcan girl’s name, said with a lift of her eyebrow.

“It’s a completely _illogical_ one.” Braeden put a special blend of amusement and weary disdain on the word _illogical._ “His last name is Kirk and he’s on the _Enterprise._ Who the hell do you _think_ his father is?”

T’mel inclined her head slightly. “I may speculate as to his parentage, Braeden, but as he has just pointed out, the surname of Kirk may belong to more than one family.”

Slim couldn’t help but smile. “Not one that would be likely to get the admiralty to bend the rules so he can have that family aboard, though.”

“This is true,” T’mel acknowledged. She held up her hand in the _ta’al._ “Health and long life to you, Thomas Kirk. I am T’mel.”

“Live long and prosper, T’mel,” Slim replied, holding up his hand in the same salute.

“You have studied the Vulcan culture.”

“My godfather is half-Vulcan, after all.”

T’mel’s eyebrows met in a frown. “I do not believe that any Vulcan, half or otherwise, would participate in such a reprehensible trade as to run an organization dedicated to the callous annihilation of—”

Braeden suddenly burst out laughing. “Oh, my _God._ T’mel. That’s—no. A godfather is just—it’s like an honorary uncle. Not a mob boss.”

Slim started laughing, too. “Oh, God, no. I’ve seen Uncle Spock trying to be a gangster. It—it doesn’t work.”

T’mel’s jaw dropped briefly before she caught herself and resumed her Vulcan mask. M’err covered his mouth with an appendage that was somewhere between a hand and a paw. “How—why— _what?_ ”

“You _know_ you have to explain that one,” Braeden said, nudging him in the ribs.

Slim launched into a description of the events on Dena Iotia II that had both Braeden and M’err laughing within moments, and even T’mel seemed to permit herself to relax slightly as she listened. He was just telling them about Jim’s brilliant sense of dramatic timing when the door opened, admitting an Andorian, dressed in incredibly formal-looking clothing and with his nose buried in a PADD. Braeden raised a hand to greet the newcomer, but the Andorian walked past the group, threw himself into a chair, and kept reading without looking up.

“Good morning,” Slim said politely. The Andorian didn’t acknowledge him.

“Friendly type,” M’err said under his breath.

Braeden rolled his eyes. “Anyway, Thomas, you were saying—your dad came in with a submachine gun under his arm?”

The Andorian looked up briefly at that, but Slim ignored him in favor of finishing his story. When he was done, T’mel nodded approvingly. “Logical. While the violations of the Prime Directive are regrettable, they were not the doing of you or the crew of the _Enterprise,_ and you did a masterful job of minimizing the fallout from that interference. I would venture to theorize that the planet will resume its normal development from here on out.”

“One can only hope,” Slim agreed.

M’err looped his tail over his arm. “T’mel, what are you planning to major in at the Academy?”

“Anthropology. The study of various cultures is a fascinating and varied one, and it is a specialty in which I feel I can make a great impact.” T’mel hesitated. “Also, I have been informed that I need to learn how to ‘interact with reality,’ and I venture to suggest that only by properly and thoroughly studying a culture can I properly interact with it.”

Slim glanced at Braeden, who shrugged. “Don’t look at me. I just met her a few minutes ago.”

Chuckling a little, Slim asked, “What about you, M’err? What are you going for?”

“Communications, to start with. A lot of Caitians go for that—we’ve got super-sensitive hearing, so we’re well suited to the post. But I’m also going in on the command track. I’d like to run a ship of my own someday.” M’err glanced over his shoulder at the Andorian, then the door, before turning back to the others. “And you, Thomas?”

“Engineering,” Slim answered immediately. “Never thought of anything else.”

“Hey, me, too.” Braeden bumped his hip companionably. “Maybe we can be roommates when we get there. If they insist on putting people in the same departments together, that is.”

“You’re assuming that you _will_ get to the Academy.” The Andorian spoke without looking up from his PADD, but he drew everyone’s attention. “It’s not that easy. I would wager it entirely unlikely that more than one or two of us make it this year.”

Slim felt a stab of doubt in his stomach. Slipping one hand into the pocket of his khakis, he wrapped his fingers around the lucky loonie and squeezed it lightly. _You can do this,_ he reminded himself. _It won’t be that bad._

Braeden swallowed before speaking in a casual tone of voice. “And what are _you_ planning to study, Brainy Smurf?”

“My name,” said the Andorian icily, “is Ekynas Ch'ashraothek, and I will also be on the Command track.”

Slim waited a moment, then prompted gently, “You have to specialize in something else. Starfleet doesn’t like officers who just sit around and boss people about.”

Braeden stifled a snort. Ch’ashraothek—it was impossible, somehow, to think of him by his first name—looked up and fixed Slim with a scowl. “Naturally, I will begin by distinguishing myself as a science officer.”

“Good luck with that, sunshine,” M’err murmured.

Ch’ashraothek went back to what he was reading. Slim wondered where he thought he was going to put the PADD when it came time for the exam, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he turned to T’mel. “How long have you lived on Kappa Draconis II?”

“I do not,” T’mel replied. She alone looked unruffled by Ch’ashraothek. “My father is Secondary Ambassador of New Vulcan, and at his request, my mother, my older brothers, and I have accompanied him on his missions. There are, it appears, some cultures in which the presence of a female is helpful. This is another reason I wish to study anthropology, as I would welcome the opportunity to not only assist Starfleet, but Federation ambassadors such as my father.”

“How long have you been on the _Enterprise?_ ” Braeden asked.

“Near about four standard years,” Slim answered.

“How long, _precisely,_ have you been aboard the _Enterprise?_ ” T’mel prodded.

Slim did some fast mental math. “Three years, forty-four weeks, one day.” He glanced at the chronometer inset in the wall and amended, “Forgive me. Three years, forty-four weeks, twenty-one hours, and twelve minutes.”

“How old were you?” M’err asked.

“Thirteen. Well, thirteen an’ a half.”

“So you’re the same age as Brae and I are. Seventeen standard years.”

T’mel nodded. “I have just reached eighteen standard years.”

From Ch’ashraothek there was nothing but a grunt. Braeden ignored him in favor of a glance at the chronometer. “Wonder how many more we’re waiting on?”

“Just one, I think,” Slim said, remembering that the vice-admiral had said they were waiting on two more. He hoped the other potential cadet would come soon—he was starting to get nervous again. To distract himself, he asked T’mel, “How many brothers do you have?”

“Four,” T’mel replied. “My oldest brother is a pilot of some skill—he flies the _Intrepid._ The other three intend to see as much of the galaxy as they can before they settle down on New Vulcan to begin families of their own.” She studied Slim. “Have you any siblings, Thomas?”

Slim nodded. “I’ve got one little sister.”

A quick frown crossed T’mel’s face. “I have heard that phrase used as a colloquialism to imply insignificance. Please explain why you feel that way about having one sibling.”

Both Braeden and M’err looked confused, and it took Slim a second to work out what she’d said. He blushed. “Oh! No, that ain’t— _isn’t_ what I meant. I meant I have one sister, who’s younger ‘n me.”

“Ah. A colloquialism of a different sort. My apologies.” T’mel’s expression smoothed out.

The door opened just then, and a short, round-faced boy with blond hair sticking up in spikes came stumbling into the room, looking like he’d just tumbled out of bed. “Sorry!” he exclaimed, tripping over nothing as he rushed to join the others. “I overslept and then I got turned around trying to get here and—”

“It’s all right,” M’err said, interrupting the roll of excuses. “You’re not late.”

“Yet,” Ch’ashraothek grumbled from his seat.

“Ignore him,” Braeden advised.

“Planning on it. I’ve known him long enough to know that he’s a grumpy-gills.” The newcomer flashed an impish grin as Ch’ashraothek’s hands tightened on his PADD. “I’m Sparky.”

“Sparky?” T’mel repeated with a lift of her eyebrow.

“Well, it’s actually Quirinius Daylen Watson the Sixth, but Mom always said I was a live wire, so I’ve been Sparky ever since I can remember. Besides, who really wants to walk around with a name like ‘Quirinius’? My dad goes by Quint ‘cause he’s the fifth and Grandpa goes by Dayle and _his_ dad went by Trey ‘cause he was the third and then _his_ dad was Junior and I don’t actually know what people called my great-great-great-grandfather but—”

“Sparky,” M’err interrupted, holding up a paw. “Take a breath, friend.”

Sparky’s eyes widened. “Sorry! I know I tend to talk a lot. Especially when I get nervous. I get on a roll and then I can’t stop and I end up saying too much and this is why I don’t have any friends and oh God I’m doing it again aren’t I?”

Slim couldn’t help but laugh. “It’s nice to meet you, Sparky. I’m Slim.”

“No, you’re not,” Sparky said, eying him up and down.

“Well, it’s what everybody calls me, anyway. My real name’s Thomas James Kirk.”

“Then I’m gonna call you TJ,” Sparky replied immediately. “Is that okay? You look like a TJ. And ‘Thomas’ seems kinda stodgy.”

Slim bit his lip briefly, then smiled. “You know what? That’s great.”

“I’m Braeden—Brae,” Braeden said, holding out his hand for Sparky to shake. “This is M’err.”

“And I am T’mel.” T’mel gave Sparky the _ta’al_ again.

Before Sparky could say a word, the door opened again and the vice admiral entered. Slim snapped to attention; Braeden, M’err, and T’mel did likewise. Sparky jumped and tried to copy them, a second or two behind, and there was an audible _click_ as his heels slammed together that made him wince. Ch’ashraothek looked up from his PADD.

“Good morning, recruits,” the vice admiral said. “Welcome to the Kappa Draconis II testing facility for the Starfleet Academy entrance exam. I am Vice Admiral Charles Gorshin, and I will be proctoring your examinations. You will all line up in single file.”

Ch’ashraothek pushed past the other five recruits to stand at the head of the line. Braeden rolled his eyes at Slim, but said nothing.

“Mr. Ch’ashraothek,” Gorshin said, frowning at the Andorian, “this will be the fourth time you have taken this examination, so I must ask _why_ you have brought a PADD along when you are fully aware you cannot bring it into the room.”

Slim and T’mel exchanged glances as Ch’ashraothek sputtered, then angrily tossed his PADD to one side. It banged against the wall, causing a dent and scuff mark on the panel and a huge crack on the screen of the PADD. Gorshin’s frown deepened, but he opened the door and stepped through, then beckoned for the line to move forward.

As each candidate passed through, the doorway gave a chirp in a high, clear tone and a light flashed green. When Slim stepped through, however, the tone was a half-step lower and the light turned yellow. Gorshin frowned a little. “Mr. Kirk, what do you have in your pockets?”

Slim swallowed hard, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the loonie, which he held out to Gorshin. “It’s just a good-luck token, sir.”

Gorshin took the coin and scanned it with a hand-held device, which emitted the high, clear tone from the door and flashed green. Seemingly satisfied, Gorshin handed it back to Slim and motioned for T’mel to step into the room.

Once all of the applicants had entered the room, Gorshin pointed to the horseshoe-shaped table, which had six widely-spaced chairs set at it. “Take your seats.”

Slim sat between T’mel and M’err. Braeden sat on M’err’s other side, Sparky on the end of the table beyond T’mel, and Ch’ashraothek had claimed the seat furthest from the door. Each seat had in front of it a flat, black square set into the table, a simple stylus sitting next to it. Slim assumed that the square was some sort of special surface that made cheating more difficult.

“Welcome,” Gorshin said, crossing to the center of the horseshoe, “to the Starfleet Academy examination. We will begin at precisely 0920 hours. The first portion of your test will run for two hours; at 1120 hours there will be a short ten-minute break. We will then test for another two hours. At the end of that two-hour period, we will take an hour for lunch, which will be served in this room.” He pointed over his shoulder at another door, one Slim hadn’t noticed before. “At 1430 hours, there will be another two-hour examination, followed by a ten-minute break. The final two hours of your examination will commence at 1640 hours and conclude at 1840. At that time, you will be given your closing instructions and permitted to leave.”

He waved a hand over a control panel, and suddenly the black screen in front of Slim glowed with the logo of Starfleet Academy. Gorshin continued, “Your exams will take place entirely on these panels. You will work for the entire eight hours. This test is specifically designed to have more components than can be reasonably taken in the specified eight-hour period, but you will complete as many as you can. There will be no skipping questions or components. You will not be graded on any components you do not reach. The first six hours will cover general knowledge questions. For the final two hours, you will be asked to select the particular area you hope to focus on if you are accepted into the Academy and will be given components specific to that branch. Are there any questions?”

Slim swallowed hard, but didn’t respond. Gorshin allowed the silence to linger for a full minute before speaking again. “In a moment, a box will appear on your screen for you to enter your name. You will enter your last name, first name, and middle name if you have one, then you will use the stylus to sign in the box below it. Once all boxes are filled, the screen will hold, and then at precisely 0920, the test will commence. There will be no further speaking.”

The screen flashed, and the two boxes Gorshin had described did indeed appear, along with a standard QWERTY keyboard layout. There was a selection of labels running down the side of the screen, allowing the user to select a keyboard in their native language and alphabet. Slim quickly typed KIRK, THOMAS JAMES in the box, then picked up the stylus and signed his name before sitting back to wait.

All at once, the lights in the room dimmed, and four notes chimed out in a pattern that tugged something in Slim’s distant memory. The screen flashed over to the words PART ONE and the first question appeared on the screen.

Slim got to work.

Federation history, vessel identification, applied physics, astronomy, advanced mathematics—the test jumped from subject to subject in an illogical fashion Slim guessed had to be frustrating T’mel’s highly-ordered Vulcan mind. In the distant part of his mind that wasn’t bending its entire focus onto the questions, he guessed that the purpose was probably to keep students from coasting through the test by letting each question build on the previous one. None of them spoke during the ten-minute break—Sparky scampered for the bathroom, M’err stood and popped his back, Slim did a couple of lunges to loosen his muscles, Braeden sat and fidgeted, and both T’mel and Ch’ashraothek remained in much the same positions they had been in previously—and when the break was up, it was back to work. More history, planetary classifications—a whole section on Standard grammar, which startled Slim for a moment—it hardly seemed like Slim had been working for four hours, but at the same time, he kept wondering in the back of his mind why Gorshin hadn’t called time yet.

As he was struggling to remember how to convert from the current stardate system to the one that would be standard across Starfleet as well as the Federation by the time he and his classmates were ready to take up their posts on a starship, the screen flashed red and switched to the display of the Starfleet Academy logo, below which was a timer that read 01:00:00:00.

“The lunch hour will begin now,” Gorshin announced. “You will step into this room behind me and sit down, and your lunch will be brought to you. You may discuss the exam in general terms, but do not discuss specific questions, or even specific sections, as the other examinees may not have reached that point in the tests. You will not be permitted to access any form of research or communication device. At the end of the hour, you will return here.”

The doors behind him whooshed open, and Slim joined the others in filtering through to the other room. In contrast to the other rooms on the station, it was a bright, almost blinding white, every surface laminated and shiny. There were two long tables, each with eight hard, lacquered stools affixed to curving tubes of metal attached to a long center bar. Ch’ashraothek plopped himself down in the center of one of the tables; by unspoken agreement, the other five all sat down at the other table, clustered around one end.

Slim’s eyes were gradually adjusting to the brightness of the room when an older man in a grey jumpsuit came around with lunch, which consisted of salad, a grilled chicken sandwich on whole-grain bread, a small pile of nuts, and a cup of blueberries, with a glass of some sort of dark juice and a cup of coffee.

“Brain food,” Sparky commented.

M’err picked at the crust of his bread. “Does anyone want my—this green stuff?”

“Salad,” Sparky supplied. “It’s good for you.”

“Not for me. My system can’t handle vegetables well.”

“I will trade you,” T’mel offered. “I am a vegetarian. You may have my chicken in exchange for your salad.”

As the two traded lunches, Slim stabbed a forkful of greens, surprised to find he was hungry. Braeden put it into words. “I didn’t expect to be able to eat at this point, but I’m _starving._ ”

M’err poked Braeden playfully in the stomach. “You’re always starving.”

“Wasn’t this morning.” Braeden grimaced. “I could barely choke down one piece of toast. Guess that’s why I’m hungry now.”

“Me, too,” Slim said, offering his new friend a quick grin. “Well, I wasn’t hungry, anyway. Pa practically threatened to shove a feeding tube down my throat if I didn’t eat everything he put in front of me.”

“I am not certain that the captain of a starship has the authority to do that,” T’mel said with a frown.

“No, that’s Dad,” Slim corrected her. “The captain, I mean. Pa’s the CMO, Dr. Leonard McCoy. My stepfather.”

Sparky looked up in surprise. “Whoa, wait a minute. Your parents are divorced, and your mom and her new husband serve on the ship with your dad?”

Slim shook his head. “My mom was one of the cadets killed during the Battle of Vulcan. Dad an’ Pa just had their twelfth wedding anniversary last month.”

M’err nearly choked on his sandwich. Swallowing hastily, he sputtered out, “You can _do_ that?”

“Do what?” Slim was confused.

“Marry someone of the same gender as you.”

“Sure.” Slim’s confusion increased. “It’s been legal on Earth for a couple centuries now.”

“It is the province of individual planets to decide whether or not such unions are valid,” T’mel put in. “But under the auspices of the Federation, as long as all participants in a union or bond are of sufficient maturity and mental capacity to legally consent to the same, the gender, race, or species of said participants is immaterial.”

Slim took a sip of his juice. It tasted like blackcurrant. “We had a weddin’ on the _Enterprise_ a few months back between a human an’ a Zathros. Kelly’s genderfluid an’ Nic’tlarn is _h’ftenga,_ an’ on Zathros they don’t normally bond at all.”

Slowly, a smile spread across M’err’s countenance. “I cannot _wait_ to get off this rock.”

Sparky pushed the coffee away from himself. “Anyone who wants that can have it. Caffeine and I are not friends.”

Slim, who had developed a taste for black coffee after his long night at the engineering panel in orbit around the Roman empire, took the cup and downed about half of it. “How’s the test going for y’all?”

“It’s not quite as scary as I thought it was going to be,” Braeden admitted. “I was picturing…I dunno.”

Remembering Rand’s words, Slim couldn’t help but smile. “The academic equivalent of facing off against the entire Klingon military force armed with nothing more than a stick and a loincloth?”

T’mel had been taking a sip of her blackcurrant juice as Slim spoke, and she set her glass down sharply, coughing violently. Her face was bright green. “That is—a highly imaginative analogy,” she choked out.

“It’s somethin’ one of the yeomen on the _Enterprise_ said once,” Slim said apologetically. “Are you all right, T’mel?”

T’mel drew a deep breath, forcing air into her lungs, and spoke in calm, measured tones. “I am unharmed, thank you, Thomas.”

Braeden nudged Slim with his foot. “So I guess the crew’s been trying to prepare you, TJ?”

“Yeah. Either setting exams to help or trying to buck me up. Or this.” Slim pulled the loonie out of his pocket again.

Sparky leaned across the table and plucked the coin from Slim’s hand, studying it. “I’ve heard of this—this is a ‘lucky loonie,’ right? From one of the Olympic Games?” He flipped it over. “2028. Wasn’t that the year Toronto hosted and Canada won?”

“Yeah. Port—Ensign Porter Simril—he’s Canadian. His mother gave him an’ his sister one each when they took _their_ exams, so he loaned it to me, for luck.” Slim took the coin back and returned it to his pocket. “You from Canada, too, Sparky?”

“Nah, I grew up here. Dad’s the head of the mines over on the darkside, and he and Mom are both from West Virginia. But I read a whole bunch about the Olympics. I used to want to be an Olympic gymnast when I grew up, but then Mom told me that they don’t have the Olympic Games anymore and anyway there isn’t anywhere around here I could’ve trained to be a gymnast, so—”

Sparky rambled on for the next ten minutes as the other four ate and tried not to laugh at him. Finally, when he paused long enough to draw breath, Braeden leaned across the table and shoved his chicken sandwich into his mouth. “Shut up and eat, Sparks. We’ve got a whole afternoon ahead of us.”

“Mmf smmfmmff,” Sparky mumbled.

M’err chuckled. “Your mouth is big enough to fit nearly that entire sandwich at once. I don’t know whether to be impressed or amused.”

They chattered about inconsequential things as they finished their lunches. It was the first time Slim had interacted with people his own age in years, and he felt a little guilty about how _normal_ it felt. Then again, he usually felt pretty normal with his friends from the _Enterprise,_ too—they were just all older than him.

Gorshin urged all of them back into the other room to begin the second half of the exams. As they left the room, Slim couldn’t help but notice that, although he and his new friends had all eaten everything put in front of them, Ch’ashraothek had barely touched his.

The first two hours of the afternoon session were along the same lines as the morning had gone. They received a ten-minute break—all of them used the bathroom, with the exception of Ch’ashraothek—and then sat back down for the final session. When the screen activated itself, it presented him with a long list of majors offered at the Academy and the instructions to choose no more than two. Slim selected ENGINEERING and waited.

At precisely 1640, the screen flashed red and presented Slim with the first problem—one that he knew the answer to as soon as he’d read the last word. He relaxed further than he had all day and entered in the answer.

This portion was the easiest part of it, in Slim’s opinion. There was virtually nothing on which he was unsure, nothing he didn’t feel he could accurately accomplish. His stylus worked rapidly as he entered calculations and scribbled answers as quickly and accurately as possible. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw T’mel’s hands blur as she pulled components from all corners of her screen, and on the other side, M’err’s face was screwed up in a moue of concentration as he listened to something emanating from an earpiece that had come out of nowhere.

“Time,” Gorshin called at last, and every screen instantly changed to the Starfleet Academy logo. “Lay down your stylii and prepare for your instructions.”

Feeling breathless but exhilarated, Slim set the stylus on the table and shook out his fingers surreptitiously. There was a loud _crack_ from his right as Braeden cracked his knuckles. Ch’ashraothek’s scowl was even more pronounced than it had been.

“This concludes your entrance examinations,” Gorshin continued. “Your results will be transmitted to Starfleet High Command, and from thence to a panel of examiners, who will grade your tests based on a prescribed rubric. In situations where questions do not have an absolute answer, you will be graded on fitness of your response; in all other cases, partial credit may be given if the answer merits the same. As no other exams will be administered, you may discuss the tests with whomever you please, including with one another. The results of the examination will be sent out in approximately three standard months; this will enable the panel of judges time to obtain all results from all corners of the Federation and to grade them with the care they deserve. You will be informed via subspace message. Are there any questions?” He looked around, and there were none. “Very well. The exam is over.”

The door slid open behind them. Slim stood, thanked Gorshin with a salute, and joined the others in leaving the exam room.

“I don’t think that went too badly!” Sparky beamed at the other four.

“Think I’ve got a shot at this,” M’err said.

“I would venture to speculate that my scores may be sufficient to obtain me a place,” T’mel conceded.

Braeden rubbed his hands together. “Tell you what. We’ll send out subspace messages to let one another know how we did—how’s that? And if we all get in, we’ll either meet up at the shuttleport at the Academy or—hell, maybe we’ll all get to go in together.”

“I’m game,” Slim said with a grin. He held out his hand, palm down. “All for one and one for all?”

Grinning, Sparky laid his hand on top of Slim’s. Braeden added his hand, then M’err. T’mel hesitated for a moment before adding her own.

“It’s a deal.”

M’err, Sparky, and Braeden headed off to the shuttleport, where they would take a subatmospheric transport back to their homes. T’mel and Slim headed to the transporter room together. As they stepped in, T’mel turned to Slim. “Should we both pass the examinations, as I feel it likely that we both did, please allow me to express the hope that the _Enterprise_ and the _Intrepid_ are near enough to the same location that we may be able to take the same shuttle back to Earth. It would be pleasant to begin the adventure with—” she hesitated “—a friend.”

“I’d like that, too,” Slim said sincerely. He gave her the _ta’al._ “Health and long life, T’mel.”

“Live long and prosper, Thomas.” T’mel mounted the platform and nodded to Allenson. “Energize.”

A moment later, T’mel had disappeared. Slim gave Allenson a quick grin before stepping onto the platform and giving the same command. The shimmer of the transporter beam surrounded him, and he found himself on the _Enterprise_ once more, facing Kyle and his father.

“Well?” Jim asked as Slim stepped down. “How’d it go?”

“I’m cautiously optimistic.” Slim gave his dad a smile. “And I think I’ve got some new friends in my class already.”

“Good.” Looking relieved, Jim threw an arm around Slim’s shoulder. “C’mon, let’s go meet everyone else for dinner and you can tell me all about it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone who's wondering, the "four tones" Slim heard right before the test started was the soundbite from "The Weakest Link." (You know the one. "Let's play...The Weakest Link." Buh-buh-BAH-buh!!!)
> 
> Also, I've already decided that I'm going to write a sequel to this story, and I hope you like certain of the characters in this chapter, because they'll be back...


	98. Just One More Candle

Slim reached up and made one final adjustment to the bunch of balloons he’d hung from the ceiling of the Recreation Room. Leo watched him do it, then swept his eyes around the group gathering in the room and wondered why he was suddenly feeling old.

The one problem with Addie getting older was that she was starting to understand and remember milestones. Most importantly, she had finally figured out what birthdays were and what they meant. On the one hand, it had been adorable for Leo to watch his daughter gleefully planning a birthday party for her daddy. He’d let her plan it mostly because he knew none of it would ever happen. Jim had never been less interested in his birthday before, and that was saying a lot, considering all the negative associations he’d carried for years. But that had also been the day Slim took his Starfleet exams, and nothing Leo could do would have been able to distract him. In the end, Leo and Addie had negotiated down to just having cake and ice cream and a loud shout of “SURPRISE!” ready when Jim got back from the transporter room with Slim.

But Addie’s birthday was nineteen days after Jim’s. She hadn’t said anything, exactly, but she kept giving Leo and Jim excited, sly looks out of the corners of her eyes, like she was barely holding herself back from asking—like she didn’t want to ruin the surprise. They’d discussed it in the darkness of their bedroom one night and agreed that they didn’t want Addie thinking badly of her birthday, and they also didn’t want her—or Slim—thinking that they loved them unequally, since they’d done birthday parties for _him._

The end result was that Leo now stood in a room that was decorated almost identically to the way it had been three and a half years previously, when Slim had had _his_ first birthday party.

Maybe that was why Leo suddenly felt the weight of his years, which weren’t that considerable—he wasn’t even middle-aged yet. But here he stood, in a room that had once been set up for the party of a scrawny teenager, watching that same boy now grown to near-manhood doing the same tasks Leo had done for him. And the party was for a little girl—not even a toddler—who, at the time of that first party, had been barely starting to pull herself up on things.

There was a pile of presents on one table. Nothing too major; Addie’s birthday was barely a month after Christmas, but there were little things. The biggest package was from Chekov and Sulu jointly, and Leo wasn’t going to even speculate on what it might be. A second table held the cake.

Jim hadn’t seen it yet; he’d taken Addie to the observation deck while they got her party ready, but Leo was pretty sure that when he did, he was going to either groan as loudly as he could or beat his head against the wall. Uhura, Chapel, and Gaila had conspired to make a dome-shaped cake—he suspected it was chocolate—and then covered it entirely in light brown frosting done in curls with what he suspected to be a star-shaped tip. As if that wasn’t enough, there were ten cupcakes surrounding it, each frosted in a similar fashion but in colors ranging from white and faintly tan to jet black.

“You made her a tribble cake,” he said flatly, staring at the table.

Gaila shrugged. “She’s still upset about Fizzgig and his—its—many, many offspring. Since we’re _obviously_ not going to buy her a new tribble, because that would be stupid on so many levels, we did the best we could.”

“She’s not going to want to eat a tribble.”

“It’s chocolate. With a cream cheese filling.”

“As long as you didn’t make it red,” Simril said as he passed by them.

There was a clatter as Cayne dropped something, and she glared at the big, burly ensign as she bent to retrieve it. “What is _wrong_ with you?!”

Simril laughed. “Auds, there’s not enough time left in this mission for me to answer that.”

Slim, who had just finished tweaking the balloons, chuckled along with him. “That would only work if it was a jelly filling, Port. An’ maybe a red velvet cake.”

“Actually,” Uhura said sheepishly, “it _is_ red velvet.”

Leo groaned. “I don’t know any of you.”

His communicator chirruped then, and he glanced down to see a brief text-comm from Jim. Only three letters: OOW. He flipped it closed and cupped his hands around his mouth. “They’re coming! Places, everyone!”

Everyone gathered behind the tables, which were draped in tablecloths that reached all the way to the floor, and ducked down swiftly. Leo’s legs began to protest the held squat within seconds, but it couldn’t be helped. Turning the lights down low, like they’d done on Slim’s birthday, wasn’t an option. Addie was terrified of the dark.

After almost a full minute, there was a gasp. “Daddy, _look!_ ”

“SURPRISE!” everyone shouted, jumping up. Well, Leo shouted, at least, but when he tried to straighten, a cramp seized the back of his calf and he bit his lip as hard as he could to keep from screaming and ruining the party. Instead, he silently ran through his entire vocabulary of curse words as he dug his thumbs into the back of the muscle, trying to loosen the knot of tension that had inadvertently formed.

Addie shrieked, and then gave a happy giggle of laughter, clapping her hands. After a moment, though, she spoke again in a slightly suspicious tone of voice. “Where’s Papa?”

Leo still didn’t think he could stand up yet, but he managed to duck sideways and look around the edge of the table, pulling a face that made her giggle again. He grinned as well. “Happy Birthday, sweetheart.”

“Addie, come here and tell us what game you want to play first,” Nic’tlarn suggested.

Addie hurried over to the third table to view the offerings. Jim came around the table with a broad grin, which vanished as he dropped to one knee out of sight. “Bones, are you okay?” he asked, his voice low and anxious.

“I’m fine, Jim,” Leo reassured him. “Just a knot in the back of my leg.”

“Left or right?”

“Right.” _As usual,_ he added silently. He hadn’t ever told Jim how often he got these things.

“Sit down, get your back against the wall,” Jim instructed.

Surprised, Leo did as Jim requested. Jim then grabbed Leo’s right foot and slowly applied pressure, pushing it towards Leo. Getting the hint, Leo pulled his knee against his chest. After a moment, the tension loosened and Leo exhaled.

“Thanks, Jim. Damn, that hurt.”

“I know,” Jim said sympathetically, rubbing the back of Leo’s calf for just a minute, easing up the last of the knot. “Charley horses are the worst. That’s the only thing I’ve ever found that works in getting rid of them, and it’s hard to do on your own.”

“I usually just let them run their course,” Leo admitted.

Jim got to his feet, then pulled Leo up and kissed him briefly. “I don’t have that kind of patience. C’mon, let’s see what fresh hell they’ve dreamed up to masquerade as ‘fun’.”

Leo knew, because he had helped O’Flaherty and Chapel put the party together, but he let Jim be surprised.

It turned out that the first game Addie wanted to play was Pin the Tail on the Donkey. Chapel tied a scarf around her eyes, handed her a small paper tail attached to a magnet, spun her around a couple times, and then pointed her at the drawing of a donkey attached to one wall. “Okay, Addie, go!”

The adults clapped and cheered as Addie stumbled towards the drawing, arms outstretched. She stopped when she touched the wall, frowned in concentration, and slapped the tail on the drawing, then began jumping up and down, clapping her hands. “I did it! I won!”

Leo tried not to laugh. She’d “pinned” the tail firmly to the donkey’s eyeball. “That’s one interesting donkey, there, Addie.”

Addie pulled off the scarf and pouted. “Oh.” She scowled at the donkey for a minute, then brightened and waved the scarf at Spock, giving him her most winning cherubic grin. “Uncle Spock, your turn!”

“I believe the donkey is too low for me, Athena,” Spock said, eying the game with suspicion.

“I thought of that.” O’Flaherty grinned and tapped a couple buttons on the side of the picture with the hand that wasn’t holding her daughter. It slid up the wall until it was roughly at chest height for most of the adults in the room. “There.”

“Bend over, Uncle Spock,” Addie instructed.

“That’s what he said,” Simril said under his breath. Leo choked.

Spock dutifully bent over, allowing Addie to make several abortive attempts at tying the scarf around his eyes. Finally, Uhura stepped in and took care of it. She handed Spock a tail, then beckoned to Simril and Scotty. Both of them had identical wicked grins on their faces as they came forward and spun Spock around. They probably spun him more often than necessary, because as soon as they released him, he staggered around a bit before slamming face first into the wall, arms outspread. He remained still for a moment, then simply pinned the tail to the wall.

Most everyone was howling with laughter. Jim was practically in tears, not the least of which was because the portion of the donkey to which the tail was now affixed gave a _very_ different impression of what the game was.

At Addie’s insistence, everyone else took a turn. Scotty got the closest, just a bit too far up the drawing’s spine, but Slim was a near second only because his tail ended up a finger’s breadth too high. Once he’d taken off the blindfold, Addie took it and ran over to Jim. “Daddy, your turn!”

Leo felt Jim tense and saw the brief flash of panic in his eyes, but he smiled quickly down at Addie. “Ah—no, thanks, Addie. Daddy’s gonna sit this one out.”

Addie frowned. “Daddy, it’s my birthday. I want you to play.”

“I know you do, baby, but I can’t play this game.”

Leo saw Addie gearing up for the question that was still her favorite— _Why?_ —and stepped in to divert her. “Hey, how about I take a turn?”

Addie studied him critically, then nodded. “’Kay.”

Leo let her tie the blindfold around his eyes, then surreptitiously adjusted it so that it actually did its job. Someone spun him around a few times, but it wasn’t nearly enough to make him dizzy. He played it up, weaving a little bit, then reached the wall, stuck out his hand, and snapped the tail into place.

The room erupted into whoops and cheers. Leo took off the blindfold to see that he had put the tail exactly where he thought he had—right where it belonged.

“Dr. McCoy is the winner!” O’Flaherty declared, bouncing her baby.

There was a look of relief in Jim’s eyes as he leaned in to kiss Leo. “Thank you,” he whispered.

“I’ve got you,” Leo whispered back.

“All right, Addie, what’s next?” Uhura asked. “We could dance, or we could do the pinata.”

“What’s a piyata?” Addie asked, confused.

Next to Leo, Jim tensed again, and Leo bit back the urge to curse. Goddammit, next they’d want to play Blind Man’s Bluff. Had they put _any_ games on the list that didn’t involve a blindfold? He tried to think. Trouble was that he _hadn’t_ thought when he’d been helping them make up the list of games, or he’d never have let them put games Addie would insist everybody play like that on there. As he put his arm around Jim’s waist and Uhura patiently explained how pinatas worked, he tried to think what the other games on the list were. They’d picked five—in lieu of candles, four and one to grow on—and he relaxed a little as he remembered that the other three games were blindfold-free. At least they were getting the ones with the potential to send Jim into a panic out of the way first.

Luckily, pinatas were easier to make a one-player game. They tied the scarf around Addie’s eyes again, spun her around a few times, and gave her a stick (because _nothing_ could _possibly_ go wrong when you gave a four-year-old a weapon, Leo thought cynically, _especially_ when she was dizzy). Addie giggled as she swung wildly. She cracked Slim across the knee, rapped Spock’s side hard enough to make him grunt—right where his heart was, too, damn it all—and nearly clocked Scotty in the nuts before she managed to score a hard enough hit on the papier-mâché star to crack it open, spilling candy all over the floor. She shrieked with delight and scrambled to pick up as much of it as she could. To Leo’s amusement, Gage and Chekov enthusiastically joined in the collection scramble.

DeSoto rolled his eyes. “Johnny, I swear, how old are you?”

“Old enough to know to enjoy myself when I can,” Gage shot back.

Sweetly, Addie held out a double handful of candy to DeSoto. “You want some?”

“Uh—thanks, Addie.” DeSoto looked flustered as he accepted a couple of pieces. Leo suppressed a grin; Addie was quite fond of both orderlies, and they of her, which was why they’d been invited to her party.

Rather than give Addie the chance to choose the next game, Slim simply started the music. She clapped and giggled when the music of the Hokey Pokey came on, and the whole group joined in. Leo felt Jim relax next to him.

Simril and O’Flaherty had been in charge of this part. They’d put together a playlist of children’s party dances that had never really gone out of style—everything from the Chicken Dance to the Cupid Shuffle—interspersed with other songs that were just fun to move around to. Leo wasn’t surprised when the first notes of “Take a Little One-Step” came on and Addie immediately ran over to Slim and dragged him onto the floor.

The difference in their height wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been at Slim’s sixteenth birthday party. They seemed to have really gotten into the rhythm of the song, to the point that Leo almost suspected they had choreographed the moves. Addie’s grin was brighter than the lights in the room. Her long dark hair fanned out whenever Slim spun her under his arm, and she had the same graceful sweep to her arms that Uhura and Cayne both always did when they were dancing with Slim. If she hadn’t been taking lessons, she had certainly picked up on what she saw well.

They ended the way they always did, with Slim sweeping Addie onto his shoulder and her throwing her arms up, palms raised to the ceiling, a dimpled grin on her face. Everyone applauded.

“Addie, you wanna open your presents now?” Uhura asked.

“Yeah!” Addie said enthusiastically, sliding off of Slim’s shoulder. He caught her and lowered her to the ground before letting her run over to the table piled with presents.

Like her brother—and her father—most of the crew seemed to have sussed out that the best presents to give Addie were books. Leo was pleased that the books she’d been given, whether datachips or pre-loaded PADDs, didn’t have books that were insultingly simple. Addie was still learning how to read, but she liked having more “grown-up” books read to her. Her eyes got extremely big when she saw one particular PADD, and Leo leaned over her shoulder to read the titles in its library. _Pug, Green Feet, Blue Dilly Dilly, Painted Ocean…_

He sought out Rahaim with a questioning glance. The lieutenant shrugged. “I was Addie’s age when I learned to read,” she said in her soft, musical voice. “The series is a very old one, but it’s the one I learned with. I thought she might enjoy it. And it gives opportunities to discuss how things have changed in the past three centuries.”

“Thank you, ‘Tenant Rahaim,” Addie said, turning to throw her arms around Rahaim. Rahaim laughed gently and hugged her back.

There were four presents on the end, however, that were obviously not books. Leo knew what was in one of them, because it was his gift for her, but the other three were mysteries to him. Addie opened the one from Leo first, then grinned hugely as she held up the floppy stuffed rabbit he’d picked up a couple months back at one of the shops on Starbase 26. “Thank you, Papa!”

“You’re welcome, baby,” Leo said with a smile.

“Hey, Addie, that’s a great-looking rabbit,” DeSoto said. “What’s his name?”

Addie studied the rabbit critically, then nodded seriously and looked up at him. “ _Her_ name’s Hyzenthlay.”

Leo raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been readin’ _Watership Down?_ ”

“Uh-huh. Jame likes it, too, right, Zizi Nico?” Addie dimpled up at the Zathros.

Nic’tlarn looked a little embarrassed. “It gets her to nap.”

“It’s fine,” Leo assured him. “I loved that book as a kid, too. Still do.”

“Me, too,” Slim agreed.

Addie moved onto the next present, which was from Jim and Slim, according to the tag. She opened it and giggled as she unfolded a crocheted blanket—Leo had learned to recognize crochet over the year. It was made out of a number of “granny squares” in blue, gold, and red, each with a double four-pointed star standing out from the center. The whole thing was edged in grey scallops.

“Where did you ever find this?” Cayne asked.

“The pattern’s open-source,” Jim told her. “It’s called ‘Ad Astra’, which seemed appropriate. Really, it’s just a lot of double crochet, but—”

“Wait, you _made_ it?” McCall looked impressed.

Jim pointed to Slim. “He helped.”

Addie hugged both of them. “Thank you!” she cried before going on to the next present. It was from Chekov and Sulu.

Considering what they’d given Slim for the last several birthdays, Leo wasn’t at all surprised when she opened it and let out the biggest squeal of her life. Inside were three little dresses in the mock-uniform style—one red, one blue, one gold.

“Zere are shirts, too,” Chekov told her. He was blushing. “We thought—well, you haven’t decided what you want to be yet, so we gave you all of zem. Zat way, you can decide.”

“Thank you!” Addie squealed. She hugged Chekov hard, then Sulu, who hugged her back, laughing.

McCall picked up the last present. “Addie, this is from all of us,” she said. “Everybody in Medical.”

Addie accepted the present and opened it. A puzzled frown knit her brows as she reached into the innocuous box and lifted out a hot pink object. “Thank you,” she said dubiously, turning it over in her hands for a moment before looking up at McCall in confusion.

“It’s a helmet,” McCall explained. “Look, I’ll show you how it works.” She took the helmet from Addie, then slipped it over her head, buckled it under her chin, and adjusted it until it fit. “There!”

“Thank you,” Addie said again, sounding more confused than ever. “What’s it for?”

“Well,” McCall said, drawing out the word, “it protects your head.”

Jim stifled a laugh. “Nurse McCall, even if she _is_ my daughter, I don’t think she needs to walk around the _Enterprise_ in a helmet.”

“No, of course she wouldn’t walk around the _Enterprise_ in a helmet,” McCall reassured him. “She’d ride.”

Gage and DeSoto, whom Leo hadn’t even noticed leave, came back in, grinning and pushing between them an honest-to-goodness bicycle. It was hot pink with black accents, white rubber grips on the handlebars, and training wheels. There were silver pom-poms hanging from the handlebars, a yellow basket on the front, and a shiny silver bell.

Leo groaned. “You didn’t.”

“Happy birthday, Addie,” chorused the assembled nurses and orderlies.

Weaver limped forward, leaning heavily on her cane, and held out a small bundle. “Elbow- and kneepads,” she explained. “So you don’t bump anything else, either.”

M’Benga, whom Leo decided was a traitor, knelt down to help Addie with the padding, and then set her on the seat of the bicycle. He looked up at Jim with a grin. “I think this is your part, Captain.”

Jim grinned and came around behind Addie. “Okay, baby. Hold onto the handlebars real tight and put your feet on the pedals.”

As Jim continued teaching Addie how to ride her new bike, Leo moved to stand next to M’Benga and crossed his arms over his chest. “Geoff, my hair’s gonna be snow-white _tomorrow._ ”

M’Benga laughed and clapped Leo on the shoulder. “No, it won’t. She’ll be fine. It’s the rest of us you have to worry about, if she forgets to use that bell.”


	99. The Squire of Gothos

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~Okay, so the internet ate my first attempt at posting this, here goes round two...~~
> 
> This chapter is based on the episode of the same name by Paul Schreiber.
> 
> This chapter was also probably one of my favorites to write, even though it took me an _entire month_ to write, oh my _God._ I am so freaking sorry for that. Still, I think you're going to enjoy reading it a lot.
> 
> I think there are several reasons this took me so long to write. In the first place, when I started planning/writing this story three years ago (!!!), this was one of the chapters that I actually wrote a little snippet of. And then the story...did not go in such a direction that the snippet is of any use. Characters developed differently than I had originally anticipated (read: I didn't necessarily anticipate them developing _at all_ ). People who were mentioned as still being on the ship left it. I even ended up changing the POV (this one was originally going to be a Bones chapter, but there was too much Jim-only action where nothing was really going on aboard the _Enterprise_ ). Basically I was able to keep two or three lines of dialogue--lines that were actually in the original episode anyway--but most of the rest of what I'd written was no good, which I realized before I'd even started working on it.
> 
> And then I happened to read over the novelization for one of the episodes I had upcoming in my timeline, and I realized that a) the episode in question was a really truly horrible episode (both in terms of plot and in terms of cultural sensitivity) and b) there was absolutely no way in hell to make it work with the way the characters have developed over the course of the story. I also realized that I had a loose end that I hadn't planned how to tie up yet. So I wasted more or less an entire day, first in selecting an episode that met my requirements, then in tweaking my outline/timeline to figure out how to squeeze it in, not to mention going back through the entire story to make sure I hadn't dropped a reference to it previously. (I don't _think_ I have, but we'll get there when we get there.)
> 
> And _then_ I accidentally deleted the entire first three-quarters of the story from my Scrivener file, but that wasn't such a big deal because fortunately I had most of those chapters backed up in about six different places. Unfortunately, I had them saved by chapter name rather than chapter number, so it took me the better part of an afternoon to get them back in the right order.
> 
> So...yeah. Sorry it took me so long. Thanks for sticking with me. <3

_Chingching! Chingching!_

“Look out, sir!”

Jim dove to one side, flattening himself against the wall as Addie came careening around the corner, bent over the handlebars of her bicycle, an expression of intense concentration on her face. She dinged her bell a couple more times in acknowledgment of his having moved and sped off, Nic’tlarn hurrying after her with the infant Jame in a sling across xyr chest. Xe didn’t seem at all winded or flustered, merely waved in apology as xe passed by and called, “Addie, slow down, please!”

_Ching! Ching!_

“Memo to self,” Jim muttered as he pulled back to the corridor and resumed heading for the lift. “Entirety of medical staff, with the exception of Dr. McCoy, to receive citations in their files for turning Little Mischief into hell on wheels.”

It was an empty threat and he knew it. Addie really hadn’t been that big of a problem once she got the hang of traveling in a straight line, and she was only permitted to ride her bike in the corridors two days a week, and then only if she behaved herself. So far, since her birthday, she’d only been put on restriction twice—and only once had it been because she ran people over in her mad dash through the halls. Of all the presents she’d received, the bike was definitely her favorite.

Jim would probably have been a little jealous if he didn’t know that she would pet her new blanket every night before falling asleep, clutching Gottlieb and Hyzenthlay in her arms.

He stepped onto the bridge and caught the quick smile Sulu tossed over his shoulder, the crisp nod of acknowledgment from Spock, and returned both in kind. “Gentlemen, what’s our status?”

“On course, Captain,” Spock replied calmly. “At present rate of uninterrupted warp factor three, we should reach Colony Beta Six in eight days’ time.”

“Good. They desperately need those supplies.” Jim sat in his chair, then paused as Spock suddenly straightened. “Problem, Mr. Spock?”

“Unusual,” Spock replied. “I’m now getting a sizable space displacement reading.”

Jim frowned. “Chekov, scanner readings?”

“Nothing, Keptin,” Chekov said in some bewilderment. “Just empty space. Wait…no, zere it is.”

Confused—and not a little annoyed—Jim flicked a switch to bring up the viewscreen. After a moment, what should have been empty space—not even a star before them—was interrupted by a surprisingly sharp and clear crescent-shaped body. It was unusually well-magnified, too. Tersely, Jim said, “Navigation report.”

“Iron-silicate substance, planet magnitude one-E,” Chekov reported, looking over his shoulder. “We’ll be passing close.”

“It is incredible that this body has gone unrecorded on all our star charts, sir,” Spock said, sounding puzzled.

_Wonders will never cease,_ Jim thought. He was unable to keep a certain amount of wryness out of his voice. “But there it is, Mr. Spock, incredible though it may be.” Turning to the bridge at large, he added, “We can’t spare the time to investigate now. All science stations will gather data for the computer banks. Uhura, report the discovery of this planet on subspace radio.”

Uhura struggled with her board for a few moments before turning back to Jim. “Strong interference on subspace. The planet must be a natural radio source.”

“Then let’s get out of its range.” Jim twisted around. “Veer off forty degrees, Mr. Sulu.”

As Sulu reached for a control on the helm, he vanished. One moment, he was in his accustomed place—solid, corporeal, calmly competent—and then he simply winked out of existence as though he were as insubstantial as a soap bubble. Chekov gave a cry of distress.

“ _Sulu!_ ” Jim cried. He leapt from his seat and lunged towards the helm.

He seemed to black out for a second—just for a brief moment—and when he came around, he found he was continuing to move forward. However, his surroundings couldn’t have been more different.

Instead of the bridge of the _Enterprise,_ he found himself standing in the middle of a decidedly old-fashioned drawing room. Or maybe it was a parlor. He’d never been sure what the difference between those two rooms was, or even if there was one. A chandelier hung overhead, brightly polished and lit with candles. A huge, ornate fireplace with cheerfully crackling logs stood beneath a display of weaponry—crossed swords, muskets, pistols, and battle flags. The other walls were hung with tapestries or massive oil paintings in gilt-edged frames. There was a gleaming mahogany table, set near a sideboard bristling with dishes. An instrument Jim could identify as a harpsichord only because his mother had taken him to a musical instrument museum when he was twelve stood under an enormous gilded mirror. Seated at the bench was a man dressed in an elegant suit that matched his surroundings. The whole setting was strangely familiar to Jim, but for the life of him, he couldn’t have said why or where from.

Sulu, beside him in a half-seated position, stirred and blinked up at Jim in confusion. “Captain, where are we?”

“Jim!” Suddenly, Bones was right there in front of him, pale as a sheet but looking relieved. Next to him, Chekov wore the same expression. Behind them stood Fisher, tense and alert but also with a faint air of relief.

The man on the harpsichord bench rose, smiling happily but with a touch of sly superiority about him. “Welcome to my island of peace on this stormy little planet of Gothos.”

Jim ignored him in favor of helping Sulu off the dais they apparently stood on and joining his crew. “What’s happening? Fill me in.”

Bones reached out for him. “Jim, you disappeared from the bridge after Sulu did. We’ve been looking for you for hours—”

“You must excuse my whimsical way of fetching you,” the man—evidently their host—interrupted. “But when I saw you passing by, I simply could not resist entertaining you.”

Jim exchanged a glance with Bones, then stepped forward, putting himself between his crew and this strange man. “I am Captain James Kirk of the United Starship _Enterprise…_ ”

The man bowed with an exaggerated courtly grace. “So you are the captain of these brave men! My greetings and felicitations, Captain. It’s so good of you and your officers to drop in. Absolutely smashing of you!”

It was like being caught in a period drama—a very poorly written period drama, put together by someone who had done only the barest of research and thought it sufficient. Jim had to make an effort to keep his voice level. “Who are you? Where do you come from?”

“Have no fear, lads,” the man said, waving his arm in a grandly embracing gesture. “I have made myself as one of you…”

Fisher advanced forward, and for the first time, Jim realized that he had a phaser in his hand. “Who are you? That is the question that was asked of you! Answer it! And make the answer fast!”

“Ah, such spirited ferocity!” the man crowed in delight as he eyed Fisher, rubbing his hands together. Suddenly seeming to remember his manners, he added, “Oh, forgive me. General Trelane, retired. At your service, gentlemen. My home is your home.”

Fisher still bristled. Chekov, who stood very close to Sulu but hadn’t actually embraced him yet, spoke in a low voice. “Keptin, we’ve lost contact with ze ship. We’re trapped here.”

Evidently, however, Trelane had very sharp hearing. He rubbed his hands together with delight. “‘Trapped here,’” he repeated almost gleefully. “I must say, how positively delightful it is to have you here—on this little planet I have made my hobby. From my observations, I did not think you capable of such voyages.”

“Jim, look at the time period,” Bones said quietly. “We’re five hundred light-years from Earth. If you had a powerful enough telescope—”

“Yes,” Trelane interrupted again, a happy grin on his face. “I have been quite the observer of your lively little doings on your lively little Earth.”

“Then you’ve been observing the activities of five centuries ago,” Jim told him. “That’s a long time.”

“Have I made a time error? Dear me.” Trelane looked around him. “How fallible of me! And I did so want to make you at home. In fact, I’m quite proud of the detail.”

“General Trelane—” Jim began.

Trelane stopped him with a waggle of his finger, a gesture that reminded Jim a little of Harry Mudd. “Tut, tut, a retired general, sir. Just Squire Trelane, now. You may call me ‘Squire’—indeed, I rather fancy the title.”

Five hundred years—Jim could place why the room looked so familiar now. He and Bones had gone to Colonial Williamsburg for a long weekend after the Battle of Vulcan, and they’d toured the so-called Governor’s Palace. This room looked a lot like one of those. It was far from the first time he’d encountered a being who was convinced that things on Earth looked as they had in the distant past—he thought briefly of Apollo before pushing the reminder firmly from his mind—and it really wasn’t so difficult to deal with, as long as he kept himself planted firmly in the here and now.

“Why have you imprisoned us here?” he asked.

He felt a strange sensation, almost like he was being trapped in a sticky, confining spider’s web. It made his heart rate pick up a little bit; unconsciously, he stepped closer to Bones as Trelane answered in a honey-rich voice. “Imprisoned? Nonsense! You are my guests.” He swept a hand around dramatically. “You see, you happened by at a most fortuitous moment. I was just completing my studies of your curious and fascinating society.” Flinging himself onto a low, armless chair, he continued, “Captain Kirk, you simply _must_ tell me all about your campaigns—your battles—your missions of conquest.”

Jim’s stomach lurched. He’d been involved in more than a few battles in his time, but they weren’t ones he wanted to remember. And _missions of conquest_ made him think too much of the mirror universe. Taking a deep breath to steady himself, he said firmly, “Our missions are peaceful ones, not of conquest. We don’t battle unless it is strictly necessary.”

Trelane winked, as if sharing a secret. “So that’s the official story, eh, Captain?”

Bones was subtly aiming his tricorder at Trelane. Jim registered it without a flicker of his eyelids and took a step forward. “Squire Trelane, I must ask you to let us return to our ship.”

“Wouldn’t hear of it!” Trelane said with a languid wave of his hand. “In fact, you _must_ join me in a light repast. There is so much I want to ask you—about your _feelings_ about war—about killing—about conquest—that sort of thing.” He smiled happily, then suddenly pointed at Jim. “You are one of the new predator species, you know—a species that preys even on itself.”

Fisher stiffened, his hand tightening on his phaser. “Captain?” he said, sounding half pleading.

“Stun only, Mr. Fisher,” Jim said. “Don’t kill him.” It would be one hell of a violation of the Prime Directive, and anyway, he couldn’t help but feel a sort of reluctant sort of pity for Trelane—even if it was combined with a sense of revulsion.

“Fisher—is that his name, Captain?” Trelane didn’t wait for a response. “Ah, is that your function aboard your ship? To capture the fish that the brave officers and soldiers will eat?”

“Lieutenant Fisher is our senior geologist,” Jim said firmly, putting slight emphasis on the man’s rank. “This gentleman is our medical officer, Dr. McCoy—our helmsman, Lieutenant Sulu—and our navigator, Lieutenant Chekov.”

Trelane acknowledged each introduction in turn. “Welcome, good physicianer…all reverence to your ancestors, Honored Sir—”

Sulu, who was the one thus addressed, flushed slightly. “Is he kidding?”

But Trelane’s focus was now on Chekov. He came smartly to attention, clicking his heels together. “ _I Ofitser Chekov, Russkiy soldat, da?_ ” He began marching in place, although the broad grin on his face rather spoiled the effect. “ _Odin, dva, tri, chetyre! Davayte snimat’ nashi pushki!”_

Chekov’s face bled bone white, and Jim was surprised—and concerned—to hear the tremor in his voice as he replied, “I am not a wiolent man.”

Trelane positively beamed at him. “Come now, we are all violent men under the skin. And how we do love our uniforms!”

He preened in the mirror. Sulu said something under his breath that Jim, with his limited understanding of Japanese, wasn’t quite sure he’d understood, but he was fairly positive that it didn’t mean anything flattering. Jim spoke to Fisher, one single, low word: “Now!”

As Fisher aimed his phaser, however, Trelane spun on him, raising a hand. Instantly, Fisher was immobilized, as if flash-frozen.

“What is this interesting weapon you have here?” Trelane plucked the phaser from Fisher’s hand and studied it for a moment. Instantly, Fisher thawed out, looking angry and bewildered. Trelane ignored him in favor of studying the phaser. “Ah, yes—I see! That won’t kill—but this will! The mechanism is now clear to me.” He pointed it at one of the queer statues lining the niches along the wall and depressed the trigger. The statue dematerialized.

And the Squire of Gothos—laughed. Laughed with the merry delight of someone who honestly saw nothing horrible in what he had done, nothing that should concern him about what had just happened. It was either callousness or naivete, and Jim wasn’t sure which prospect was more terrifying. Unconsciously, he reached for Bones’ hand. The light pressure of his husband’s fingers went a long way towards calming him.

“Oh, how marvelous!” Trelane swung the phaser around, yelling with delight as he annihilated each of the statues in turn. “Devastating! This weapon could kill millions!”

Driven more by fear than by bravado, Jim strode over to Trelane and plucked the phaser out of his hands. “Beginning with what, Trelane? My crew? Are we your next targets?”

Trelane pouted. It put Jim very firmly in mind of the look Addie gave him when he told her she couldn’t have a cookie before dinner. “But how absolutely typical of your species, Captain! You don’t understand, so you get angry. But don’t worry. I have anticipated your next question. You wish to know how I have accomplished all this, don’t you?” He nodded, then steepled his fingers, like a prissy schoolteacher beginning a lecture. “We—meaning others and myself—have, to state the matter briefly, perfected a system by which matter can be changed into energy—and then back into matter.”

“Like the transporter system on the _Enterprise,”_ Jim said.

“Oh, that’s a crude example! Ours is an infinitely more sophisticated process. You see, we can not only transport matter from place to place, but we can alter its shape, at will.”

“This…drawing room, then,” Jim said, taking a chance that he’d guessed its name right. “You created it? By rearranging the matter of the planet?”

“Quite right.”

“But how—”

Trelane ran a finger over the crease of irritation that had appeared on his forehead. “Dear captain, your inquiries are becoming tiresome. Why? I want you to be happy—to free your minds of care. Let us enjoy ourselves in the spirit of martial good fellowship!”

Jim turned away from Trelane, convinced that the—creature—would never listen to him. “Let’s go,” he said quietly to his men. “We’re getting out of here.”

“Naughty captain!” Trelane waggled his finger at Jim again. It really was like dealing with Harry Mudd, but without the sense that he was waiting for the opportunity to gut you because he knew the going rate on the galactic black market for a kidney. “Fie, you are quite rude. But you cannot leave. What an admirably fiery look of protest! Upon my soul, I admire you, although in mercy you seem to need another demonstration of my authority—”

He gestured with his hand. Instantly, Jim found himself transported, but not back to the _Enterprise._ Instead, he was on the surface of the planet, outside of Trelane’s created, protected environment. The atmosphere was definitely poisonous, hot, harsh, and unforgiving. Jim gasped, dropping to his knees. If he’d been prepared, he might have been able to hold his breath before he arrived, but there was no warning.

And now he was dying.

An instant later, the rough red rocks and swirling clouds of gases and dust were replaced with the overly-ornate pattern of the carpet in Trelane’s drawing room. Welcome oxygen rushed into Jim’s lungs, but he was still gasping and choking for breath.

“Jim!” Bones rushed to his side, dropping to his knees next to him and sliding an arm around his shoulders. “Oh, God, Jim—”

Trelane patted Jim’s head. “That was an example of what can occur away from my kindly influence. I do hope you will behave yourself now, Captain, not just for your own sake, but because if you don’t, I shall be very angry.”

Jim found it hard to breathe again, and not just because of the rawness of his lungs. Trelane’s power was frightening in its intensity, all the more frightening because he seemed not to have tempered it with mercy, despite what he had said. He was a tyrant, a bully—like Apollo, but without the need to be worshiped. And Jim was terrified of him.

“Hold on, darlin’,” Bones murmured in his ear. “I’m gonna give you some tri-ox. Okay?”

Still coughing, Jim nodded. Bones pressed a hypo to his shoulder and depressed it gently. The rush of oxygen to Jim’s lungs cleared his head and enabled him to draw in a deep breath. After a moment, he nodded. “I’m okay, Bones,” he murmured. “Thank you.”

Bones leaned over and gave Jim a quick kiss, then helped him to his feet. Trelane was smiling at them beatifically.

_Let me hold on,_ Jim thought. _Please._

“A tour!” Trelane proclaimed. “You must let me show you my delightful home! Since, of course, you are staying.”

None of the _Enterprise_ men said a word. Taking their silence as assent, Trelane began escorting them around the room, enthusiastically pointing out the things he thought they would be interested in. Since these things were all military in nature, none of them were. Jim had always enjoyed the historical aspect of them, but he’d never really thought about them in the sense of their intended use. Being shown fully functional weapons—and expected to admire them as instruments of death rather than as mere historical artifacts—made his blood run cold.

“Can you imagine it, Captain?” Trelane enthused, undaunted. “The thousands—nay, millions—who must have marched off to their deaths beneath these banners? Does it not make your blood run swiftly to think of it?” Evidently overcome by his emotions, he ran to the harpsichord and began playing a gay, military-sounding air. It was an odd choice for the harpsichord and didn’t quite sound right, but it was at least very loud.

Sulu used the cover of the noise to whisper, “Captain, where could he have possibly come from? Who is this maniac?”

“Better to ask _what_ he is,” Bones said in a low voice. “I monitored him. What I found was unbelievable.”

Jim eyed Trelane. “He’s not alive.”

“No, Jim. Not as we define life, anyway. No trace. Zero.”

Chekov visibly shuddered. “You mean—your readings show he is dead?”

“My readings don’t show that he exists at all,” Bones clarified. “Living or dead.”

Fisher indicated the fire with a flick of his finger. “Notice that wood fire, Captain. Burning steadily—embers red and glowing—but it’s not giving off any heat whatsoever.”

Fumbling with his belt, Jim found that he still had his communicator with him. Moving off to one side, he flipped it open. “Kirk to _Enterprise,_ ” he said quietly.

Spock’s voice came through. “ _Enterprise_ here. Captain, are you all right?”

“In a manner of speaking.” In a toneless voice, Jim brought Spock up to date with what was going on.

“Fire without heat,” Spock mused. “It would seem, Captain, that the being mistakes these things it has created for manifestations of present-day Earth. It is as though it is unaware of the time differential.”

“Yes, Mr. Spock. Whatever it is we’re dealing with, it’s clearly not all-knowing. He makes mistakes.”

“And strangely simple ones. He has a flaw, sir.”

“We’ll work on it, Spock. Kirk out.” Jim snapped his communicator closed—and then became aware that the music had stopped. Trelane was watching him with a sly smile.

“Discussing deep-laid plans, I’ll wager.” Trelane’s jovial tone of voice was decidedly at odds with his expression. “I can’t wait to see what you’ve come up with.”

Jim took a firm step forward, back towards his crew. “Trelane, I haven’t planned any—”

Again, the wagging finger stopped him. “Ah, you mustn’t think I deplore your martial acts of deception and stratagem! I have nothing but esteem for your whole species!”

Taking a deep breath, Jim said as evenly as possible, “If your esteem is genuine, then you must also respect our sense of duty. Our ship is in need of us—we have tasks to perform, schedules to honor—”

“Oh, but I couldn’t bear to let you go,” Trelane said with a petulant pout. “I was getting a bit bored before you chanced by. You must stay. I insist.”

“For how long?”

“Until it’s over, of course.”

“Until what’s over?”

Trelane shrugged. “Dear captain, why so many questions? Why worry about an inevitably uncertain future? Enjoy yourself today, my good sir. Tomorrow—why, tomorrow may never come. Indeed, it never does, for when it arrives, it has already become today.”

Jim tried another tack. “Trelane, even if we _wanted_ to stay, our companions back on the ship are missing us.”

“I must try to experience your grief and sorrow at your parting.” Trelane turned back to the harpsichord and began playing—something soppy and sentimental in a mournful minor key. It sounded a bit like Bach.

“My son and daughter are waiting for—” Jim began without thinking.

“Daughter!” The harpsichord hit a discordant jangle as Trelane stalled in the middle of a passage. He jumped to his feet, clapping his hands with delight. “You don’t mean that you actually have a member of the fair sex on board your ship!”

“She’s _four,_ ” Bones said angrily, speaking for the first time in a while.

Trelane ignored him. “How charming! No doubt she is _very_ beautiful. And I shall be so very gallant to her! Here, let me fetch her down at once!”

He had actually raised his hand when Jim darted forward and caught it. “ _No!_ ” he said sharply.

“No?” Trelane repeated.

“Absolutely not,” Jim snapped. “This game has gone on long enough! You can’t just remove my daughter from—”

Trelane stamped his foot, and again, it put Jim in mind of Addie. “I can do anything I want! I thought you would have realized that by now!”

“Not this, you can’t.”

“Captain!” Sulu said urgently. “I’m picking up a transporter signal!”

Trelane wrung his hands. “What does he mean? You must tell me!”

“It means the party’s over, thanks to Mr. Spock. That’s what it means!” Jim signaled for the others to take up their positions. They fanned out, Fisher and Bones to his left, Sulu and Chekov to the right.

“Wait! What are you doing?” Trelane rushed towards them. “I haven’t dismissed you. Stop this! I won’t stand for it!”

Jim exhaled in relief as Trelane’s world vanished, to be replaced by the transporter room, and he saw Spock and Kyle in place of the mad squire. “Captain, are you all right?”

Since Jim had no idea how to answer that, he stepped off the platform. “Report, Mr. Spock. How were the scanners able to penetrate that planet’s radiation field?”

“They didn’t, sir. Not clearly. We simply beamed up all available life-forms in a given area.”

“Jim, that just confirms what I said,” Bones put in. “Trelane is not a life-form as we know it, or he’d be coming through the transporter right now.”

Jim nodded, then snapped out orders as he strode for the door. “Prepare to warp out at once! Maximum safe speed! Everyone to stations!”

To his surprise, Slim and Addie were on the bridge, the latter in her new blue mock-uniform dress. She was the first to notice Jim and the others and called out impudently, “Cap’n on bridge!”

“Oh, who taught her that?” Jim groaned under his breath. He tugged her long ponytail as he passed, making her giggle, then sat down and hit the intercom. “Scotty! I want every ounce of power your engines have! We’re going to put a hundred million miles between us and that madman down there.”

“Aye, sir. Welcome back, Captain.”

Bones was staring at his hands. “I’m quaking,” he said softly. “Jim, I’m quaking—but I don’t know if it’s with laughter or terror!”

Jim reached over and took Bones’ hand in his. They’d joked for years about how he had the _steadiest hands on the ship,_ but there was no doubt he was shaking now. Uhura looked up from her console, her eyes going from Jim to Bones to Spock. “What was it? What’s down there on Gothos?”

“Something I hope I forget to tell my grandchildren about,” Bones muttered.

Addie suddenly gasped with delight. “Look!” she cried.

Jim whirled around to find Trelane standing next to the lift, resplendent in uniform, a scabbard for a sabre attached to his cummerbund, hands clasped behind his back as he took in every detail of the bridge. At last, he spoke. “But where are all the weapons? Don’t you display your weapons?”

Slowly, Jim rose to his feet. Trelane made a gesture of vague benevolence. “Don’t fret, Captain. I’m only a little upset with you.” Glancing around the bridge at the personnel, he added, “This Mr. Spock you mentioned—the one responsible for the imprudent act of taking you from me. Which is he, Captain?”

Spock took a half-step forward—a step, Jim noticed, that put him between Trelane and Uhura. “I am Mr. Spock.”

“Surely you are not an _officer,_ ” Trelane said. He turned to Jim in astonishment; Jim couldn’t tell if it was an act or not. “He isn’t quite human, is he?”

“My father is from the planet Vulcan,” Spock said, lifting one eyebrow.

“Are its natives predatory?”

“Not specifically.”

Trelane gestured dismissively. “No, I should think not.” Turning back to Jim, he added, “You _will_ see to his punishment?”

“On the contrary, I commend his action,” Jim said coldly.

Again, Trelane pouted. “But I don’t like him.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Jim saw Addie open her mouth and Slim casually reach over to put a hand over her mouth. Tonelessly, he said, “Trelane, get off my ship. I’ve had enough of you.”

“Nonsense. You’re all coming back with me.”

“We’re not going anywhere!” Jim shouted, losing his hold on his control. “This ship is leaving here whether you—”

“Fiddle-dee-dee,” Trelane interrupted. “I have a perfectly enchanting sojourn on Gothos planned for you and I won’t have you ruin it.” He raised a hand. “The decor of my drawing room is far more appropriate…”

The bridge of the _Enterprise_ disappeared, to be replaced by Trelane’s drawing room. Chekov and Sulu, looking bewildered, were seated at a table laden with food Jim couldn’t even begin to identify. Uhura sat at the harpsichord rather than her communications board, Spock standing at her shoulder. And Trelane completed his thought. “…and much more tasteful, don’t you think?”

Sulu looked around, his expression one of mild disgust. “No.”

Addie, however, was staring around the room with wide eyes and parted lips. “Daddy,” she half-whispered, sounding overawed. “Are we in a _castle?_ ”

The question obviously delighted Trelane, who lit up. “Ah, you truly feel the splendor of my humble abode is equal to that of royalty? I am honored!” He paused, his attention caught by his reflection in the mirror, and he took the time to admire himself in his ridiculous attire.

Slim snorted in obvious disgust. “You _would_ be. Tory.”

Jim shot Slim a questioning look. Trelane eyed Slim for a minute, scowling, then suddenly resumed his gay and cheerful air. “Come, everyone! Let us forget your bad manners! Let us be full of merry talk and sallies of wit! See, here are victuals to delight the palate and brave company to delight the mind!” Pouring brandy from a crystal decanter into square-cut glasses, he began distributing drinks to the men.

Catching his men’s looks, Jim said in a low voice, “Play along—that’s an order!”

Chekov and Sulu began halfheartedly picking at the food. As Jim moved towards the table with the others, he also watched Trelane, wondering exactly what sort of being he was. He seemed simple enough, but his actions spoke of unimaginable power. He was vain, silly, overbearing…but he gave no sign of his intelligence in his face. Indeed, he seemed more pompous than ever as he turned to Jim. “Captain, I fear you have been derelict in your social duty. You have not yet introduced me to the fairer contingent of your crew.”

Stiffly, Jim glanced at Addie and Uhura. “This is—General Trelane.”

“Retired,” Trelane corrected him. “However if you prefer, ladies, you may address me as simply the lonely Squire of Gothos.”

“This lady is Nyota Uhura, our senior communications officer,” Jim said, continuing with the introductions.

Trelane got to his feet and bowed over her hand. “A Nubian prize, eh, Captain? Taken on one of your raids of conquest, no doubt.”

Uhura looked like she would have liked nothing better than to punch Trelane in the face. Slim spoke mildly from his seat, but Jim had seen the flash in his eyes. “Hardly. The Lady Uhura is a peeress in her own right.”

“Ah?” Trelane looked delighted and humbled simultaneously, and swiftly dropped Uhura’s hand. “My apologies, Lady Uhura, for my boldness and forwardness.”

“Apology accepted, but only for touching me.” Uhura’s voice was colder than her eyes.

As brashly melodramatic as ever, Trelane turned to Addie. “And this fair lady?” Clasping his hands to his bosom, he declaimed theatrically, “‘Is this the face that launched a thousand ships / And burnt the topless towers of Ilium? / Fair Helen, make me immortal with a kiss!’”

Addie giggled, ducking her head in delight, and swept into the most elegant curtsy she could make in her short skirt. Suppressing a shudder—at what, he hardly knew—Jim said quickly, “This is my daughter, Athena Kirk-McCoy, and my son, Thomas Kirk. You’ve met my science officer, Mr. Spock.”

Trelane eyed Spock up and down. “You realize, of course, that it is only out of deference to your captain that I have brought you down.”

“Acknowledged,” Spock said blandly.

“I don’t think I like your tone.” The words were Trelane’s, but Jim found a mocking echo of his own voice in the man’s and frowned, trying to figure out why. “It sounds most challenging. Is that what you’re doing—challenging me?”

“I _object_ to you,” Spock told him. “I object to intellect without discipline—to power without purpose.”

“Why, Mr. Spock, you _do_ have a saving grace!” Trelane said delightedly. “You’re quite rude—the human half of you, no doubt. But come, we waste time.” He bowed deeply, holding out his hand to Addie. “Come, my wood nymph! Dance with your swain! And you, my lady, play us some sprightly music, if you please!”

Addie giggled and accepted Trelane’s hand. Uhura was still frowning. “I don’t know how to play this instrument.”

“Of course you do!” Trelane put his hand on Addie’s waist. Oddly, although he had previously appeared to be close to Jim’s height, he now seemed shorter—a much better match for Addie, who was able to reach up and put her hand on his shoulder without too much difficulty.

Uhura glanced at Jim, then turned to the harpsichord. When she put her hands to the keys, she let out a brief cry of surprise as lilting chamber music rippled from the instrument—a sprightly waltz. Addie’s face glowed as she delightedly whirled around the floor with Trelane.

“Captain, how far do we go along with this charade?” Sulu asked in a low voice.

“Until we can think of a way out of here,” Jim replied, his eyes on his daughter. “Meanwhile, we’ll just have to accept his hospitality.”

“Hospitality!” Bones snorted, setting down his plate. “Jim, you should try this food—like eating straw and grass. And this ‘brandy’—filtered water has more taste than this. Nothing he serves here has any taste at all.”

“Food that has no flavor. Drink that has no taste. Fire that has no heat,” Spock said meditatively. “Added all up, it seems to suggest that although Trelane has much knowledge of Earth’s forms, he knows nothing of its substance.”

“And if he’s that fallible, he can’t be all-powerful,” Jim agreed. “Which means he must have something helping him.”

“I agree, sir.”

“A machine. A device—something that does these things for him?” Jim frowned as Trelane stopped his carousing to admire himself and Addie in the mirror.

“Ah, my dear, don’t we make a graceful pair—except for one small detail,” Trelane said. “That dress you wear hardly fits this charming scene!”

His eyes fixed on the mirror, he raised his hand again. Addie vanished—but before Jim could cry out, she was back, in a whole new outfit. She wore a billowing gown of blue silk that brought out the color of her eyes, trimmed with satin and lace and flowers. Her hair was tied back with a matching ribbon, and she wore a beautiful necklace wrought with sapphires and diamonds, matching bracelets on her wrists below a pair of white satin gloves. A golden tiara studded with the same gems completed the ensemble.

“Now that’s more what we want!” Trelane shouted. “I, the dashing warrior—and you, his gallant lady!”

Addie’s eyes widened with delight when she saw her reflection. “I’m a princess!” she gasped. Turning to Trelane, she swept her skirts back and sank into an elegant curtsy. The effect was a stunning one—spoiled only slightly when she looked up at him and wrinkled her nose in delight.

Trelane bowed to her deeply, his nose practically touching the floor, then shouted, “Play on!”

Bones’ voice was tight as he watched Trelane and Addie whirling around the dance floor once more. “Three thousand years ago, he’d have been another god—a little god of war.” He gave a bitter, humorless laugh. “How surprised the ancients would have been to see—not a grim-faced warrior—but a strutting dandy, a peacock spreading his tail before a mirror!”

Slim was frowning thoughtfully at the pair. Jim shot him a look, then said slowly, “Mirror. That mirror is a part of his audience. It’s a piece of his ego. He never wanders far from it.”

“Is it ego?” Spock asked. “Or is it something else?”

“Explain.”

“The mirror,” Spock said, as if that explained everything.

Jim took a deep breath, hoping to still his erratically-beating heart. “What about it?”

“As you say, sir,” Spock said, lifting an eyebrow again, “he never goes very far from it. It could be simple vanity, I suppose.”

“No, Mr. Spock,” Jim said. Understanding began to dawn on him. “He _is_ vain—but mere vanity couldn’t explain his dependence on that mirror.” He paused, looking around him. “What kind of machine could do these things?”

“A very sophisticated one,” Spock replied. “In addition to the power to create matter from energy, to guide its shape and motion by thought waves, it would have to have a vast memory bank.”

“Like a computer. Could a machine small enough to be contained in this room have enough power to maintain this atmosphere, this house?”

Slim seemed to pull himself away from the dance and into the conversation. “I don’t think so. Microization is a wonderful thing and all, but it still only stretches so far. There was a time when something that needed this much memory would’ve taken up practically the whole damn planet. Now…well, we can get five terabytes of information into a storage bank the size of a standard deck of playing cards. Still, though, something this impressive, you’d need enough of those decks to fill this room floor to ceiling. And that’s just for the memory banks—it ain’t— _isn’t_ taking into account the machinery you’d have to build around it.”

“Good,” Jim said with a quick nod. “I agree. And that leaves me…free…”

Spock and Bones exchanged glances. “Free to do what, Captain?”

“Free to do something that will seem very strange to you, Mr. Spock. Don’t think the strain has got to me. I know exactly what I’m doing.”

“If you were trying to ease _my_ mind, Jim, that was not the way to do it,” Bones muttered. “What _are_ you doing?”

For the first time since arriving on the planet, Jim grinned as a plan unfolded in his mind. “I am going to turn the lights off at their source.”

He fell silent for a moment, waiting until Trelane waltzed by with Addie. Then, in a louder voice than normal, he said, “Nobody is to be alarmed by what you see or hear. I am addressing my own crew. The actions of this being are those of an immature, unbalanced mind!”

Trelane stopped his prancing about immediately. “I overheard that last remark, Captain. I’m afraid I shall have to dispense with you.”

“You only heard half of it,” Jim said firmly. “I’m only getting started, Trelane!”

“Oh?” Trelane’s eyes brightened with curiosity.

“Yes,” Jim told him. “I want you to leave my crewmen alone. _And my children, too!”_ Taking a step closer, he picked Addie up at the waist and whirled around, setting her on her feet again before frowning at her sternly. “You’re not to dance with him anymore. I don’t like it.”

Addie’s eyes got huge, and her lower lip began to tremble, the way it had when he’d told her the tribbles had to go. Jim plucked the tiara from her hair, then pulled off the bracelets, taking the gloves with them. Tears welled up in Addie’s eyes. “Daddy, please,” she begged.

Trelane gave a hearty chortle. “Ah, I do believe the good captain fears my intentions!”

“Believe what you like,” Jim said shortly. “Just keep your hands off her.”

“How curiously human,” Trelane said, staring at Jim. “How wonderfully barbaric!”

Something rose up in Jim—primitive feelings of protectiveness. This was his baby girl, after all, and for a moment, he found himself forgetting that she _was_ only four and Trelane was an alien being with the appearance of a man in his twenties. No longer completely acting, he said, “I’ve had enough of your attentions to her.”

“Of course you have.” Trelane seemed inordinately happy with the news. “After all, this is the way of things—men challenge one another for the affection of the women, and—”

Jim raised the glove he’d taken from Addie and slapped Trelane across the face with it. “If fighting is what you want, then you’ll have it!”

Trelane actually jumped with delight. “You mean—you’re challenging me to a duel? This is even better than I had planned! I shall not shirk an affair of honor!” Practically skipping over to the fireplace where the weapons hung, he picked up the gleaming box and opened it, revealing a pair of silver pistols that reminded Jim far too much of the Colt .45s from the O.K. Corral.

“A matched set,” Trelane said proudly. “A fine matched set of dueling pistols!” He lifted one of them from the case, pointed it at Jim’s head, and said, “Captain, it may interest you to know that I never miss my target.”

He moved aside to take up his position, checking the mechanism of his pistol as he did so. Bones moved closer. “Jim—”

“It’s okay, Bones.” Jim gave his husband a quick, reassuring smile that didn’t fool the doctor in the slightest.

“Dad, I ought to be the one doing this,” Slim protested, putting one hand lightly on Addie’s head. “After all, Ad—Athena is my sister, and the good Squire and I are closer to being of an age.” He put a barely detectable level of sarcasm on the word _good_.

“Yeah, but you’re not his peer,” Sulu murmured. “You can’t challenge him to a duel. It’s not done.”

“Ah, you have made a study of the culture, Honored Sir!” Trelane beamed, obviously having overheard the whole exchange.

Jim waved his men off, hoping to keep them out of the line of fire. _I know what I’ll have to put in the ship’s logs,_ he thought to himself. _Weaponless, powerless—our only hope of escape with the_ Enterprise _is to play the games of the idiot of Gothos. I just hope Nylund isn’t the one who pulls them._ He looked up to find an expression of rapture on his adversary’s face.

“Fascinating!” he cried. “I stand upon a Field of Honor. I am party to an actual human duel!”

“Are you ready, Trelane?” Jim called.

“Quite ready, Captain,” Trelane trilled back. “We shall test each other’s courage, and then—we shall see…”

_Maybe I’ll get lucky and these will be as much smoke and mirrors as the Earps’ bullets were,_ Jim thought. He began to raise his pistol.

“Wait!” Trelane cried. “As the one challenged, I claim the right of the first shot!”

“We shoot _together,_ ” Jim said sharply. He knew enough about duels to know that.

Again came the pout. “It’s _my_ game—and _my_ rules.” Raising his gun, Trelane pointed it straight at Bones, who didn’t flinch. “But if you need some additional persuasion…”

Jim’s heart rate accelerated, but he forced himself to remain calm. “All right. You shoot first.”

“Jim—” Bones protested again.

But Jim had already lowered his weapon, under the theory that when dealing with a moral idiot, it was morally idiotic to take heroic stands. His head was held high and his dignity matchless. Trelane evidently craved some of that heroic limelight, because he suddenly raised his arm, firing into the ceiling rather than at Jim. Addie let out a scream, pressed the back of her hand to her forehead, and swooned dramatically into Slim’s arms. Jim didn’t even have time to think about being worried before Slim had unceremoniously pushed her back to her feet and she opened her eyes, which sparkled above her dimpled grin. It was all just a game to her, too.

Trelane seemed so enraptured by the glory of the picture in his head that he couldn’t contain his pleasure. “And now, Captain, I am—as you say it—in your hands.” As dramatically as Addie’s swoon, he closed his eyes and tore his shirt open, baring his chest to whatever Fate had in store for him.

But Jim had read the Discworld books, every last one of them, and he knew something Trelane did not: in the great Game played by the gods, Fate played with loaded dice, and always won—unless the Lady was in the game.

Instead of shooting at Trelane, Jim swung his pistol up, sighted down the barrel, and fired straight into the center of the mirror. The glass shattered, and an explosive tangle of circuitry and wires erupted from behind it. Something flashed, hissing viciously, spitting blue sparks.

Trelane shrieked loudly. “What have you done?” He ran to the mirror and screamed again, “What have you _done?_ ”

“The machine of power,” Spock said quietly.

Above them, the candles in the chandeliers flickered out and died. The fire in the hearth died out, trailing smoke without heat as a grey twilight filled the room. Addie looked around her, her eyes big and full of sorrow again.

“You’ve ruined _everything!_ ” Trelane wailed. He sat down at the harpsichord and banged his elbows on it, resulting in a discordant jangle.

“Keptin!” Chekov said, the first word he had spoken since they had beamed down. “Ze subspace interference is clearing!”

“Contact the ship,” Jim ordered.

Trelane raised his eyes. He looked torn between anger and— _was_ it admiration? The man, if man he was, went for an objective remark. “The remarkable treachery of the human species…” Standing, he crossed over to the cracked, charred remains of his mirror.

Jim watched him. “Go on, Trelane. Look at it! It’s over! Your power is blanked out! You’re finished!”

Trelane turned to face Jim again, and this time Jim got the impression that the look on his face was the genuine one—for the first time, he was not confined by his theatrical nature. “You have earned my wrath,” he said somberly. “Go back to your ship! Go back to it! Then prepare yourselves for death! All of you are dead men…especially you, Captain Kirk!”

He strode towards the mirror. Jim followed him, but just as Trelane reached the burnt-out mirror, he vanished—leaving Jim to pull up short against a blank wall.

Whirling back to his men, he said firmly, “Everyone, we’re getting out of here—and _now!_ ” He flipped open his communicator and shouted, “ _Enterprise,_ this is the captain! Beam us aboard at maximum speed!”

They barely had time to get into proper position before the transporter beam grabbed them and deposited them on the ship near-instantly. Barely pausing, Jim headed off for the bridge at the same speed, trusting that everyone would follow him. Once he was back in his chair, he reached for the intercom. “Scotty, full power acceleration from orbit!”

“Full power, sir!” came the reply. The ship leapt forward, and the crescent of Gothos began falling away rapidly.

“Set course for Colony Beta Six, Mr. Sulu,” Jim said.

“Laid in, sir,” Sulu replied.

“Warp factor one at earliest possible moment.”

“Standing by to warp.”

Uhura had seated herself at her panels already. “Shall I send a full report to Starfleet Command, Captain?”

Jim frowned. “No, not until we’re well out of his range. Our beam might be traced.”

“Can we know what his range is, Captain?” Spock asked.

“We can make an educated guess,” Jim said, getting up and crossing to his friend’s station. He studied the maps, then pointed. “This is where we first detected his system.”

He was turning back to his chair when he noticed Addie, still wearing the flounced and flowered silk dress. He had to admit that it suited her, and if the stones on her necklace were real, they would be, if nothing else, a good nest egg when she went to start at the Academy, should she decide to sell them. But it also made her look altogether too grown up, and that wasn’t something he was ready for.

Slim noticed his father’s expression, then glanced down and started. “Addie,” he said gently, “now that the ball’s over, how ‘bout you go change, huh?”

“But I was having fun,” Addie protested. “I want to wear it some more.”

Jim nodded. “Okay, Addie.” They’d have to take it later for analysis, he thought. Maybe while she was sleeping he could borrow it. He turned back to the screen and watched Gothos get smaller and smaller until it vanished completely.

“Still no sign of pursuit, sir,” Uhura said, sounding relieved. “Instruments clear.”

The door to the bridge slid open at that point and Nic’tlarn stepped in, Jame perched on xyr hip. Xe looked slightly startled at the sight of Addie, but recovered admirably. “My lady,” xe said, bowing as well as xe could with Jame in xyr arms. “As you are dressed for it so well, perhaps you would be willing to join me for afternoon tea?”

Addie swept her skirts back in another curtsy, leading Jim to wonder anew where she’d learned it. “Charmed, I’m sure,” she said with an impish grin.

“Ready to lay in for warp,” Sulu said.

At the exact same instant, however, Chekov shouted, “Screen, sir! Large body ahead!”

Jim whirled around. The screen, which had been blank mere seconds before, now showed a terrifyingly familiar crescent. There was a tenseness in Chekov’s shoulders as he cried, “Collision course!”

“Helm hard a-port!” Jim snapped out, his lips pressed tightly together.

The bridge crew braced themselves, gripping onto solid structures as the effects of the ship’s turn made themselves felt. Nic’tlarn held Addie’s hand tightly and clutched Jame close, widening xyr stance and keeping xyr feet without much apparent difficulty. The planet loomed closer, then suddenly slid away as the ship banked to the left.

“Zat was ze planet Gothos,” Chekov said, his voice shaking.

Jim strode over to the helm. “Mr. Sulu, were we going in circles?”

“No, sir!” Sulu sounded stunned. “Instruments show on course…”

“Gothos again, sir! Dead ahead!” Chekov cried out

Sulu didn’t need to be told what to do this time. He turned right this time, and everyone again staggered or clung to their panels, but Gothos, far from getting smaller, got bigger. Sulu twisted the ship again, and as Gothos momentarily disappeared, Spock observed, “A cat-and-mouse game.”

“With Trelane as the cat,” Jim muttered grimly.

Chekov had evidently gone through his terror and come out the other side emotionally drained. Quietly, he said, “Zere it is again, Keptin…”

The planet loomed before them, red and steaming like a boil. It was as though the planet was tied to Trelane’s moods—which might well have been the case—and reflected his anger to the heavens. Jim ordered more evasive maneuvers, to no avail.

“Complete turn, Captain, but it’s no use!” Sulu sounded terrified. “We’re still accelerating towards the planet!”

“Or it towards us,” Spock said in a voice as dry as the desert sands.

Jim stared at the screen for a long moment, his temper rising. “That’s _it,_ ” he finally shouted. “We will decelerate into orbit! We will return to orbit! Prepare transporter room!”

Bones spoke for the first time since returning to the ship. “You’re not going down there, Captain! You can’t do it, Jim!”

“I _am_ going down there, Dr. McCoy,” Jim said, turning to face his husband and hating the worry in his eyes, hating that he was putting it there. “And I _am_ going to delight my eyes with the sight of our whimsical General Trelane. And—”

“You’re going to say you’re sorry.”

Addie’s voice, more severe than he’d ever heard it, brought Jim up short. He, along with everyone else, turned to see the little girl standing just inside the doors to the lift, scowling at him with her arms folded across her chest. It was like seeing a female Bones in miniature, except the dress probably wouldn’t have worked on Bones.

“What?” he managed, his train of thought derailed.

Addie actually shook her finger at him. “You _broke_ his _toy_. That’s not nice. You’re not s’pposed to break other people’s crations unless they say it’s okay, and you didn’t ask first. So you go say you’re sorry, Daddy, and help him fix it.” With that, she turned around and followed Nic’tlarn into the lift. The doors closed soundlessly behind her.

Silence reigned for a minute before Bones broke it. “What the hell was that all about?”

“They were building with blocks a couple days ago,” Slim said quietly. “Jame’s starting to figure out that sort of thing. Addie was playing monsters—you know, buildin’ cities and then kickin’ ‘em over—and she knocked over Jame’s too. When Jame started cryin’, that’s what Nico told Addie—that she’s not allowed to destroy other people’s creations unless they say it’s okay—and xe made her help Jame fix it.”

“That doesn’t really apply here, Slim,” Jim said wearily. Something nagged in the back of his mind, but he pushed it aside and turned back to Bones. “If I have to wring Trelane’s neck to get him to let my ship go…”

He didn’t finish his sentence. He didn’t need to. Bones stepped forward and folded him into his arms, holding him tightly. “I’m going with you.”

“No, Bones, I need you to stay here. Please.” Jim tightened his hold on Bones, just for a minute, then kissed him softly and pulled away. In the door to the lift, he paused and looked at Spock. “Mr. Spock, stand by communicators. If there is no message from me in one hour, leave this vicinity. At once. Without any sentimental turning back for me.”

Despite the stricken look on Bones’ face, there was something comforting in Spock’s quiet, solemn nod.

The transporter beamed him back down to the exact same location as he had come from, but the decor had changed. Instead of an opulent drawing-room, the space was cold, austere, and nearly devoid of furnishings. The walls were a kind of pale whitish-grey, and a dark wooden banister ran the circumference of the room. Something about the space suggested to Jim that there ought to have been benches of some kind, perhaps with an aisle down the middle, but the floor was only bare, swept stone. The mirror was back, off to one side, and protected by a heavy mesh screen. Along the back wall there was a shadow—the image of a gallows, dark and foreboding. Jim ignored it.

A heavily ominous voice from behind him said, “The prisoner may approach the bench.”

Turning around, Jim saw Trelane, who stood behind a high podium of the same polished dark wood as the banister. He had shed his beloved military uniform and the air of the dandy he’d had about him before, and instead wore flowing black silk robes and the curled white periwig of an English high judge. He was writing something with a quill pen—Jim didn’t know his feathers all that well, but he guessed it was probably a goose feather—on something that at least gave the appearance of parchment. The shadowy noose seemed to move away from the wall, logic be damned, and hang over Jim.

“Trelane…” he began.

“Any attempt at demonstrations will weigh against you with the court,” Trelane interrupted in a solemn, ponderous voice. “And this time my instrumentality is unbreakable, Captain Kirk.”

“My neck seems to be threatened by your court, Trelane.” Jim glanced contemptuously at the noose. It didn’t seem substantial, but he had no idea what Trelane was actually capable of. Pushing the thought from his mind, he added, “And your neck—is it so very safe?”

A flicker of irritation passed over Trelane’s face. “The absurdity of inferior beings!” He picked up the parchment. “And now, Captain James Kirk, you stand accused of the high crimes of treason, of conspiracy, of attempt to foment insurrection. How do you plead?” Reaching up to adjust the wig—it must have been itching him—he added, “I must warn you that anything you say has already been taken down in evidence against you.”

Jim was about to scold, to argue, to demand the return of his ship, when Addie’s scowl and wagging finger popped into his mind. Taking a deep breath, he decided to try it her way. “Trelane, I apologize for breaking your mirror.”

Trelane stopped, as though he honestly hadn’t expected Jim to say that. “You— _apologize—_?”

“I had no right to destroy your—creation—without your permission,” Jim said, swallowing the bile rising in his throat, “and I apologize. I’ll gladly help you fix it—”

“And did you really think I wouldn’t have more mediums of instrumentality at my command?” Trelane demanded. He had evidently recovered himself. “This court has no choice in fixing punishment. You will hang by the neck until you are dead, dead, dead. Have you any last request?”

Jim had to stop himself from retorting _Yeah—notheplugth would be nithe!_ Instead, he laughed. “If you think I’m going to stick my head in a noose—”

Trelane’s hand moved. Jim found himself standing under the gallows. Its noose was real, heavy and rough, and had somehow looped itself around his throat. Panic started to rise up from Jim’s chest, and he fought to keep a clear head and hold onto his wits. Trelane was eying him plaintively as he reached for a black executioner’s mask. “This really is becoming tiresome. It’s much to easy.”

It suddenly occurred to Jim that his hands weren’t tied. He grabbed the noose and ripped it over his head, shoving it to one side. “Easy!” he shouted. “That’s your whole problem, Trelane! Everything comes too easy to you! You don’t ever have to _think—_ so you lose opportunities. You’re enjoying your sense of power right now—but the chance to experience something really unique? You’re wasting it! Where’s the sport in a simple hanging? In making a rope do your work for you?”

“Sport?” Trelane echoed. The grave expression dropped off of his face, replaced with a kind of unholy glee. Clapping his hands with delight—an absurdity when contrasted with the periwig and robes—he exclaimed, “Oh, I am intrigued! Go on, Captain. What do you suggest?”

“A personal conflict between us…with the stakes a human life— _mine!_ ” Jim wasn’t sure what Trelane would come up with, or if he’d be able to do it, but he was willing to try. Even if he failed, he was willing to do whatever it took to save his ship.

“What a truly inspired idea! We need something more fanciful—a truly royal hunt, perhaps.” Trelane gestured, and the pseudo-courtroom vanished, replaced with a verdant woodland scene straight out of _Robin Hood._ His judicial garments were gone, too, replaced with a bright red coat, white breeches, leggings, and sensible shoes. Instead of a gun—luckily for Jim—he had a sword, which he whipped from its scabbard and used to gesture to the woods around them. “You go out and hide from me. In the forest…anywhere you like…and I will seek you out with this! How does that strike you, Captain? Truly sporting?”

“Yes,” Jim replied, suddenly aware of how the fox must have felt in _Mary Poppins._ “But you must make the game worth _my_ while. While we play it, free my ship.”

Trelane sniffed. “Always back to your ship. Oh, very well. If it will lend spice to the pursuit…”

Jim bolted, trusting that Trelane would do what he said. So far, he had to admit that there was a certain honesty about the mad Squire of Gothos; when he said he would do something, he didn’t back out on it. He pulled up in a copse of vivid green shrubbery and flipped out his communicator. Desperately, he shouted, “ _Enterprise! Enterprise,_ can you hear me? Get the ship away fast! Fast as you can! I’ll try to gain you the time you need—”

Trelane suddenly burst through the copse, slashing at leaves with his sword. “Aha!” he shouted. “I see you!”

Jim dove to the side and rolled down a small hill. The sword flashed over his head, missing him by inches, but in his mad scramble for the shelter of a heavy-trunked tree, he dropped his communicator.

“You must try harder, Captain!” The sword poked Jim’s shoulder lightly.

Jumping to his feet, Jim ripped a branch from the tree he was trying to hide behind and slammed it into Trelane’s shoulder, forcing him to drop the sword. He scooped the blade up, grabbed it in a way that probably would have given Sulu fits, and slashed at Trelane with all his strength.

It passed harmlessly through him, as if he were no more substantial than flame and air. Jim stared, dread seeping through him, but Trelane seemed unfazed. “ _Touche,_ Captain. I confess that you’ve scored first. However, I have never played this game before…”

He vanished. Jim didn’t dare hope he’d manage to dissipate the spirit, or whatever Trelane was. Instead, he turned, caught sight of the light slanting through the trees and glinting off a metallic object, and dove for his communicator. Rolling under the screen of the bush, he gasped out, “ _Enterprise—_ ”

“ _En garde!”_

Trelane suddenly reappeared, brandishing his sword—Jim honestly hadn’t realized he’d let go of it. He tucked and rolled out from under the slash, popped up to his feet, and bolted for the twin stone griffons he could see flanking the steps leading to an ornate wooden door.

“Tallyho!” shouted Trelane. He sounded as though he was right behind Jim.

Jim turned to zag to his right—and found his way suddenly blocked by a stone wall. Wheeling about, he found another wall blocking his path to the left. To the front of him was nothing more than the stone wall of Trelane Hall, and when Jim turned around, Trelane was advancing towards him. Jim backed up against the building.

Trelane looked triumphant as he advanced towards Jim. “Ah, Captain, you made a noble fight of it!” Grinning, he pointed his sword directly at Jim. “But you are beaten. Down, Captain. Down on your knees to me.”

It would be a cold day in hell before Jim knelt to this idiot. Despite the point of the sword resting lightly against his throat, he said coldly, “You have won nothing.”

“I have! I could run you through!” Trelane drew back the sword, clearly intending to strike. “Down on your knees now! I order it!”

He thrust his arm forward in a downward sweep, but Jim, veteran of more than a few bar fights, was faster. He caught Trelane’s arm, jostling the sword loose, and managed to catch the hilt before it hit the ground. Sending a swift mental apology to his daughter, Jim brought up his knee and snapped the blade in half over it.

“You broke it!” Trelane wailed. “You broke my sword! But I won’t have it! I’ll blast you out of existence with a wave of my hand!”

Tossing aside the pieces of the sword, Jim swung his arm and caught Trelane an open-handed slap across his cheek. Trelane looked shocked and angry. Leaping back, he shrieked, “I’ll do you for that!”

A phaser suddenly appeared in his hand. He squeezed the trigger. Jim’s eyes locked on the color of the beam and knew, with dread certainty, that it was on the “kill” setting. He forced his eyes to stay open, hoping and praying that Spock had got the _Enterprise_ —and his family—safely away…

And then, suddenly, a woman’s voice called from out of nowhere, “Trelane!”

“No! No!” Dropping the phaser an instant before it fired, Trelane whirled around and dashed back the way he had come. Two orbs of light had suddenly appeared just beyond the walls trapping Jim, orbs that made him shield his eyes. “No! Go away! You said I could have this planet for my very own! You _said!_ ”

Jim lowered his hand. His eyes had adjusted enough that he was able to make out the two orbs, one slightly smaller than the other, both sparkling with an iridescent light. Trelane stood beneath them, arms akimbo. “You always stop me just when I’m having fun!”

“If you cannot take care of your pets, then you cannot have any pets,” the woman’s voice said, seeming to emanate out of the empty air.

The walls had vanished; Jim was able to move forward and see that Trelane had stuck out his lower lip in a petulant pout, two big tears standing in his eyes, exactly the way Addie had looked at him when he told her that she couldn’t keep Fizzgig. “But you saw! I was winning! I would have won! I would, I would, I _would!”_

Even as he whimpered, he was growing smaller, more indistinct. At last, he vanished altogether, leaving an emptiness in the air.

Jim looked up at the sky in bewilderment. “Where are you?” he called up. “Who is Trelane, and who are you?”

“You must forgive our child,” the woman’s voice said. “The fault is ours for overindulging him. He will be properly punished.”

“We would not have let him intercept you had we realized your vulnerability,” added a new voice. This one was a man’s voice, stern and deep, and something in the tone reminded Jim of Bones a little bit. “Forgive us, Captain. We will maintain your life-support conditions while you return to your ship. Please accept our apologies.”

Jim held out his hands pleadingly to the two orbs, guessing it was from there that the voices came. “Can’t you tell me—” he began, but even as he spoke, the orbs vanished, leaving him standing alone and helplessly confused. After a moment, he took a deep breath and lifted his communicator to his lips. “Captain to _Enterprise._ Captain calling the _Enterprise…_ ”

“Captain, we are receiving you.” Spock’s voice had never been so welcome as it was in that instant.

“Beam me aboard, Mr. Spock. We’re free to leave.”

As the transporter beam surrounded him, Jim took one last look around at the marvelous greenery, the two stone griffons, the solitary beauty. Several things about the conversation were niggling at him, but he wasn’t sure if he’d ever be able to put it together properly.

Bones was waiting for him when he arrived. Wordlessly, he held out his arms and pulled Jim into a tight embrace. Jim hugged him back for a minute, grateful for the opportunity, then pulled back. “C’mon, Bones, let’s get back to the bridge and get the hell out of here.”

Gothos was already disappearing as they reached the bridge. Spock and Slim were deep in conversation, which they broke off as soon as they saw Jim. Spock moved towards him. “Since you said we were free to go, sir, I took the liberty of ordering our course set for Colony Beta Six as soon as you were safely aboard.”

“Thank you, Mr. Spock,” Jim said with a nod as he took his seat.

“I shall enter our…experience…into the ship’s computer, Captain,” Spock said, “if you would be so kind as to describe how you were able to gain us our freedom.”

Jim gave it his best shot, describing the ridiculous scenario Trelane had cooked up and the orbs of light that had intervened at the end. Spock raised an eyebrow. “Fascinating. So, then, Captain, how should General, or Squire, Trelane be described? Pure mentality? A force of intellect? Embodied energy? He must be classified, sir.”

“Certainly,” Jim said thoughtfully. “Everything must be classified—or else where would we be? A god of war, perhaps?”

“I hardly think so, Captain.”

Jim looked up at Slim, whose eyes were narrowed in concentration. Suddenly, the young man’s features shifted into a look of understanding. At the same instant, the final pieces clicked into place, and Jim smiled. “Or…a small boy, Mr. Spock. And a very naughty one at that.”

Spock blinked. “It would make for a very strange entry in the ship’s logs, sir.”

“Well, he was a very strange little boy,” Jim pointed out.

“Oh, I don’t know about that, Dad.” Slim folded his arms over his chest. It was amazing how much he looked like Bones, considering they weren’t actually related at all. “I couldn’t figure out why he seemed so familiar, but he really wasn’t any different than Addie, was he? ‘S why they got along so well. They’re just a couple of little kids with overactive imaginations, that’s all. I bet it wouldn’t have hurt you if he’d stabbed you or hanged you, not for real. It was all a game to him.”

“I’m glad that wasn’t something you had the chance to test,” Bones said softly, brushing his hand across Jim’s shoulder.

Jim reached up and caught Bones’ hand with his own, squeezing gently. “Me, too,” he agreed. “Still, at least now I know why sometimes it sounded like he was mocking me—because he was mocking his parents. Mr. Sulu, prepare for warp.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter should be something special! ~~I don't know exactly what, but it's going to be special!~~


	100. Just Like a Dream to Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ## HAPPY CHAPTER 100!!!
> 
> Boy, I cannot believe I've been writing this story this long. Thanks to all of you who've stuck with me, whether you've been reading for three years (!!!) or just started within the last few weeks. I wanted to do something special, and...well, this wasn't necessarily what I had in mind, but when the characters take over like this, you've sometimes just gotta let them.
> 
> Chapter title is from "Always and Forever" by Heatwave, a song I'd never heard of until I was asked to play it for someone's wedding a couple weeks back.

Spock, if he were thinking clearly—or indeed at all—would likely have noticed a logical pattern with regards to his day off. Naturally, no crew member was permitted to be scheduled for more than eight standard days in a row without a break, and the senior command was no exception. Duty rotas on the _Enterprise_ tended to ensure that all regular crewmen and officers had one day off per standard week. The senior command’s schedules were by necessity a bit less consistent, and it was not infrequent that their days off were interrupted, but nevertheless, they were at least scheduled to be off in accordance with Starfleet regulations.

But it was haphazard and erratic at best, illogical at worst, and therefore Spock had never, in all the years he had been aboard the _Enterprise,_ really thought about the fact that his schedule always seemed to call for him to be off on this particular stardate.

He certainly wasn’t thinking about it right then. Instead, he sat on the observation deck, on the bench in the far corner. It had not been part of the original design; Kirk had witnessed a crewman struggling to get off the floor using only her crutches and, after ranting to Spock and McCoy for nearly fifteen standard minutes about ignorant and ableist designers and the Federation Disability Statutes, had requisitioned three benches, placed strategically throughout the room. This one was the one farthest from the lift, the bench preferred by those with more than space on their minds.

Spock did not wish to have more than space on his mind. He did not wish to have anything on his mind whatsoever. He sat on the bench, staring unseeing at the vast expanse of space before him and willing himself blank, willing himself not to think.

It was not working.

He tried to call upon his Vulcan training, his discipline and upbringing, but it was days like this one that reminded him that he was still half-human. There were limits to what even he could reach, and he was rapidly reaching them. Forcing himself not to think on the past, or indeed anything else, was always difficult, but this year it was impossible. It was for that reason that he had sought the solitude of the observation deck and the depth of space. Perhaps, however, he would return to his quarters. Only three people could access him there. Unfortunately, that was the first place they would think to look for him. No, he would remain here, at least for the time being.

He wished he had a holopic. Such things were not customary among Vulcans, or had not been before the last sixteen years. Many things that had once been considered a peculiarity of other species, unnecessary at best and untoward at worst, had become integrated into the slowly rebuilding society. It was the old Ambassador who had been instrumental in encouraging them to adopt many of them.

Spock drew in a deep breath, allowing his eyes to close briefly before dropping them to the object he held in his hands—the small blue box he had been given three standard hours earlier, when they had touched down for a brief refueling at Space Station Roanoke. He had not looked into it, but the name on the top was bad enough. The name, and the fact that it had been given to him.

His ears picked up the sound of the door opening. For a moment, he thought to resist turning around to see who had come on, but he scolded himself for his folly. Anyone coming to look for him would already know that he could hear them, and anyone who was simply wandering in would likely not notice him in the first place.

He turned around.

At first, he thought the taller of the two figures was Kirk. But the hair was darker and a bit longer, the features still rounded with youth. And Kirk never wore all black. This was Thomas, his arm around a woman Spock at least had no difficulty in identifying as Ensign Gaila. It would have been simple to ignore them—had he not caught a glimpse of deep, genuine pain on Gaila’s lowered face. Thomas did not seem quite so distressed, but nevertheless, there was sorrow on his face as well.

He had not meant to make eye contact, but Thomas looked up and noticed him. He gave a silent nod and started to steer Gaila towards one of the other benches, but Spock shook his head and shifted against the wall, leaving space for them both. It seemed they, too, needed to not think.

“Good morning, Uncle Spock,” Thomas said quietly as he eased Gaila onto the bench before sitting down as well.

“Thomas. Gaila.” Spock nodded to each of them.

No further words were spoken for a long while. It was curious, as Gaila was ordinarily quite loquacious, but whatever was upsetting her had clearly struck her silent. Spock, for the only time in his life, found himself wanting to fill the silence with something, _anything,_ but he had no idea what. Instead, he forced himself to be still, to try and clear his mind, but still he could not find that quiet center to the universe. Only this silence, which he was coming to realize differed strongly from quiet.

It was nearly thirty standard minutes later before Gaila spoke in a hoarse, choked voice, as though she was trying to hold back a sob. “I never got to say goodbye.”

Spock had argued with McCoy, on several occasions, about the logical fallacies inherent in ascribing emotions to the heart; it did no more than pump blood throughout the body, and any perceived physical symptoms of emotion centered around it—leaping into one’s throat, twisting, or sinking into the pit of one’s stomach or into one’s shoes—were merely psychosomatic at best, idiomatic at worst. He now realized that he would in future have to reconsider his position on the subject, because at Gaila’s words, he truly did feel a coldness grip his entire body, emanating from a sudden feeling of emptiness in his lower abdomen, where his heart was physically located. He would never give McCoy the satisfaction of hearing him say it, however.

“Tell me,” he said, his own voice sounding a touch rusty. “How many of the other cadets did you know?”

“I’d—I’d met almost all of them,” Gaila whispered. “I wasn’t friends with all of them, but there were so many that I was…there wasn’t a single ship that I didn’t know at least a dozen or so of the cadets aboard.”

Spock nodded slowly. “I, too…many of the cadets had passed through my classes, at one point or another, during my time at the Academy. When the names of those killed on the various vessels were read off…”

“At least you had that. At least you got the chance to bid them farewell. I was…” Gaila swallowed. “For the first year we were with the Thũn, I was so busy trying to survive and figure out the language that I didn’t give what we’d left behind much thought. And then there was so much else going on—the harvest festivals, the ceremonies, the little things and the big things—I never really had time to think, to—to mourn. And last year…last year it was right around the time Chitose and Ben got put off the ship, and there was all of that going on with Kelly and Nico and the baby, and the quantum deflector conduit went wahooni-shaped, and it was just…I didn’t have time then, either. But now I do and…” She let out a strangled sob and lowered her face.

Thomas squeezed her shoulder, but said nothing. Spock turned away from Gaila to look out at the stars again. After a moment’s reflection, he held out an arm and pointed at a spot thirty degrees to Thomas’ right. “There.”

Gaila turned to look. “What? What is it?”

“Do you see that dark red, brightly glowing body?”

“Yes—yes, I see it. What is it?”

“That is the sun that Vulcan orbits,” Spock said softly. “Or orbited. We are nearly one thousand light-years from where it once lay. From our present location, there is no sign of its destruction, or of the ships that were destroyed there. From such a distance, I am not certain that the light would be visible from those at any rate.”

“Nevertheless,” Gaila said.

“Yes—nevertheless,” Spock agreed.

Thomas’ hand slid from Gaila’s shoulders. He didn’t seem to notice, however. Nor did she. His eyes were fixed on the spot. After a moment, he said quietly, “Uncle Spock—when is the _Enterprise_ due back on Earth?”

“Precisely five years after we departed,” Spock said, startled by the nonsequitor but trying not to show it. “In exactly three hundred and eighty-three days.”

“So you’ll still be in space this time next year?”

“Yes. Why do you ask?”

“I was just…thinking.” Thomas still didn’t look away from the dark red disc of Vulcan’s sun.

Spock allowed Thomas to sit in silence for a moment, then prompted him, “What were you thinking about?”

“About how close to a ship’s explosion would you have to be to see it?”

“Fairly close.” Spock was trying to follow the logic in Thomas’ questions, but he could not find the thread.

“You’d have to be on the surface of the planet it was in orbit around,” Gaila chimed in. “You wouldn’t be able to see it from any distance.”

Thomas nodded. Spock looked from Gaila to Thomas and back. “Again, Thomas, why do you ask?”

“Because…” Thomas bit his lip. “Well, Vulcan was seventeen light-years from Earth, wasn’t it?”

“That is correct.” Spock’s eyebrows drew together. “Is there some significance to that fact?”

Slowly, Thomas turned his head to meet Spock’s eyes. “Next year will be seventeen years.”

Gaila let out a low gasp and covered her mouth with her hand. Spock inhaled sharply, holding his breath. Of course, he had not thought of that. While Vulcan itself had been too distant to appear in the night sky of Earth, at least to the naked eye, the planet’s death would be bright enough to be seen.

“And there will likely be several significant ceremonies commemorating the event,” he said. “Including a public viewing, or at the very least broadcast, of the planet’s destruction, as seen from Earth.”

“I was afraid of that.” Thomas gave a soft sigh. “At least you won’t have to see ‘em.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, if the _Enterprise_ was on Earth, you’d all have to go to the ceremonies, wouldn’t you? It’d be expected. Senior command of the Starfleet flagship, the heroes of the battle…they’d expect you all to be on display. An’ you’d have to watch it all over again.”

Spock closed his eyes, despite how illogical the maneuver was. Closing his eyes would not prevent his mind from conjuring up the pictures—the image of his home planet exploding in a white-hot blast, the _Narada_ hovering nearby. The memory of stretching out his hand, grasping desperately for someone he would never reach.

“I would not be able to remain calm under those circumstances,” he admitted. He had experienced a great deal of difficulty in remaining stoic and calm during the memorial services at the time, and he doubted that it would be possible for him to do so again.

“Yeah,” Thomas said softly. “I ain’t sure I’ll be able to do it, either.”

Spock turned to Thomas, feeling a flicker of irritation that he swiftly worked to suppress. “I fail to see the similarity between human emotional weakness and what I would undoubtedly experience.”

Thomas jerked back, as though Spock had struck him. His eyes, when he looked up, seemed to be bruised within, carrying the weight of injuries too quickly healed over, and at the same time not healed over enough. When he spoke, his words were hushed, but they struck Spock with an almost physical force.

“My mother died that day, too.”

Guilt settled like a weight on Spock’s shoulders. In his own sorrow, his grief over having lost Amanda without ever having truly told her that he loved her—without ever having truly admitted it even to himself—he had taken the greatest weight of pain on himself. He had assumed that no one felt the loss so deeply as he did. Certainly no one on the _Enterprise_ could know what he felt. They had lost friends, yes, even relatives in some cases, but they had all been fellow cadets. Never parents.

He had neglected Thomas in his calculations, however. And if he thought about it, Thomas may not have been the only member of the _Enterprise_ to lose a parent. While most cadets had been young, in their early twenties, that did not mean that all of them were, nor that none of them had begun families. He remembered, with a sudden stab of clarity, a cadet who had been the center of a certain amount of teasing the day he entered Spock’s class with marker all over his face, until he had told the others that he had been playing “beauty parlor” with his daughter. That he had come to class without washing the marker off had seemed illogical to Spock at the time, but now, having witnessed Kirk on the bridge completely unaware of the fact that he had forgotten to remove a glittering hair bow from above his ear or that there were fuzzy stickers shaped like fanciful horses bearing a single spiral horn festooning his uniform, he understood a little better.

Spock was ashamed of himself for not thinking of any of it sooner. And he found himself trying desperately to remember the cadet’s name.

“I am sorry, Thomas,” he said, his voice soft but sincere. “I—I had forgotten.”

Thomas shook his head. “I get it. I do. I ain’t—I hardly remember her, you know? I was only a toddler. It ain’t the same. But…I wouldn’t want to watch her die, either. Especially not twice. I’m sorry.”

“Whether you remember her or not is immaterial,” Spock replied. “I had no right to attack you—to treat you as though you had any less right to react to the event than I did. After all, I do not grieve, after all this time, for the destruction of my home world, or the deaths of those who could not escape. I grieve for my mother. Just as you grieve for yours.”

Without thinking, he reached over to touch Thomas’ hand lightly.

The emotional transference was instantaneous and blinding in its clarity. Grief, pain, sorrow, loss. Guilt. Fragments of memories blurred by time. A woman, scarcely more than a child, laughing and crying at the same time as she called the bundle in her arms _my greatest treasure, my special joy._ Someone singing, slightly off-key, while rocking back and forth. Laughing words encouraging tiny toddling steps. _Stay and be good—Mommy will be back soon._ A nose, soft and smelling of rose petals, rubbing against another, eliciting a tiny giggle. _I love you, Treasure-Joy._

Both Spock and Thomas gasped as they jerked back instinctively, thankfully breaking the connection. Thomas drew in on himself, tucking his hands beneath his arms, and closed his eyes as he attempted to regulate his breathing.

Spock felt horrible. Accidentally or not, it was quite a breach of etiquette to read another’s emotions or thoughts without their permission. He ought to have remembered that moments of unguarded emotional vulnerability made an accidental mind-meld more likely—and more painful. He felt Thomas’ pain over his mother’s loss as well as his own.

But to his surprise, it was Thomas who spoke first. “I wish I’d been able to meet your mom, Uncle Spock. She seems like a good one.”

Spock swallowed hard, allowing his memories of Amanda as she had lived to surface and wipe out the memories of Amanda as she had died. “She was.”

He turned his attention to the stars once more, to the glowing, pulsating light of Vulcan’s sun. When he had first thought to leave Starfleet, he had claimed a need to help propagate his race, to replenish a dying people. Yet he had to admit that he alone could have done little to help the population recover, and indeed he would hardly have been a prime candidate for such a thing. There would have been a persistent undercurrent of belief—partly rooted in truth—that his human blood would weaken the Vulcan race, that any children of his would be _less_. That they would be, not part of a new generation of Vulcans, but the beginning of a new race altogether. While he may have claimed logic, in his secret heart of hearts, he admitted the truth to himself for perhaps the first time: his desire had not been to ensure that his race did not die out, but to ensure that _his mother’s_ blood did not die out.

For the first time in sixteen years, his thoughts turned from pain, from destruction, from loss. For the first time, he found himself thinking of something other than the past—or, indeed, even the present. He found himself thinking of the future, of possibilities, of potential. Of a great experiment that had been begun, one that he could, perhaps, take part in. One that he _desired_ to take part in. He could claim logic, or simply scientific curiosity.

Or he could admit the truth once more.

The three of them sat in silence for a while longer. Spock allowed himself to lose track of time as he contemplated his avenues of decision, made logical connections and posited outcomes, and tried to reason his way to the end of what he was preparing to do. And then he caught himself. It was his Vulcan half that was theorizing in this manner. He would allow his human half to take rein and— _feel._ He would know the right thing to do when the time came, and the outcome would take care of itself.

At last, he rose to his feet, mildly surprised at the stiffness in his knees. “Thomas, Gaila, will you be remaining here?”

Thomas glanced at the chronometer strapped to his wrist and made a small noise of evident surprise. “Gods, is it really that late? We said we’d meet everyone for dinner.”

Spock noted, but did not comment on, the use of the plural _gods_ rather than the singular, and he rather envied the fluid ease with which Thomas rose to a standing position, apparently showing no ill effects from having sat for a long time. “Gaila?”

“I’m coming.” Gaila took Thomas’ arm and used it to pull herself to her feet. There were tear tracks down her face, and her eyes were rimmed in red, but she appeared to have calmed somewhat. “Thank you. Both of you. For…for letting me mourn. For not stopping me or making me leave.”

“Thank _you_ both,” Spock told Gaila and Thomas. “For showing me that I have been…selfish in my own grief. For reminding me of what I still have.”

Thomas smiled slightly. “Thank you for helping me with the memories.”

The three of them left the observation deck together and headed for the lift. Spock was surprised momentarily when Thomas took hold of the lever and quietly ordered it to the deck immediately below the bridge, but he did not question it. Nor did he question it when Thomas led the way to the Briefing Room.

The table was set for twelve. Scott was not in evidence, but the other five members of the senior command were, as well as Nurse Chapel, Nurse McCall, Dr. M’Benga, and Ensign Simril. Nyota looked up and met Spock’s eyes. Her eyebrows lifted in surprise before she gave him a gentle smile. “I was sure I’d have to hunt you down myself again later.”

“Not today.” Spock managed to smile in reply to Nyota. “May I inquire as to why…?” He gestured vaguely at the room.

It was Kirk who answered. “We do this every year, Spock. Just a quiet memorial service for everyone who died in the Battle of Vulcan, so to speak, for those of us who were hit hardest.”

“Why are you here?” Gaila asked Simril. Spock had been wondering the same.

“My uncle was captain of the _Farragut,_ ” Simril said softly. “He was the reason Allyn and I wanted to join Starfleet in the first place.”

Spock looked around the room once more. “And that is why Mr. Scott is not here.”

“Exactly,” Kirk agreed. “He was invited, naturally, but he always says he doesn’t feel right. It’s not…it didn’t hit him as hard.”

“That is who the twelfth place is for, then?”

“Of course not, Spock,” McCoy answered, and for once his voice is not laden with derision and sarcasm. “That’s your place.”

“We set it for you every year,” Nyota said quietly. “Whether you come or not.”

Spock turned to fully face Nyota. The worry in her eyes battled with the warmth and relief—perhaps that he was not wallowing in his misery this year. Though she bore signs of grief, she looked as though she, too, had begun to heal.

“I have been…selfish over the years,” Spock admitted. “In many respects. I believe the time has come for me to begin to repair some of the damage I have caused.”

“Never intentionally,” Kirk said, his lips twitching briefly upwards in a smile before the serious expression returned.

“We forgive you, Spock,” Nyota told him. “You don’t have to earn it. It’s okay.”

Spock allowed a little of the emotion he ruthlessly tried to suppress to come to the forefront and gave Nyota a fond smile. “If I may, I wish to ask you something important,” he said. “Something I believe I ought to have asked you quite some time ago.”

Nyota’s smile faded and the worry intensified, but she nodded. “Anything you want.”

Spock reached out and hooked his fingertips around Nyota’s gently. He hesitated for a moment, then lowered himself to one knee without letting go of Nyota or breaking eye contact. With every ounce of sincerity he possessed, he asked, “Nyota Uhura, will you marry me?”

The only sound in the room was the ambient noise of the _Enterprise_ itself. Nyota’s hands trembled in his, and Spock kept his mental shields up forcefully so he did not accidentally read her thoughts or emotions. He wanted the answer to come from her, of her own free will—not to be forced from her mind, or even gleaned in passing, without her express permission.

At last, she pulled her hands from his, but before he had time to react, she had thrown her arms around his neck. “What took you so long to ask?”

Spock caught her, taking her weight, and managed to stand without letting go of her. “Is that a yes?” he asked uncertainly.

Nyota’s laugh bubbled out of her, and she pressed her face to the crook of his neck for a moment before pulling back to look up at him. “It’s a yes, Spock.”

Spock was distantly aware that the other people in the room were applauding, but it sounded no louder to him than the buzzing of the ship itself had a moment earlier. His senses were full of Nyota—his betrothed—as he gathered her close and kissed her intently.

Now he had a new reason to mark this day each year, a reason he wanted to remember, would remember forever and cherish even longer. In that moment, Spock no longer cared about the logic of metaphor and hyperbole. It _felt_ right.

He was Nyota’s. And she was his.

Always and forever.


	101. I Guess I'll Never Hear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um...Happy New Year?
> 
> Seriously, guys, I'm sorry this took me so long. After November and NaNoWriMo, I thought I'd be able to get right back into it, but stuff kept piling up. Christmas took a lot of my energy, I was trying to finish presents, and on top of everything else, I was unexpectedly offered a promotion at work. (I was already mostly doing the work of Team Lead, but still.) In the last few days, though, it's like the dam opened and the flood came rushing through.
> 
> So...here I am again. It looks like this story's going to be finished this year, which I'm really excited about. If I get my act together, I might even have it done by Easter, but we'll see. Anyway, hopefully I'll have the next chapter up next week, but for now, please enjoy this one.
> 
> The title is taken from the Reba McEntire song "The Greatest Man I Never Knew," which I highly recommend listening to if you haven't had your heart ripped out enough this week.

Leo didn’t know what had possessed him to agree to play chess with Spock, but since both of them had the day off, they had made arrangements. Ordinarily, they would have simply gone into the rec room to play, but Spock had requested a more private setting. Maybe that was what had made Leo agree—the strong suspicion that the chess was merely a pretext.

So after breakfast, with Addie safely in Nic’tlarn’s care and Slim on his way to a shift in Engineering and Jim on the bridge, Leo went back to their family’s quarters and cleared away the accumulated detritus of a four-year-old. Slim had inherited his father’s near-obsessive tidiness, but Addie tended to leave her things strewn about unless someone reminded her to pick up. Leo had no idea how much of it was her being four and how much of it was her personality, but he remembered that his sister had been a lot like that when she was little, too. Maybe it was a family trait.

He had just tidied away the last of the things when the door chime went off. Suppressing a grin, Leo raised his voice. “Enter!”

The door slid open, exposing Spock. His face was serious, and he carried a box under his arm. “Doctor,” he said gravely.

“Come on in, Spock.” Leo indicated the coffee table. “Let’s get the board set up, and then you can start kicking my ass.”

“It is possible, Doctor, that it will be my ass that gets kicked.” Spock lifted one eyebrow as he came into the room fully, letting the door shut behind him.

Leo doubted that—up until Spock set down the box, a long, flat box with a clearly-marked checkerboard pattern on the outside, and began unpacking it. He hadn’t brought one of the tri-chess boards that required intricate setup and breakdown, the most common kind in the galaxy. He had brought an antique Earth two-dimensional chess set.

Leo was seriously starting to be concerned now.

He kept his mouth shut as Spock lined the chessmen up on either side of the board, the black pieces in front of himself and the white in front of Leo. That wasn’t surprising; even when they played tri-chess, Spock always played black. At last, Spock sat back and steepled his fingers. “Whenever you’re ready, Doctor.”

After a moment’s reflection, Leo moved one of the pawns; Spock moved one of his in response. Leo hesitated, studying the board for a moment, then moved his bishop through the hole created by the pawn. Spock moved another pawn as well.

“Do you know what that move is called, Spock?” Leo asked quietly, his fingers hovering over the next piece.

“I was unaware it had a name. What is it?”

“Khan’s Gambit.”

Spock gave no response. The next several moves were made in silence. Leo tried to follow Spock’s logic, tried to anticipate it and plan against it, but after a while, he realized in some surprise that there _was_ no logic to his movements. Spock, for once in his life, was playing at random, hardly paying attention to what he was doing. It was a somewhat infuriating way to play, but Leo bit back the complaints that rose to his lips. It was obvious that there was something on Spock’s mind, and Leo wasn’t going to be grumpy with him for it.

Not _too_ grumpy, anyway.

He paused, contemplating his next move. Spock had sort of played himself into a corner, and Leo could see that, if he played right, he could have Spock checkmated in four moves. The thing was, he didn’t want to do that. He wanted to draw this out as long as he could, in hopes that Spock would fill him in on whatever was bothering him.

His eyes strayed across the coffee table and fell a small object he hadn’t noticed before, but which Spock had clearly brought in with him. It was a small box—or at least Leo assumed it was a box—no more than five standard inches wide by seven inches long by perhaps an inch thick, if that. The lid was composed of two different shades of brown material, looked like stone, trimmed in chrome and with a design on the top of the same metal—a typical Vulcan motif consisting of three groupings of concentric and interlocked diamonds. It certainly didn’t look new.

“What’s this?” he asked, reaching for it but stopping himself. If it was a personal photograph…something of his mother’s…Leo wasn’t going to disrespect Spock by touching it without permission.

Instead of answering, however, Spock picked up the box, grasping it in both hands. He hesitated a moment before pushing at the lid with his thumbs, sliding it back, and then handing the whole thing to Leo.

It was not a box. Instead, Leo realized, it was a picture frame, of a style he’d never seen before. The picture inside showed seven smiling figures. After a moment, Leo drew in a breath as he realized who the people in the picture were.

“This is—Ambassador Spock’s?” he asked hesitantly.

“It was, yes.” Spock looked up at Leo, and there was something bruised in his expression.

Leo stared at the picture for a long moment. He only vaguely recognized himself and the people he considered his friends—his family—in the subjects of the picture. The uniforms were bright red with odd collars and insignias, but what struck him the most was that all the people in it were so— _old._ Not ancient, not as old as Spock Prime was, or even as old as Sarek was, but still older than they were in this timeline yet. A man in the back with a neat mustache and a full head of snow-white hair looked so unusual that it took Leo a second to realize that that was Scotty, who apparently in the other timeline had escaped hair loss; Chekov was obviously still the baby of the group; and Jim…dear God, Jim, seated in the captain’s chair, the glint in his eye and the slight smirk on his face.

Suddenly, Leo knew exactly what Slim would look like when he was old.

“He gave this to you?” Leo hesitated a moment before sliding the lid shut and handing it back to Spock. Nobody needed to see their own future. Nobody needed to face their own mortality. He thought uncomfortably of Gamma Hydra IV.

Spock shook his head. “He left it to me, Doctor,” he said softly. “Ambassador Spock is…dead.”

Leo’s blood ran cold. It wasn’t unexpected, of course; the man had been around two hundred years old, which was old even for a Vulcan. And he was half-human. Combined with the stresses of the years, the surprise was in the fact that he’d lived long enough to see them return from their first five-year mission, let alone two. But finding out that your alternate-reality counterpart, someone you felt a great deal of respect for, was dead had to be disconcerting at best. Small wonder Spock was acting strangely.

“When?” he asked.

“Most likely around the time we detoured to Gothos. I was informed when we stopped at Space Station Roanoke for refueling.”

“Spock. You’ve been sitting on this for a _month?_ Why the hell didn’t you tell anyone?”

For once, Spock didn’t comment on the figurative language, which was progress, at least. “Truthfully, Doctor, I don’t know. I had intended to say something that evening, but I was…emotionally compromised. Until this year, I believe I had never dealt properly with losing my mother, and it took Thomas and Gaila to help me see that. And then I asked Lieutenant Uhura to marry me, and…” Spock gestured helplessly. “I forgot.”

At any other time, Leo might have gloated that Spock had admitted he forgot something. Now, though, he just looked at him, game ignored. “And afterward? When you remembered again?”

“I—I was unsure of how to proceed. And I was trying to come to terms with what it means for me. After all, he _was_ me—was what I could have been, had the circumstances been different. There are so many things I never asked him, things I wish I had thought to say or learn…”

“Spock,” Leo said softly, shaking his head. “You don’t want that.”

Spock cocked his head. “Why not?”

Leo took a moment to properly formulate his response before he spoke. “There’s a line from an old Earth book I read as a kid, and I’m paraphrasing a bit here, but it’s something along the lines of, ‘No one can ever know what _might_ have been.’ Finding out anything the old Ambassador knew, anything about his life or his past—your future—it wouldn’t have done you any good. At best, you’d have known what you were missing out on. At worst, you might have tried to force it. Jim got bits and pieces from the old Ambassador and…it didn’t do him any favors. Knowin’ your fate, or what you think is your fate, wouldn’t have changed a thing. Ambassador Spock gave you every bit of wisdom he could. If he kept anything back…he did it for your own good.”

“Logically, I know that,” Spock said. “But still…ask yourself, Leonard. If it were _your_ counterpart who had come through, instead of mine…would you not have wanted to know everything you could?”

“Probably,” Leo admitted. “But at the same time, I know _myself_ well enough to know that my counterpart wouldn’t have answered, so I likely wouldn’t have asked. And the few details I do know would have been enough to keep me from _wanting_ to know more. Better to do it this way. Better to take the future as it comes. Besides, everything’s already so different. Jim and I weren’t married in that universe. The two of you were closer. Things happened on a different timeline, on a different scale. What good would knowing have done? All it would have done would have been to make me fear things that might never happen, or mourn over things that might have been.”

Spock hesitated for a moment, then said in a low voice, “I wonder if it might not have helped _him,_ were I to spend more time with him. After all…he lost everything he knew. I can only begin to know that kind of pain. Perhaps…”

Leo understood, but he shook his head. “It might have, Spock, but at the same time…I think it also might have made things worse, _because_ of how differently things worked out. I know he was happy for you and Nyota, glad you had each other, but at the same time, I bet he regrets that you and Jim don’t have the same relationship he did with _his_ Captain. He maybe didn’t need the constant reminder of that. You did what you needed to. It was enough.”

“Was it?”

“It’ll have to be.” Leo hesitated. “I know what you’re feeling, Spock. I lost my father damn near twenty years ago, and it still hurts. I still wonder if there’s something else I should have said, something else I should have done. That’s never gonna go away. I know you feel it about your mother, too. And I feel that about my grandparents, my uncle Jesse—hell, the big ol’ hound dog we had when I was a kid. But we don’t get that extra time back. Make the most of what you’ve got with _who_ you’ve got. And, Spock, the Ambassador knew that. He made the most of the time he had. You have to hope that what interaction the two of you had was enough for him.”

“I hope so.” Spock’s voice was soft. “I truly do.”

Leo waited a moment, then sat forward. “Now, let’s see how long it takes me to kick your ass here.”

Spock rallied himself and refocused on the game. He proceeded to play much better than he had been, but he’d done enough damage at the beginning that Leo still managed to beat him.

Perhaps it was a sign of how distressed he’d been, or perhaps it was a sign of the friendship they’d cultivated over the years, but Spock didn’t even complain too much.


	102. Tomorrow Is Yesterday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is based off of the episode by the same name by D. C. Fontana.
> 
> ...Sorta.
> 
> Okay, the _premise_ is from the episode. The actual _events..._ well, you'll see. I've been excited about this chapter for ages. (I also have had it finished since last Friday--I just forgot to post it yesterday. Oops.)

It was rare that the _Enterprise_ went anywhere near the Sol sector, especially as far from it as they’d been mere weeks before. But Hackett had specifically requested her for a not-quite-emergency supply run to a colony fourteen light-years from the sun. He’d even authorized speeds up to warp four in order to make the trip.

Jim wasn’t fooled. There was some reason Hackett wanted the _Enterprise_ in this sector quickly, and it wasn’t to deliver blankets. He was damned if he could guess what it was, though, so he had simply ordered Sulu to proceed at warp factor four.

“We are approaching Base Nine, approximately sixty-four minutes from Ophiuchus Beta,” Spock began to say, straightening from his console and turning to face Jim.

Before he had all the words out, however, the ship gave a mighty shudder, as if she had struck a physical obstacle, and Jim’s world went black.

He awoke slowly, groaning as he fought his way back to consciousness. Spots danced in front of his eyes. He shook his head to clear it and immediately regretted the action. Another groan slipped from his lips, and he pressed the heels of his hands into his temples, hoping to alleviate the agony. After a moment, he opened his eyes.

The bridge was dark, lit only intermittently by the few flickering lights that indicated secondary systems. It was also unnaturally quiet. The bridge crew all lay slumped in their seats, draped over their panels as if in the aftermath of some climactic battle.

Jim tried to remember. _Had_ there been a battle? Instantly, he chastised himself. No, no battle. No _nothing._ One minute everything had been fine, and the next…

Sudden panic gripped him. He twisted around, barely sparing a thought for the pain the sharp movements caused him, to see his husband lying on the deck where he had fallen, one arm flung out and the other curled beneath him. “Bones!” he cried.

Bones groaned as well, gritting his teeth and half-curling into himself as he did so. Jim let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Bones had survived, grumpiness apparently intact. Crawling out of his seat, Jim planted a kiss on Bones’ temple, making Bones groan again, albeit softly, before he rolled onto his back and blinked blearily upwards. “Jim?”

“I’m here, Bones.” Jim’s head was ringing a little less. He got back on his knees and offered Bones a hand to help him up.

Bones let Jim pull him into a sitting position, using his free hand to rub at the back of his head. “What the hell happened?”

“I don’t know. One minute, everything was normal, and the next— _blooey!_ ”

“Don’t shout so loud, please,” came a pitiful whimper from the helm—Chekov at his most pathetic.

Jim turned to see that both Sulu and Chekov were more or less conscious. Uhura, too, was beginning to stir. Spock managed to pull himself to a standing position, making Jim not sure whether to bless his Vulcan heritage and upbringing or curse it. “Captain, what in the nine worlds…”

“I have no idea,” Jim repeated. “Check it out, would you?”

“Right.” Spock pulled himself together with somewhat irritating rapidity and began checking over his library computer. Even from his half-kneeling position on the floor, Jim could see that it was essentially dead. Spock gave up on it and moved to Uhura’s side. “Except for secondary systems, everything is out, sir. We are on impulse power only. If Mr. Scott is still with us, then the auxiliary power should be coming on soon.” He reached out and ghosted the backs of his fingers against Uhura’s cheek. “Are you all right, Lieutenant?”

While the words were formal, the voice was soft and intimate. Uhura nodded, smiling in a very unconvincing way, but she gripped his hand tightly.At that moment, all the lights on the bridge flickered, then began to glow at more or less normal levels. Before long, the steady, comforting hum of the usual workings of the _Enterprise_ started up again.

“Mr. Scott,” Spock observed, “is still with us.”

Jim hauled himself to his feet, then pulled Bones up as well. Sulu had vacated his seat and was kneeling next to Chekov, rubbing his back and murmuring soothingly in his ear. Without letting go of Bones’ hand, Jim flicked a switch on his chair panel.

“This is the captain speaking,” he said. “Damage control parties on all decks, check in. All departments tie into the library computer. Report casualties and damage reports to the first officer. Kirk out.” He broke the circuit. “Lieutenant Uhura, contact Starfleet control. Whatever we hit in the Base Nine area, I want them to be aware of it—and they might know more about it than we do.”

“Yes, Captain.” Uhura let go of Spock and turned back to her console.

Jim eased himself back into his seat. Bones let go of his hand, then came to stand behind him and wrap his arms around him from behind. One palm settled on Jim’s chest, and he closed his eyes for a moment, feeling his heart thumping beneath Bones’ hand. Yes, damn it all, there was that arrhythmia. He took a couple deep breaths, hoping to get it under control, before opening his eyes and turning towards the library computer. “Mr. Spock?”

“Only minor injuries reported among the crew, Captain,” Spock reported, half-turning from his station. “All decks operating on auxiliary systems. Engineering reports warp engines non-operational. Mr. Scott on his way to make his report in person.”

As he spoke, the door to the bridge slid open and Scotty strode in, looking torn between bemusement and despair. “Captain—”

“Scotty, what have you got for me?” Jim risked standing and was pleased to find that he could do so without too much discomfort.

“Overrode the automatic helm system to hold us in fixed orbit, sir, but—”

“Fixed orbit around what?” Jim interrupted.

Scotty licked his lips. “The Earth, sir.”

“Screen on,” Jim ordered, whirling around.

The screen flickered to life, and sure enough, the familiar green-and-blue disc of the Earth rotated below them. They were a bit lower than Jim would have liked, just barely clearing the subspace atmosphere, but at least high enough that they weren’t in any great danger.

“Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat,” Bones breathed.

Uhura turned from her console. “Normal Starfleet channel has nothing on it but static. I’m picking up something on another frequency, but—”

“Captain!” Sulu suddenly said sharply. “Scanners picking up a vessel coming our way!”

“Identity?” Jim moved closer to the helm.

“Nothing confirmed, Keptin, but it appears to be of Klingon origin,” Chekov said. He still sounded a little woozy. “And—it just cloaked.”

“Lieutenant Uhura, open a frequency,” Jim ordered. “See if you can get that vessel.” He almost ordered the ship to red alert, but on auxiliary power, there wasn’t enough power to handle the alert as well as take care of themselves if necessary.

Uhura hesitated. “I—I think I have it, sir.”

“Attention, unidentified vessel,” Jim said, every word crystal clear. “You are entering Earth space. Please identify yourself.”

There was no response. The whole bridge seemed to be holding its breath. Chekov cast a worried look over his shoulder; Bones laid a hand briefly on Jim’s arm, squeezing lightly before letting go.

Jim swallowed and tried again. “Attention, unidentified vessel. This is Captain James T. Kirk of the starship _Enterprise._ Identify yourself or prepare to be destroyed.”

It was only partly a bluff; they had enough power on impulse to fire a couple of bursts from the phaser cannons, and they knew more or less where the cloaked vessel was, so they stood a chance at hitting it. Just a very slim one. Jim held his breath to see if it would work.

After a long, tense moment, just as he was about to order Sulu to fire a warning shot, the screen flickered to life.

The people on the screen were not Klingons.

Beside him, Bones inhaled sharply. Spock rose to his feet, his mouth falling open slightly. Chekov rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands, as if doubting what he was seeing. Jim could understand that, because _he_ didn’t believe what he was seeing for a minute.

It was—them. The seven of them. But they all looked so… _old._ Even odder was the man who had to be Scotty. It wasn’t so much that his hair was white, it was that he had a full head of it…

“Captain…Kirk?” the man in the center of the bridge said, lifting an eyebrow. “Forgive me, I…don’t recognize you after all. I _thought_ it odd that I didn’t remember this.”

Sulu cast a look of confusion and worry over his shoulder—at nearly the same moment the older man on the screen did the same. Jim swallowed and said in a neutral tone, “Perhaps…we won’t remember this when we get back to the future.”

“Jim,” Bones said quietly. “ _We’ll_ remember this—but _they_ won’t.” He nodded to one side of the screen.

Jim looked—and understood. Watching them with a stoic expression that gave nothing away was—Spock, but not the Spock who stood on the bridge with them, gripping the back of his chair as though it was the only thing keeping him upright. It was the face of the old Ambassador.

“Oh, great,” he mumbled.

“You are…not us, are you?” the older man on the screen asked.

“We are, but…not exactly,” Jim said. He swallowed. “Uh…may I ask what year it is?”

“We’re…not quite sure of that,” the man said with a faint smile. “Not yet, anyway. Sometime in the late twentieth century.”

“No, I mean—what year was it _before_ you came back in time?”

“Ah, I see. 2286.”

Spock rallied himself enough to say, “Twelve years from our time, Captain.”

“And a hundred and seven years before…” Jim swallowed and met his counterpart’s eyes. “It’s kind of complicated, and I’m not sure explaining all the details would be a good idea, just on the off-chance that you _do_ remember. But…in 2393, someone will be transported back in time and will…alter things. Irreparably.”

“How?” His counterpart frowned.

“Jim, he just said he wasn’t going to give you details.” The Southern grumble could only belong to Bones.

Since they’d always referred to the old Ambassador as Spock Prime, Jim found himself thinking of the others as the Primes of himself and his crew as well. “Yeah, it’s a long story. But the individual who gets transported back in time really doesn’t have any interest in making the galaxy a better place. He wants to hurt as many people as possible—even if they don’t know why he’s hurting them.” He gestured to the bridge. “And the long and the short of it is that…well, we’re you, but on a different timeline.”

“An alternate reality,” Kirk Prime mused.

Sulu Prime looked suddenly skeptical. “There’s not an empire about, is there?”

Bones shuddered. Jim threw him a sympathetic glance before turning back to the others. “No, we’re still the Federation. We just made different choices, took different paths.”

“Still wound up on the _Enterprise,_ though.” Scott Prime smiled. “She’s a beauty.”

“Aye, that she is,” Scotty agreed, pride in his voice.

Kirk Prime smiled. “Well, then. I suppose there’s no harm in telling you how to get back, is there?”

“That would be much appreciated,” Spock said dryly.

“Simple enough. It’s going to sound crazy, but it’s simple enough. Create a slingshot effect. Make a close hyperbolic arc around the sun—” Kirk Prime held up a hand, stilling the protests that both Jim and Scotty—and, he suspected, Bones as well—were about to make “—at warp factor eight, and you’ll go back in time as you reach the head, then slingshot yourself back into the future as you pass this way again. And since you’ll pass by this area a minute or two before you hailed us, you can simply avoid hailing us and none of this will ever have happened.”

“Or ye could run into another black star,” Scott Prime put in. “There’s one quite near here.”

“Or that,” Kirk Prime agreed.

Spock lifted an eyebrow. “In that scenario, however, I suspect that we would not, as you put it, pass this moment before hailing you. Therefore, you would remember this encounter.” He turned to Scotty and Jim. “As that is…an undesirable outcome, I would suggest, Captain, that we use the first method. Neither is certain. Certainty is impossible in a situation such as this. But the first solution has been proven to work in at least one instance.”

Kirk Prime’s grin widened. “Where would we be without you, Mr. Spock?”

Spock’s eyes drifted over to Spock Prime, who had neither moved nor spoken, only watched. Jim took a deep breath. “If that’s the case…I suppose we’d best let you get on with what you were doing and get ourselves back to our own time.”

“Jim, it’ll be four hours yet before repairs are completed,” Scotty said apologetically. “Until then…”

“And if none of this will have ever happened,” Uhura Prime pointed out, speaking for the first time, “then we’re not wasting time talking to you.”

Chekov rubbed his temple, mumbling something in Russian. Chekov Prime laughed softly and responded in the same language. Sulu gave them both a crooked grin.

Jim couldn’t help but smile. “All right,” he agreed. “Can’t hurt, anyway.” He touched his hand to his chest in respectful salute. “I don’t suppose I need to introduce my crew to you…” His eyes fell on the pips on his counterpart’s shoulder. “…Admiral.”

“No, indeed.” Kirk Prime’s eyes crinkled upwards in a smile. “Tell me, Captain, how long have you been in charge of the _Enterprise?_ ”

“Sixteen years,” Jim answered. “We’re on our third five-year mission.”

Kirk Prime made a small, impressed noise in the back of his throat. “I’m jealous. They took me out of space after our first.”

“That was your own damn fault,” McCoy Prime told him with the bluntness of an old friend. “You just _had_ to accept the promotion.”

“What are you grousing about? _You_ went civilian.”

“Damn right I did.” McCoy Prime looked at Bones. “Come to think of it, what are _you_ still doing in space?”

Jim wondered whether Bones was going to come back with a joke or a complaint, but when he glanced over, he saw the warm half-smile he’d loved since the first moment he saw it. “I’m keepin’ my family together, is what I’m doing.”

“I know what you mean,” Kirk Prime said softly, glancing around the bridge of his own vessel.

Spock raised an eyebrow. “With all due respect, Admiral, I am given to understand that you do not.”

Bones held up his left hand, displaying his wedding ring. McCoy Prime frowned. “You’re still married?”

“Married again,” Bones corrected him.

“Not…Natira?”

Kirk Prime cast a quick glance over his shoulder, and Jim found himself tensing at the slight look of distress in McCoy Prime’s eyes. Bones’ snort went a long way towards reassuring him, though. “No. That was…desperation. I’m married to the love of my life and I can honestly tell you that I’ve never been happier.”

McCoy Prime relaxed, although there was a hint of melancholy in his smile. “Good. That’s good…who’s the lucky lady?”

Sheepishly, Jim raised his own left hand. “Uh, that would be me.”

McCoy Prime made a sound like a cat choking on a goldfish. Sulu Prime coughed into his hand, glancing over his shoulder at Kirk Prime. To his credit, Kirk Prime didn’t appear fazed in the slightest. “I never…saw myself settling down, really. Never thought I’d find that…one special person.” His eyes flickered towards Spock Prime, so quickly Jim probably wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t known it was there to look for. “So I’ve got to ask…are _you_ happy?”

“I am,” Jim said softly. “I wouldn’t trade places with you for anything. I wouldn’t give this up for the universe.”

Bones slipped an arm around Jim’s waist. Sulu reached over and took Chekov’s hand. Uhura had stood from her own station and moved towards Spock, who put an arm around her shoulders without seeming to think about it. Kirk Prime’s eyebrows shot up, even as a delighted grin crooked his mouth.

Scott Prime scoffed, looking at his counterpart with amusement. “Talk about a seventh wheel.”

“I’m happy as I am,” Scotty assured him. “I have the _Enterprise._ She’s all I need.”

“Aye, I know what you mean.” Scott Prime’s expression turned wistful.

Just then, the door to the bridge slid open. Kirk Prime’s smile vanished immediately, and his eyes widened, his whole expression one of sorrow and pain. “David,” he half-whispered. That single word nevertheless sounded brittle and broken. His crew looked at him with varying degrees of sympathy.

Jim turned to see Slim check briefly in the doorway, his own bright expression faltering, before he swallowed and moved forward. “No, sir, my name’s Thomas. Thomas James Kirk, but my friends call me Slim.”

Kirk Prime swallowed hard. “Your…nephew?”

“My son,” Jim said, quietly but with pride. “It’s a long story.”

“Aren’t zey all,” Chekov Prime mumbled.

Slim looked uncertainly from Jim to Kirk Prime and back, but as he scanned the screen, comprehension dawned. “Oh.”

“Exactly,” Jim agreed.

McCoy Prime touched Kirk Prime lightly on the shoulder. The admiral rallied himself and studied Slim. “So…you’re a Starfleet officer, are you?”

“No, sir. Not yet, anyway.” The brightness came back into Slim’s face, obviously unable to compete with any other emotions in the face of whatever had brought it there in the first place. He turned to Jim and added, “Soon, though. The exam results came through just before…whatever it was that happened to throw us here. I was getting ready to come up and tell you anyway. I’ve been offered a place at Starfleet Academy.”

The flurry of congratulations came thick and fast—both from Jim’s crew and from the Prime crew. Slim looked equal parts proud and embarrassed, which was really an expression that only a Kirk could pull off, as he mumbled his thanks. As Jim glanced back at the screen, however, he noticed that Kirk Prime’s eyes were bright with unshed tears, even as he smiled.

Slim noticed, too. “Are you all right, sir?”

“Fine—I’m fine.” Kirk Prime waved a hand dismissively. “Tell me…how old are you?”

“Seventeen, sir,” Slim answered.

“Oh, good, he’s seventeen,” McCoy Prime mumbled.

Chekov glanced back at Bones, and both of them burst into barely stifled laughter. Jim didn’t bother trying to explain it—not when he saw the look in Kirk Prime’s eye. “How old is…David?” he asked hesitantly.

“In 2274? He would have been thirteen,” Kirk Prime answered softly. “I didn’t know him then.”

Jim touched Slim’s back lightly. “I only met Slim four years ago myself. We were lucky. The Admiralty decided that they wanted to try an…experiment of sorts. To see if families are viable on a starship.”

Sulu Prime licked his lips. “Seems to me that one teenager wouldn’t give much data on that. No offense.”

“None taken. An’ it ain’t just me,” Slim said lightly. He glanced at Jim, who nodded slightly, then said, “My sister—my half-sister—Addie’s just turned four a couple months back.”

McCoy Prime stilled. So did Kirk Prime. Jim glanced at Spock, who, thankfully, understood the look. After a moment’s work at his station, he had conjured up a picture to show the Prime crew—Addie’s fourth birthday, at the conclusion of her two-step with Slim, sitting on his shoulder with her arms thrown in the air and a dimpled grin on her face, Slim laughing as he looked up at her.

Uhura Prime nudged McCoy Prime. “She looks just like you, Dr. McCoy.”

“Personality-wise, though, she’s all Kirk,” Bones said with a grin.

“God help the poor child,” McCoy Prime muttered.

“Hey, now,” Jim and Kirk Prime protested in unison.Slim covered his mouth with his hand, presumably to hide a smile.

“You two seem close,” Sulu Prime said with a little bit of a smile.

Slim nodded, uncovering his mouth. “Yes, sir, we are.”

Kirk Prime chuckled, but there wasn’t really any mirth in it. “You must take after your mother…what’s her name?” he asked in a voice of studied casualness.

“Alice Johnson, but I don’t really remember her. She died when I was two.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Kirk Prime muttered, but there was something distracted in his expression.

Jim understood that look. For all the differences in their circumstances, for all the things this Jim Kirk had had that he hadn’t—and vice versa, he added mentally, remembering both the earlier comment about never having married and the few details he’d been given by Spock Prime—they were still the same person in the end, and he’d felt that expression on his own face more than a few times. “I don’t know that you would’ve known her in your timeline. I met her during my first year at the Academy, when she was eighteen and I was twenty-two.”

“No,” Kirk Prime said softly. “No, I…probably wouldn’t have known her.”

Scotty stepped up next to Slim. “I hate to tear you away, but it occurs to me that we can use all the help on repairin’ the warp engines that we can get,” he said quietly. “With your permission, Captain…?”

“Granted,” Jim said quickly, giving Slim a nod and a slight smile.

Scotty returned the nod, then told Slim, “Go find Lieutenant Rahaim and see where she needs ye.”

“Aye, sir.” Slim shot a smile in the direction of the Prime crew, then squeezed Jim’s arm briefly before turning and heading off of the bridge.

Scott Prime’s eyebrows lifted. “Is that wise?”

“Lad’s got a gift,” Scotty told him. “Knows the _Enterprise_ almost as well as I do—better in some ways. He’s been helpin’ out in Engineering on the regular the last couple of years. It’s more than wise. I’d be a damned fool not to use him if I can, unless it’s too dangerous.”

Kirk Prime hesitated. “If I may ask…” He opened his mouth a time or two, but nothing came out.

Jim waited for a moment, then forged ahead. “I think you were going to ask something along the lines of ‘what happened to Alice,’ right? Our final year at the Academy, there was a distress call.” He decided to skip the sordid details—the cheating, the court martial, the fact that Bones had had to smuggle him onto the _Enterprise_ in the first place. Anyway, that wasn’t what this was all about. “With the primary fleet occupied in another system, they had to scramble Academy cadets. Divided us onto ten ships and sent us to respond. The—the _Enterprise_ was a little late getting off the ground, which turned out to be a good thing. You know how I mentioned that someone goes back in time and alters it? He was the reason for the distress call—he was planning to destroy the planet that had sent the call. As soon as the first nine ships popped out of warp…” He closed his eyes briefly and took a deep breath. “He destroyed them. Slim’s mother was on one of them.”

Kirk Prime’s eyes widened. Uhura Prime gasped, covering her mouth with her hand. Sulu Prime looked distressed. “An entire class of cadets…gone?”

“Except those of us on the _Enterprise,_ ” Jim confirmed. “And I think we would have been destroyed, too, had the individual in question not realized that Spock was aboard.”

Chekov Prime frowned. “Why should zat have made a difference?”

Spock spoke up quietly. “Because the planet about to be destroyed—the planet that _was_ destroyed—was Vulcan.”

Six heads turned to look at Spock Prime, whose entire body was rigid. He had neither moved nor spoken during the entire encounter, and now he merely stared fixedly at his counterpart, blinking once or twice. He continued to say nothing, however, and Spock continued. “The individual knew me—knew _you_ , Ambassador—’

“Ambassador?” McCoy Prime interrupted, looking torn between his previous concern and unholy glee.

Spock Prime raised an eyebrow and spoke for the first time. “Fascinating.”

That single word was low, said in a hoarse, scratchy voice full of gravel. It sounded like he had recently overcome some sort of illness—or, it suddenly occurred to Jim, some sort of trauma. He bit his tongue as he tried to calculate timelines. It was difficult, of course, the old Ambassador had given them so few details, and the stardate system used in that timeline was similar to the one being standardized now rather than the terracentric system he was accustomed to, so it was hard to get dates to match up anyway. But it was possible—just possible, no more than that—that it hadn’t been very long, in his timeline, since Spock Prime’s rebirth after doing exactly what Jim had done fifteen years previously. No wonder he sounded like crap.

“I think you’re a little early, Spock,” Uhura said, throwing her fiance a warm smile.

Spock looked slightly chagrined. “My apologies, sir. At any rate, the individual knew you, or at least knew of you, in his own universe. He could not resist the urge to make me—us—suffer as much as possible. He chose to let us live long enough to witness the planet’s destruction.”

“You weren’t able to save it?” Kirk Prime asked quietly.

Jim shook his head, a cold feeling settling into the pit of his stomach. “We tried— _I_ tried—but—”

Sulu interrupted. “It’s complicated—both the plan to destroy Vulcan and our plan to stop it—but a bomb was involved. We had to do a space jump, the two of us and a senior officer. He misjudged his landing and fell off the edge of the platform. Unfortunately, he was the one with the bomb’s trigger. We weren’t quick enough to trigger it manually before the drill we were trying to blow up reached the planet’s core.”

Chekov Prime hesitated, glancing over his shoulder first at Kirk Prime, then at Spock Prime, before turning back to look at Spock and simply ask, “Your parents?”

“My father survived,” Spock said simply. “My mother did not.”

McCoy Prime’s face fell. “I _am_ sorry, Spock,” he said softly, glancing from his own Spock to theirs and back.

Spock Prime lifted his chin slightly—Jim thought he might have swallowed—but said nothing. He was also studiously ignoring both McCoy Prime and Kirk Prime. Uhura Prime had tears in her eyes.

The corners of Spock’s lips twitched upwards briefly, his eyes softening. “Thank you, Doctor.”

That was sufficient to break the fragile mood that had settled over both crews. McCoy Prime’s eyebrows shot up, and his jaw dropped almost comically. Chekov stifled a giggle, which made Chekov Prime and both Sulus crack smiles, too. Kirk Prime gave a crooked grin; Jim felt the same expression forming on his own face. “Well, let’s move on to something less…heavy. What brings you to the Sol sector?”

“In theory, we’re running blankets to the colony on Ophiuchus Beta,” Jim answered. “In practice, I think it was just so we’d be closer to Starfleet headquarters when the Academy exam results came out. Out in the sector where we were last month, it would’ve been another day or so before they rolled out. Slim won’t admit it in a million years, but he’s been practically twitching out of his skin waiting to find out.”

Scott Prime snorted. “If he’s as good as ye say he is, he oughtn’t have worried.”

“No more he ought’ve,” Scotty agreed. “But Slim’s not got the greatest confidence sometimes. I could see in his eyes the day he took the test, the more we tried to buck him up, the worse he felt.”

Jim nodded, remembering Slim telling him that he didn’t want to _listen to another litany of “you’re gonna be fine, you’ll do so well,” et cetera._ “He told me afterward that the Engineering portion at the end was the easiest part of the whole thing. He knew he’d done well enough on that—it was just the rest of it he was worried about. I wasn’t too worried about him, though. He’s smart.”

“Like his dad,” Bones said with a faint hint of pride in his voice. Jim blushed.

The intercom at Jim’s chair suddenly crackled to life. “Engineering to Bridge.”

Jim held up one finger in a _wait-a-minute_ gesture and flicked the switch. “Bridge here.”

Lieutenant Rahaim’s voice came clearly over the line. “Captain, we’ve restored power in the warp drive to eighty-six percent.”

“Can you give us warp eight at that level?” Jim asked Scotty, who hesitated.

Before he could give an answer, though, Rahaim answered, “We’d need to confirm with Mr. Scott, sir, but Slim is reasonably confident she can pull it off. Not for more than a few minutes, though.”

“A few minutes is all we need. Thank you, Lieutenant. Kirk out.” Jim switched off the intercom. “Scotty, get down there, would you? I want you on the engines while we try this.”

“Aye.” Scotty nodded to his counterpart. “May your engines be hot.”

“An’ your rails dry,” Scott Prime replied with a nod and a grin.

Jim watched the bridge doors slide shut behind Scotty, then turned back to Kirk Prime. “We’d best let you get back to…whatever it was you were getting to.”

“Whale hunting,” Sulu Prime said dryly.

Spock lifted an eyebrow. “Fascinating.”

Kirk Prime nodded. “She’s a tough lady, is the _Enterprise._ She’ll hold it together.”

“I don’t doubt it.” Jim smiled. “Watch your step.”

“Of course.” Kirk Prime hesitated. “It may be self-serving to say so, but…live long and prosper, Captain Kirk.”

Jim’s smile broadened. “Fair winds and following seas, Admiral Kirk.”

Spock and Bones both raised their hands in the _ta’al._ McCoy Prime somehow managed to scowl and smile at the same time, but Kirk Prime simply gave that crooked grin of his again.

The screen winked out.

Chekov took a deep breath. “Zat was…odd.”

“That’s one word for it,” Jim agreed with a smile. “Mr. Spock, calculate that hyperbolic arc we need. I want to be ready with a course plotted in when Scotty gets back to us.”

“Yes, Captain.” Spock turned to his console.

Bones’ fingers trailed along the small of Jim’s back. Jim leaned back into his touch, grateful for the comfort. They were silent for a few moments, all of them waiting for Scotty’s report and Spock’s calculations…and also, Jim suspected, ruminating on their encounter with the other timeline. It was somewhat…disconcerting to meet your older self, to see what you _could_ have been like, were it not for a quirk of fate or outside interference. Suddenly, they’d all had a glimpse into what Spock had dealt with for the last sixteen years. It was certainly off-putting.

“I have the course plotted, Captain,” Spock said, straightening up from his console, at the exact same time as Scotty’s voice crackled over the intercom to tell them he was in position.

“Send it to the helm,” Jim ordered, sitting down in his chair and gripping Bones’ hand tightly. “Brace yourselves, everyone. Mr. Scott, are you ready?”

“Ready when you are, Jim,” Scotty replied.

Jim took a deep breath and nodded to Sulu. “Mr. Sulu, punch it.”

Warp eight was dangerous. Most starships couldn’t go that fast for very long without running the risk of falling apart. Scotty’s modifications, as Jim had told Gaila more than a year ago, allowed the _Enterprise_ to go even faster—but she wasn’t at full power. Jim had to trust his ship, his crew—his son, because he didn’t doubt that Slim had asked the _Enterprise_ her opinion on the matter—that they would be all right and get home safely.

He found himself holding his breath.

Spock’s voice droned on in the background, updating them on the year as they headed back in time. The sun loomed closer and closer until Jim had to order the outside sensors turned off. They were flying blind, literally. Bones’ grip on Jim’s hand was so tight it hurt, but Jim was squeezing back just as hard.

Sweat beaded on Sulu’s brow as he steered the _Enterprise_ in her arc around the sun. The inertial dampeners largely kept them from feeling the effects of the ship’s acceleration, but as they rounded the curve and started heading forward, Jim found himself pressed back into his chair as they were flung forward—in space and time, if Spock’s suddenly increasing count was anything to go by.

“We are passing 1986,” he commented at last, “and continuing—1996—2006—2016—”

“Let’s skip that one,” Uhura mumbled from her station.

The whole ship shuddered, like it had struck a passing object, and once again, the world went black.

When Jim roused himself, the first thing he noticed was that his head didn’t hurt quite as hard as it had before. The second thing he noticed was that Bones was sprawled across his lap, groaning softly as he tried to push himself up, a feat made more difficult by the fact that he still had Jim’s hand clasped tightly in his.

“Bones,” Jim said hoarsely, running his free hand over Bones’ hair gently, then raised his voice. “Mr. Spock! What day is it?”

“‘Why, sir, ‘tis Christmas Day!’” Sulu quipped in a fairly good approximation of a Cockney accent.

“Not precisely, Lieutenant Sulu,” Spock said, sounding almost back to normal as he bent over his station. “However, we have returned to the present.”

“Sensors,” Jim ordered.

Chekov, holding his head with one hand, brought up the outside sensors with the other. They had resumed their previous course. Jim breathed a sigh of relief. “Current speed?”

“Warp Eight, Captain. Approaching Ophiuchus Beta now,” Sulu replied.

“Resume space normal speed. Let’s not crash into the planet.”

“Aye, sir.”

As they slowed to normal, Jim sat back in his chair. Bones had managed to get to his feet, still looking a little shaky, and slipped his arm around his shoulders. “An interesting experience,” he murmured.

Jim nodded, staring vacantly at the curve of Ophiuchus Beta as they approached it. He wasn’t really seeing the planet or their mission, though. He was thinking about the look in his counterpart’s eyes, the pain in his voice, the way he’d studied Slim.

He hoped he never understood what that sort of pain felt like.


	103. I Hold It Up and Show My Buddies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, you're shocked. I've updated THREE weeks in a ROW. It's like a sign of the apocalypse or something...
> 
> Seriously, I've just been really excited about this stretch of chapters for a long while now. And we're coming into the home stretch, too. According to my outline, there are thirteen more chapters after this one, plus the epilogue. I've got part of the next chapter written, but it's not quite done yet. I confess I do have to think pretty hard about what I'm going to do with the subsequent chapter (turns out I _have_ referenced the episode I was planning to adapt a couple times, so I lost out on "Return of the Archons"), but I know how it's going to end, and I know what the next chapter after THAT will entail, and I think you're all gonna hate me but it'll be worth it. :) And then a few more chapters, then one more episode adaptation, then two more chapters, then the epilogue, and then I get to start working on the sequel...so stick with me, folks, we're almost there.
> 
> Also, this chapter title was taken from "Letters From Home" by John Michael Montgomery. The song has nothing to do with this chapter, I just liked the lyrics.

Twenty-four hours after receiving his message, and Slim was still pretty sure something had gone wrong with the a-grav on the ship, because he was definitely walking on air.

He’d managed to push it out of his head while helping to get the warp engines up and running, but once Alpha shift had ended, Scotty had rumpled his hair and congratulated him again as he headed out of Engineering, and he hadn’t been able to stop the grin that came over his face. Kelly and Gaila had both squealed with delight when he told them, Porter had thumped his back hard enough to make him stumble, and he’d thought Audra was going to kiss him for a minute before she caught herself and just hugged him instead. Even some of the other engineers, overhearing as they passed, had stopped to congratulate him.

They were back in their previous sector now, close enough to Kappa Draconis II that subspace messages should be relayed fairly quickly to the planet. Probably his new friends would have received their messages as well—the results had been sent out yesterday, but it sometimes took a day or so to travel long distances like that. The only one he wasn’t sure about was T’Mel, but not knowing where the _Intrepid_ was, it was likely that she was far enough out that she wouldn’t get his message until after she got her entrance results anyway.

The issue, of course, was in _contacting_ them. They hadn’t thought to exchange contact information. Braeden and M’err obviously knew each other, probably lived quite nearby to one another, but the rest of them didn’t know how to get in touch…necessarily. He could send messages through general channels—official channels, as it were—but that ran the risk of the wrong person reading them.

He thought for a minute, and then went to track down Uhura.

Alpha shift wasn’t quite over yet, but she hadn’t been scheduled to work that day, so Slim wandered up to the rec rooms to see if he could find her. She turned out to be in the small room set aside for senior officers, playing a stringed instrument and singing quietly. Addie was curled up on one of the benches nearby, sound asleep.

Uhura spotted Slim and smiled. Keeping her voice low, she said, “She wanted to learn how to play, but it was getting towards her naptime, so I told Nic’tlarn to leave her here and played her to sleep.”

“Works for me,” Slim replied, his voice equally quiet. “Aunt Nyota, can I ask you something?”

“Of course. What do you need?”

Slim sat down on a chair, careful not to scrape it on the floor and wake his sister. “When I took the entrance exams, I made a couple friends. We said we would contact each other with our results, but…we forgot to exchange contact information. How do I find out how to send them subspace messages?”

“Without going through official channels?” Uhura guessed. Slim nodded, blushing a little. “Hand me your PADD.”

Slim handed over the device. Uhura tapped on it and explained as she did, “This is a little tricky to find, and they don’t teach you about it unless you’re taking higher-level communications courses. But there’s a database of personal comm codes and subspace addresses. Any time one is registered, it gets added automatically to the database.” She pulled up a database and handed it to him. “As long as you know full names, you can find them.”

Slim’s face fell. “I only know T'mel and M’err’s first names.”

“In that case, you can search first name and known location.” Uhura pointed to the appropriate boxes. “Good luck, Slim. I hope your friends made it.”

“Thanks, Aunt Nyota.” Slim kissed her cheek before heading back for his family’s quarters.

He kind of wanted to do this in private, just in case they _hadn’t_ gotten in. That snotty Andorian’s words kept running through his head: _I doubt if more than one or two of us will get in this year._ He was one. Ch’ashraothek obviously expected to be another, and really, after four attempts at getting in, it seemed likely that he’d make it. What if he was right? What if there really _were_ only one or two of them who got in?

Swallowing down the sudden flutter of nerves at the idea of getting to the Academy and not knowing anybody—or only one person, who hated his guts—Slim tapped through the database and called up the subspace addresses of his friends. T'mel’s was the hardest to find, surprisingly, but after scrolling through the manifests of two different ships called the _Intrepid,_ he at last was able to locate it.

He started a mass message, thought for a minute, and then began typing.

[Hey, guys, it’s TJ. Just keeping my promise to y’all. I received the results of my Academy exam results yesterday, and they are “pleased to offer me a spot in the Class of 2278”! Got into the Engineering program, too. That’s all the information I have so far, but that’s more than enough for me! How did y’all do?]

Taking a deep breath, he hit SEND.

He pressed his back to his headboard, drawing his knees up to his chest, and set the PADD on the mattress next to him, then picked up the copy of _Shall We Tell the President_ Winona had given him. He’d read it two or three times in the last couple of years, so he wouldn’t get so drawn into the story that he missed any reply messages coming in.

About five minutes later, the PADD gave a high-pitched beep, letting him know he had a message. Hastily slipping the flap of the dust jacket into the pages to mark his place, Slim grabbed for the device eagerly and thumbed it to read it.

[ _Hey! It’s Braeden. Thanks for tracking everyone’s addresses down, TJ! I was wondering how we were gonna pull that off. Congratulations on getting in! I’ve been obsessively tracking my messages for the last day or so, and wouldn’t you know it, I got the message from Starfleet while I was reading yours. Class of 2278, baby!_ ]

“Yes!” Slim pumped his fist in the air. Knowing another cadet was definitely going to help him, and that person being in his program made it all the better. Before he could even put down the PADD, there was a tone indicating that another message had been received, and he tapped over to it.

[ _Is it too soon to say I’m claiming you both for service aboard my ship? I feel like it may be too soon to say that. But it’s true. Obviously it won’t be as quickly as your father, TJ, but someday I’m going to be the captain of a starship, and you guys will be part of my crew. And it all begins in a little over a hundred days. Cadet M’err, Communications and Command track, reporting for duty!_ ]

Slim laughed, even as he felt a blush spread across his cheeks. He somehow hadn’t actually expected anyone to _want_ him aboard their ship. And even though he knew that this was just the future chatter of a bunch of excited teens, it still kind of made him feel good that someone he’d met only _once_ was already talking like they’d someday be a crew as close as that of the _Enterprise._

Maybe.

He waited a moment, but no more messages came in, so he set the PADD down again and picked up the book. He got almost two chapters further into it before his PADD let out the excited little chirp again. Slim reached for it again.

[ _Hey, it’s Sparky! Sorry it took me so long to get back to you but I dropped my PADD and it kinda broke so I had to go talk to my mom about another one and she brushed me off but luckily my kid sister let me sign on with hers and so I signed on and saw all the messages and then we had to spend a few minutes jumping up and down and hugging each other and yelling with excitement ‘cause I swear she’s even more excited than I am even though that’s pretty freaking impossible right now. But yeah, I got in, too! Really and truly cannot wait to see you guys again and to get to Starfleet Academy and to start on this new adventure!_ ]

Slim was snickering long before he finished. Sparky wrote the way he spoke, in long, rambling sentences and without pausing to take a breath. But so far they were four for four. Now all he had to wait was to hear from T'mel.

He read a few more paragraphs before the PADD beeped again, but to his surprise, it wasn’t from T'mel—it was another message from Sparky.

[ _Oh, by the way. I’m not even gonna TRY and spell it, but Mister Grumpy-Gills got his results, too. He failed. For the fourth time. I think they told him he’s not allowed to try again anymore. Is it bad that I’m actually really kinda happy about that?_ ]

Slim found himself typing up a response before he really thought about it. [Maybe, but I’m really kinda happy about it, too.]

He hadn’t even set the PADD down before Braeden’s response popped into the group message. [ _I guess we’re just horrible people, then._ ]

[ _Not as horrible as he was._ ] M’err’s response was so quick Slim wondered if he’d had it preprogrammed to send.

Chuckling outright now, he set the PADD back down and picked up his book again.

The next sound he heard, some minutes later, didn’t come from his PADD. “Slim?”

Slim jumped and looked up to find his father standing in the doorway, looking a little concerned. “Oh…hey, Dad. What’s up?”

“Was just wondering if you were going to come eat,” Jim said as he folded his arms over his chest. “It’s almost six.”

Startled, Slim looked at the chrono inset on his PADD, and yeah, the time read 1752. “Oh. Didn’t realize it was that late. Yeah, hang on.” He marked his place in his book and got up.

“Good book?” Jim asked lightly as they headed out. “Thought you’d read that one before.”

“I have, an’ yeah, it’s good, but I was messaging with my new friends,” Slim confessed. “The ones I took the test with. We promised each other we’d let one another know what the results of our exams were.”

Jim smiled, but to Slim’s eyes, it looked a little strained. “And what are the results?”

“I haven’t heard back from T'mel yet, but the other three got in. An’ that Andorian I told you about, the one who was so rude? He didn’t.”

“Probably couldn’t pass the psych evals,” Jim said absently.

Slim blinked. “I don’t remember taking any psych evals.”

“They’re passive tests. They observe you the whole time you’re taking the test—including at lunch, probably. See how you’ll fit into the Academy, the Starfleet environment, that sort of thing. I don’t understand half of it. Plus some of the logic questions are actually hidden personality tests.”

“Oh.” Slim felt a little queasy. Somehow, it bothered him knowing that Gorshin had been picking his brain while he’d been completely unaware of it. It seemed kind of unethical to him.

Addie was about halfway through her dinner by the time Jim and Slim reached the mess hall. The rest of the senior command was also there, talking. Uhura noticed them first and broke off with a smile. “Slim, did you get in touch with your friends?”

Audra looked up from her meal, but she didn’t say anything. Slim nodded. “Everyone but T'mel. They all got in so far.”

“That’s good to hear,” Leo said warmly.

Jim nudged Slim towards the food slots. When they returned, Audra looked over at him with a soft smile, but to his surprise, there was something strained about it, too. “Any of your friends in Engineering?”

“Brae an’ Sparky, yeah,” Slim said with a nod. “M’err’s in Communications, an’ he’s also on the Command track.”

“And if T’mel should be offered a place,” Spock said, “what will she be studying?”

“Anthropology.”

“An unusual choice for a Vulcan.”

Slim shrugged. “Someone told her she needs to learn how to ‘interact with reality.’”

Chekov choked on his coffee. Everyone at the table laughed, except, of course, for Spock. Once the laughter had died down, Audra asked, “How long do you think it’ll be before you hear from—T’mel?”

Slim frowned slightly. There was an odd catch in Audra’s voice right before she said T’mel’s name, and he didn’t quite know why. “I dunno. Not sure where the _Intrepid_ is right now. Ain’t even sure she’s got her results yet. Maybe we’ll have heard somethin’ from her by the time I get back to quarters, but either way, I reckon she’ll get back to us eventually.”

Was it his imagination, or did Audra seem to relax after that?


	104. And Not Knowin' Why

The next few days passed more or less as normal. The flurry of excitement over Slim having made it into the Academy, and the odd note that had run through the senior command after meeting their alternate-universe (or was it original-universe?) counterparts, seemed to have faded into the background. Slim helped out in Engineering three more days and spent the in-between days working through one of Jim’s old out-of-date astrophysics workbooks. Addie crashed her bike trying to take a corner too fast and skinned her knees and elbows, thereby costing her riding privileges for a month. Baby Jame was cutting her first tooth and bore it a lot more patiently than Addie had, although both O’Flaherty and Nic’tlarn looked tired and worn from walking the floor with her in the wee hours of the morning when the pain evidently got too much. There were the usual run of minor illnesses and injuries, including one memorable afternoon where Watanabe came to Med Bay with his cheeks bright red with embarrassment and a foreign object lodged firmly up a hole through which everyone on staff agreed it could not possibly have fit in the first place. The _Enterprise_ patrolled her sector, scanning planets but not landing on any of them.

In fact, when it came down to it, there was really only one thing that stuck out as odd to Leo, and that was that, after that first afternoon, Slim never mentioned his new friends again.

Leo watched him closely without making it obvious that he was doing so, but it didn’t seem like he was overly concerned, or even thinking about them. He chattered away to his friends in Engineering, fenced, danced, and read to Addie just like normal. It was as though he’d slid completely back into his previous mindset of simply being a boy aboard his father’s ship, rather than a new-minted cadet. Yet it occurred to Leo that Slim had never mentioned if he’d heard from T’mel or not—and if he hadn’t, he didn’t seem worried about her.

Leo’s day off fell on the sixth day; he indulged in a couple extra hours of sleep before forcing himself awake. He vaguely remembered Jim kissing him and wishing him a good day, and he’d probably muttered something in response, but he couldn’t be sure it had had actual words to it. Either way, it was quiet in quarters when he finally got up. He took a leisurely shower, put on comfortable clothing, and headed up to the mess hall to get something to eat.

There was a time when this sort of thing would have been heaven for him—solitude, no responsibilities, a whole day to do what he wanted, when he wanted to do it. But that was before—before the Academy, before he had a family. Before Jim. He still liked lazy days with nothing to do, but he’d discovered the joys of sharing that with another person. Even when he and Jim weren’t doing anything, there was something about that quiet togetherness that felt better than solitude ever had. So once he’d finished eating—alone—he started back for quarters, figuring that Slim would be there working on something or other. At least they could sit in the living room together and work.

But Slim wasn’t in quarters. His bed was neatly made, but all of his PADDs were slotted in place, all his books stacked neatly on his nightstand. His workout shoes and dance shoes were both lined up neatly in front of his closet, which meant he wasn’t fencing or practicing his ballroom dancing.

So where was he?

Leo stood in the middle of his son’s room for a long moment, frowning as he puzzled over where Slim might be if he wasn’t in any of the usual places. Gradually, it dawned on him that he’d forgotten one of those “usual places.” Shaking his head sternly at himself, he turned on his heel and strode out of the room.

It only took him a few minutes to make his way up to the observation deck, and when he stepped out, he momentarily forgot his purpose in coming up. The panorama of space left him breathless. Thousands upon thousands of stars, from bright to faint, scattered through the cosmos, and without the refraction of atmosphere to obscure them, it was truly stunning. He didn’t feel like he was “in the black,” the way he’d felt back on Earth. This was the space Jim loved, the stardust he’d been born of. There was even soft music playing, seeming to come from the stars themselves.

After a moment, however, Leo realized that the music was coming from one corner of the observation deck. Slim, wearing an odd patchwork sweater Jim had crocheted him for Christmas, sat cross-legged on the bench, his harmonica held to his lips. He was playing one of those warbling, wistful cowboy songs he loved so much, his eyes half-closed as he lost himself in the music.

Leo stood still to listen, suddenly realizing how long it had been since he’d actually heard Slim play the harmonica. The young man still sang in the shower, hummed sometimes while he worked, but as far as Leo knew, the harmonica had mostly just been sitting on his shelf for well over a year. He cursed himself for not having noticed it before.

The last strains of the song echoed throughout the space, a high, warbling note, as Slim paused, his harmonica pulled slightly away from his lips, like he was still following the mysterious pathways of the song.

“Slim, that was lovely,” Leo said softly.

Slim started, then looked up with a smile. “Oh—hey, Pa. Didn’t hear you come in. Is Alpha over already?”

“No, I’m off today. Finished lunch and thought…I don’t know.” Leo moved closer to Slim. “Not working on astrophysics today?”

“I ran out of Dad’s old workbooks, an’ I ain’t ready for Uncle Spock’s,” Slim admitted. “Don’t reckon I’ll ever be. ‘Sides, Mr. Scott tol’ me to take a mental health day. Said if the crew got one day off a week, I was entitled to one, too.”

“He has a point,” Leo said. “Mind if I…?”

“No, go ahead.”

Slim scooted over to the end of the bench, leaving plenty of space for Leo to sit down next to him. They sat in silence for long minutes, watching the stars pass before them. It was a comfortable, easy silence. Slim ran his finger lightly over the engraving on the back of his harmonica, but didn’t raise it to his lips again. He seemed content to sit silently and observe.

“Haven’t heard you play that in a while,” Leo finally said quietly.

“Yeah, I don’t play that one too often, but it’s been stuck in my head all day.”

“I meant the harmonica in general. I don’t think you’ve really played in more than a year.”

Slim looked up at Leo, his eyes widening briefly in surprise. “I play for Addie in the afternoons at least once a week. An’ I come up here to play sometimes on my lunch break after I’ve eaten. I just don’t play in quarters too often. I don’t want to disturb people.”

“Oh.” Leo felt a little foolish. “Sorry for assuming. I just…suddenly realized I hadn’t heard you for a while.”

“It’s all right.” Slim shrugged as he looked down at the harmonica in his hands. Leo thought that it was probably a good sign that he wasn’t apologizing constantly, too. “I reckon I haven’t played where you can hear me in a while.”

Leo tilted his head as he studied his stepson. “Then maybe I shouldn’t assume that just because you haven’t said anything to your dad or me doesn’t mean you haven’t heard from your friends.”

“What do you mean?” Slim looked up again with a frown.

“I haven’t heard you mention T’mel since that first day,” Leo said. “I guess I just missed you talking about her?”

“No,” Slim said with another shrug. “I ain’t heard from her still.”

Leo lifted an eyebrow. “That doesn’t worry you?”

Slim was already shaking his head before Leo had finished. “No, I told you, remember? I ain’t sure where the _Intrepid_ is. She probably just ain’t received our messages yet.”

“I guess it just strikes me as a little…odd that you aren’t obsessively checking your PADD for messages. If a friend of mine hadn’t spoken to me about something that important…”

“I didn’t think of it like that,” Slim admitted. He worried at his lower lip for a moment. “I reckon it’s just that I don’t know her that well. We _barely_ met. I felt that kind of instant kinship with ‘em—same’s I felt with Port an’ Nico an’ Kelly—but I don’t know ‘em enough to be panickin’. ‘Sides, it’s only been a week. I know how slow messages can be in space.”

“Have you talked about your new friends with your old ones?” Leo wasn’t sure why he was asking, but he found himself pressing.

Slim looked confused. “Couple of times, yeah. Not too much, though. We’ve got other stuff on our minds.”

“And they haven’t asked?”

“Nah. Not sure they really worry all that much, t’ be honest.”

Leo was about to ask another question when he remembered Cayne’s face from dinner the previous week, the way she’d looked every time T’mel’s name came up. Suddenly, he understood both why he was asking so many questions and why she’d looked like that…and maybe why nobody had mentioned Slim’s new friends. He believed Slim when he said that he honestly wasn’t thinking about them very often, and that he wasn’t worried about T’mel, but he was pretty sure that Cayne was.

Just maybe not for the same reasons Slim would be.

He let the conversation lapse for a while while he tried to contemplate how to bring it up. Finally, he decided to go for the subtle approach. “Look there. See that little green dot out there?”

Slim followed Leo’s finger and nodded. “Yeah, I see it. That ain’t Earth, is it? I thought Earth showed up blue.”

“It does. That’s Miri’s homeworld.”

“Miri—?” Slim looked confused for a moment, then his brow cleared. “Right. The ‘grup’ virus.”

“That’s right,” Leo agreed. “And your first little girlfriend.”

Slim blushed. “She wasn’t my girlfriend.”

“You liked her, though.”

“I—yeah, maybe a little,” Slim admitted.

“And she liked you,” Leo persisted. “A whole hell of a lot.”

Slim’s blush deepened. “Yeah, reckon she did.”

Leo cocked his head at Slim. “Have you ever talked about her with your friends?”

“Yeah.” Slim snickered, even while he was still blushing. “Port teased me ‘bout havin’ a thing for older women an’ Audra hit him.”

Leo couldn’t help but laugh, too. “Never tease a woman about her age.”

“I wouldn’t tease anyone ‘bout their age. Don’t seem fair to me.” Slim studied the bright green disk in the distance. “I wonder how they’re doin’?”

“I’m sure they’re doing just fine,” Leo assured him. “The support team the Federation was sending ought to have been there a couple years back.”

Slim’s eyes went a little vacant. Leo wondered what he was seeing in the panorama of space, but his next words still came as a surprise. “Think the High Chief of the Capellans is all right?”

“Leonard James Akaar?” Leo smiled at the memory. “I’m sure he is. His father obviously loved him.”

“I guess.” Slim looked up at Leo, and there was something surprisingly vulnerable in his expression. “Pa, how often do y’all get to go back to worlds you’ve already visited? See how things are turnin’ out?”

Leo hesitated, trying to think. “Not very,” he said at last. “Matter of fact, I think it’s only happened once, strictly speaking. Not counting planets for shore leave and the like. Why do you ask?”

“I just…how do you live with that? With not knowin’ if you made a difference—a positive difference, I mean?”

“We hear about them,” Leo said slowly. “It’s not like we’re the last contact those worlds will ever have. Mostly we figure if the Federation doesn’t come back with an official reprimand, we did okay.”

“Yeah, but…don’t you ever want to see for yourself?”

Leo’s mind flashed, unwillingly, to Yonada and Natira. “Sometimes,” he admitted reluctantly. “I’d certainly like to see how that planet modeled on Rome works out in five, ten years or so. And I’m sure curious about Capella IV, now that you mention it. Other times, though…well, in most cases, things aren’t gonna change too quickly. Going back to a planet we helped out of a crisis a year or so ago will just take us to a planet that’s still rebuilding.”

“We hope,” Slim murmured. He rubbed his palms on his trousers. “It ain’t like I’ve been on too many worlds, either. Not yet, anyway. But I reckon I’d like to visit ‘em someday.”

“I don’t doubt that you will. We run into planets all the time that need a little technological help; you’d be a natural for those kinds of missions. And you’ve got real skill with diplomacy, so you’d be an asset on a first-contact mission, too. Any captain would be a fool not to make use of you.”

Slim turned as red as his future uniform, but all he said was, “Thanks, Pa.”

They sat in companionable silence for a while. Leo was satisfied that Cayne didn’t have any reason to be jealous, but he saw no reason to mention it to Slim, so he just let it go. After long moments, Slim raised his harmonica to his lips again and began to play.

Leo listened, astonished. The music was warm and inviting—and somehow familiar—as it filled the room. It somehow made a perfect backdrop to the stars, making Leo feel as though he was back on Earth on a quiet night, grass under his back and the blanket of the sky overhead.

He was afraid to speak at first as the last notes reverberated off the ceiling of the room. At last, however, he said softly, “Slim…that was beautiful.”

“Thanks.” Slim, too, spoke quietly, as though reluctant to break the fragile mood.

“What was it called?” Leo was still trying to think of how he knew it.

“I’ve only ever heard it called ‘The Night-Herdin’ Song,’” Slim answered. “I play or sing it ‘most every night for Addie. Have since she was a few months shy of her second birthday.”

_That_ was why Leo knew it—he’d heard it coming out of Addie’s room night after night, although never loud enough to distinguish the words. “I’d love to know how it goes.”

Slim let his eyes drift back to the panorama of space as he began to sing softly. They were simple words, meant to soothe a herd of cattle being driven over a long distance, but they touched something in Leo’s soul he hadn’t even known was there to be touched.

He didn’t even realize his eyes were growing heavy until he drifted off to sleep, Slim’s voice still echoing in his ears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to be up front with y'all and let you know that it might be more than a week before I can get the next chapter out. I went through all the episodes that I haven't used or referenced yet and couldn't find one that fit my needs, so I'm going to have to think up an original away mission to fit my purpose. (I know. You're all heartbroken.) Hopefully it won't be TOO terribly long. I promise for sure to have it done and up before Valentine's Day, at least...


	105. Three Mississippi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning for non-graphic descriptions of torture.** At least, I don't think they're graphic.
> 
> Whoof. You guys, I am so incredibly sorry this took me so long to write. Partly there's been a lot going on at work. Partly I had several evenings for about a month taken up by a surprisingly demanding RP partner (don't get me started). Partly I really had to work out what I wanted to happen in this chapter. Fun fact: I actually have _three_ versions of this chapter--one that started off with a different premise, one with a somewhat different ending, and this one. This is the one that stuck, that flowed a lot better.
> 
> So...I hope it was worth the wait?
> 
> Also, the chapter title is from a Terri Clark song of the same name.

It should have been an empty planet in an empty system. All the Federation charts said so, and they’d only been updated the day before. Geologically uninteresting, botanically barren, classified as “habitable” only because it possessed a breathable atmosphere, the planet had been scanned by the last ship to pass this sector seven years previously and reported as completely devoid of life. There was no reason for the _Enterprise_ to land on it, and no colony had been established.

Yet as they passed it by, Spock bent over his station. “Fascinating.”

Jim rose from his seat. He couldn’t explain why that one, singular word filled him with a sense of terror. It wasn’t like he’d never heard Spock say it before. In fact, it was usually a source of amusement. “What is, Mr. Spock?”

Chekov tossed a look of confusion over his shoulder, and Jim knew he hadn’t been able to keep the tension out of his voice. If Spock noticed, however, he gave no sign. “Scanners indicate that several large structures have been erected on the planet’s surface, sir, and there are signs of spaceworthy vessels near them.”

“You mean this planet is inhabited?” Jim said, frowning as he rose from his seat.

“That is what is indicated, Captain,” Spock said blandly.

“Captain, sensors picking up a buoy ahead,” Sulu said over his shoulder without turning around.

“Any signal coming off of it?” Jim asked, turning to Uhura swiftly.

“No, Captain, not yet,” Uhura said, one hand to her ear.

Jim hesitated, then told Sulu, “Fly a little closer, but be careful. If the Klingons have established a colony…”

“This far into Federation space?” Uhura turned from her console with a frown.

Jim nodded. “You see my concern. But that’s not an official Federation colony down there. Which means it could be the Klingons, it could be the Romulans…”

“Or it could be fugitives of some kind,” Spock said with a nod. “Or a colony from a nearby world that is not yet part of the Federation.”

“ _What_ world, Mr. Spock? This sector has been explored fairly thoroughly over the last ten years, and there are only five inhabited worlds anything approaching ‘nearby’, none of which are in this system,” Jim pointed out. This was supposed to have simply been a routine patrol of the sector, noting any changes to geology or astrology. “And three of them are Federation members, while the other two aren’t capable of interstellar flight yet—hell, the Wraiths of Dakala haven’t even shown interest in atmospheric flight. I won’t rule out the possibility of an unsanctioned colony, or a world the _Goeble_ somehow missed having sent out colonists, but I think caution is still warranted.”

Sulu cleared his throat. “Buoy appearing on the screen, sir.”

Jim turned to look at the viewscreen. A moment later, the buoy was easily visible: large and red, with a strange symbol decorating the front. It wasn’t the symbol of the Klingon Empire, nor the Romulan, and it didn’t seem to be Tholian, from Jim’s limited experience with them. As far as he knew, there were no other major powers in the Alpha Quadrant—which didn’t necessarily reassure him.

“Anyone recognize that symbol?” he asked.

He expected that, if anyone did, it would be Spock, but to his surprise, it was Chekov who spoke up. “Keptin, we need to go. _Immediately._ ”

Jim’s stomach clenched. He moved towards Chekov, instinctively reacting to that tone of voice—that choked, breathless, frightened sound, the way he’d sounded when they’d encountered Apollo. “Eighty degrees, Mr. Sulu. We’ll give this place a miss.”

“Captain,” Spock protested.

“Those are my orders, Mr. Spock,” Jim said firmly.

Before he could say more, however, the ship juddered, nearly throwing Jim off-balance. Sulu pulled at his controls. “Sir, helm not responding! We’re caught in a tractor beam!”

“Captain, incoming transmission from that buoy,” Uhura said in the same instant.

Chekov actually whimpered. Jim squeezed his shoulder comfortingly, then said, “Red alert. Try to maintain present position for the moment, Mr. Sulu…Lieutenant Uhura, put that transmission through.”

The alarm klaxon began blaring, although muted on the bridge, and Uhura turned back to her station. Jim braced himself for a recorded message, but to his surprise, there was nothing. He looked at Uhura, gesturing helplessly.

“It’s an open channel, sir, but—” she began.

Before she could continue, however, a voice boomed through the bridge. “Who are you? Who dares enter our space?”

Chekov flinched, curling in on himself and closing his eyes tightly. Jim didn’t give himself time to think—he stepped around the helm to put himself between the viewscreen and Chekov’s seat, shielding him from the view of anyone should that screen flicker to life. With a bravado he didn’t feel, he said, “This is Captain James T. Kirk of the Federation starship _Enterprise._ Who are you, and by what right do you claim this space?”

The other person laughed. It was not a pleasant sound. “I am the man who holds your ship. And we claim this space by right of conquest.”

Jim was a little frustrated talking to an empty viewscreen—or, he supposed, talking to a buoy rather than to a person. He also had no desire to be here. “By what right do you hold my ship?”

“You entered without our permission. You then attempted to leave without our permission.”

Jim suddenly flashed back to the movie they’d watched on Slim’s fifteenth birthday. Licking his lips, he asked, “Well then, may we have your permission?”

There was a moment’s pause, and then the man at the other end began laughing again. The laughter filled the room, and it also filled Jim with a sense of numbing terror he hadn’t felt in damn near thirty years. He backed up against the console, feeling his heart start beating faster in fear, and wished with all his might that Bones was there to hold him, to reassure him that he was safe.

“It is not mine to grant like that,” the man said at last, his voice still heavy with laughter. “Come and ask in person, and we shall see.” He paused, and then added, “Ensign Pavel Chekov is part of your crew, _da_?”

Jim’s mouth went dry. He caught the look of fear on Sulu’s face out of the corner of his eye, and he had to try twice before he could manage to speak. “There is no Ensign Chekov aboard the _Enterprise._ ”

Spock turned to him with a frown, but Jim rapidly held up a hand, forestalling any comment. The voice at the other end of the communication wasn’t fooled, though. “He has been promoted, then. Well, no matter. Bring him with you when you come.”

He spoke with a sense of finality. Uhura turned from her station, her voice subdued. “Communication has been closed, sir.”

Jim turned to look at Chekov, not saying anything. Chekov looked back at him, his eyes wide and frightened, trembling faintly. Jim wanted nothing more than to wrap him up in a hug and promise to protect him.

Since that wasn’t really feasible on the working bridge of a starship, however, he said quietly, “I’ll think up some sort of story for why you’re not going down there, Mr. Chekov.”

Chekov swallowed twice, then shook his head, standing slowly. “No, Keptin,” he said, so softly that nobody but Jim—and perhaps Spock, with his Vulcan hearing—could have heard it. “Zey will never let you leave if I don’t go with you.”

Jim met Chekov’s eyes. He saw in them the same fear and pain he’d seen only once before—on Pollux IV, when he’d been explaining to Jim his theory on why they were so afraid of Apollo. The terror that had settled in his chest when the voice had started laughing dropped into the pit of his stomach.

“Chekov,” he half-whispered. “Are these people who I think they are?”

Chekov nodded slightly. “Aye, Keptin.”

His mouth dry, Jim had to try twice before he was able to make it to his chair and activate the conn. “Kirk to Scott.”

“Scott here.”

“Mr. Scott, please report to the transporter room. On the double.”

“Aye, sir.” Scotty sounded wary, as well he might—Jim rarely called him anything but Scotty, even while they were working. “On the double.”

Jim hesitated, then pressed another button. “Bridge to Medical.”

“He’s already on his way, Captain.” Chapel’s voice sounded faintly amused, but Jim couldn’t find much to smile about.

“You intend to bring Dr. McCoy with you, then, Captain?” Spock said quietly.

“I do, Mr. Spock.” Jim didn’t look at his first officer as he pressed one more button, summoning a relief helmsman and navigator. “Mr. Sulu, you’ll be coming as well.”

Sulu nodded, looking worriedly from Chekov to Jim and back as he got to his feet. Spock’s face was impassive. “I take that you wish me to take command in your absence, Captain.”

“No,” Jim said softly. “I have a very strong suspicion we’ll need you down there as well.”

Spock’s eyebrows lifted briefly. A moment later, the door to the bridge slid open and Bones came in, frowning. “Jim, is everything all right?”

Jim reached out for his husband’s hand. “I’ll explain in the transporter room,” he promised. “Mr. Spock, Mr. Sulu, Mr. Chekov—let’s go.” He turned to Uhura, who had suddenly looked at him with wide eyes, as if she’d just realized the implications of his words. “Lieutenant Uhura, your command.”

There was a flash of terror in Uhura’s eyes, but she brought her chin up and nodded. “Aye, sir.”

Taking a step closer to her, Jim said in a low, urgent voice, “If you break free of the tractor beam, you give us an hour, and if you haven’t heard from us, you get the hell out of here. You hear me?”

“I hear you, Jim,” Uhura said just as quietly.

Jim nodded, then turned to lead his men into the lift.

The second they were in the lift, Bones slid his arm around Jim’s waist, pulling him close to his side. Sulu did the same for Chekov. Neither man let go as they made their way to the transporter room. Scotty was already there, talking quietly with Kyle; they broke off the conversation as Jim and the others approached.

“Sir?” Scotty’s eyebrows climbed nearly into his receding hairline.

Jim tilted his chin in the general direction of the planet they were about to beam down to. “This planet is supposedly uninhabited, with no authorized Federation colony. But there was a buoy, and we’re caught in a tractor beam. And the man I spoke to…” He hesitated, casting a brief glance at Chekov, then said, “I doubt they’re here for anything good. We’re going to need all the help we can get.”

Scotty frowned at Chekov, who was staring at his boots. Before he could say a word, however, Spock spoke up calmly. “Mr. Chekov’s presence was specifically requested.”

“Ah,” Scotty said softly. He looked back to Jim. “I sent Slim up to the bridge when ye commed me. Thought he might be needed there.”

“Thank you,” Jim said, feeling relieved. The more people on the bridge he absolutely trusted, the better—and wasn’t _that_ still an odd thought, that he already trusted his son in a crisis to handle himself capably? “All right, let’s not keep our…hosts…waiting.”

They climbed onto the transporter platform. As soon as all of them had taken their positions, Jim nodded to Kyle. “Energize.”

He didn’t know what to expect. Not from the people, not from the structures, not from the planet itself. Usually that was part of the thrill of a first-contact situation, but this time, knowing at least a little bit of what was down there, all he felt was trepidation.

They materialized in what appeared to be a courtyard. The surrounding walls were dark, dull sheets of steel held together with enormous rivets that were beginning to rust, topped with loops of barbed wire. The ground was the natural hard rock of the planet, no soil or sod to soften it, no attempts made to polish or shape. The sky overhead was an ominous blood red, matching the symbol painted on the doors, which were firmly shut.

“What, no welcoming committee?” Bones muttered.

Chekov glanced up, seemingly against his will, at a spot on the upper left side of the wall directly in front of them. “Wait,” he murmured without moving his lips. “Don’t look impatient. Don’t react. Zey are waiting on a reaction.”

Jim took a deep breath and willed himself to calm. He pictured Slim, standing firm in the face of fear or distress, and tried to emulate that. The others seemed to draw off of Spock’s Vulcan stiff-upper-lip thing, although Sulu clearly found it difficult. Jim could understand that. If it were Bones in Chekov’s place, he likely wouldn’t be able to keep calm easily, either.

They had stood perfectly still for what seemed simultaneously like forever and only a few seconds when the door suddenly creaked open, swinging outward in a slow, lazy arc. Framed in the doorway was a big burly man, a scowl on his lantern-jawed face. He strode out into the courtyard and stood in front of the men from the _Enterprise_ , tilting his chin upwards in a challenging manner and looking down his nose. Since the man was already a head taller than Jim was, the effect was definitely imposing. Or would have been, if it weren’t for the fact that this guy was, basically, a bully. Jim could deal with bullies.

He lifted his own chin and stared the man in the eye, waiting for him to speak first.

The man’s gaze traveled along the line, seemingly unimpressed. When he came to Chekov, however, he paused, staring at the navigator. A smile slowly grew on his face. It was not a nice smile. “Pavel.”

The way the man drew out Chekov’s first name—a low, slow roll of the syllables that sounded somewhere between a caress and a threat—made Jim’s spine crawl. Chekov swallowed hard, and when he answered, his voice, though quiet, was perfectly steady. “Evgeny.”

The man—Evgeny, Jim supposed—smiled more broadly. He lowered his head slightly, looking predatory, and spoke in Russian. Jim knew that he was the only one besides Chekov to understand what he was saying. “You think you can fool me into thinking you’re not afraid?”

Chekov lifted his chin. He looked terrified, but he actually managed to meet Evgeny’s eyes as he responded in the same language. “I am afraid. But I will face you anyway.”

Evgeny sneered. “But will you face _him_?”

“I will.” Chekov spoke in a near-whisper.

Evgeny scoffed, then turned to face Jim. Still speaking Russian, he said, “And you, Starfleet Captain _._ Does he fear you?”

Jim took a deep breath. He knew his accent was horrible, but he was at least reasonably confident that his vocabulary was up to scratch as he responded in the same language. “I don’t run my ship by fear.”

He didn’t need to see Bones to know that pride had just flashed through his eyes. Evgeny’s eyes widened briefly, and then he scowled. Chekov took a quick breath, then spoke in English. “Permit me to introduce Keptin James Tiberius Kirk of ze U.S.S. _Enterprise._ Keptin, zis is Evgeny Andreiovich Chekov—my older brother.”

“Keptin,” Evgeny said, heavy sarcasm on the word as he inclined his head slightly in Jim’s direction.

Jim returned the slight nod with one of his own. “Tell whoever’s in charge here that we want to speak to the big fish and not the little worm.”

Evgeny sputtered, then used a few choice words that didn’t translate into English before turning and disappearing back into the building. The door slammed behind him with a loud boom.

Chekov exhaled, dropping his head briefly, then looked up at Jim. “I never heard anyone stand up to him like zat before,” he murmured. “To _any_ of them.”

Jim reached over and squeezed Chekov’s shoulder briefly. “Is he the oldest?”

“No, he’s ze one right above me. Nikolai is ze oldest, zen Fyodor. Pyotr is two years younger zan me.” Chekov spoke almost absently as he glanced at the door.

“Laddie,” Scotty said quietly, sounding slightly horrified. “Is this your family?”

“Yes, Mr. Scott.” Chekov turned back to the group. He looked somehow ashamed. “I—I’m sorry, I—”

Jim cut him off with a shake of the head. “You can’t help where you came from, Chekov. It only matters where you go.”

Sulu reached for him, but Chekov shook his head quickly. “Don’t—please.” He added a few quick words in what Jim thought might have been Tagalog. Whatever the language was, Sulu clearly understood; although he looked alarmed, he merely nodded, shifting back into the parade rest position.

Spock lifted an eyebrow. “Fascinating.”

“I see what you mean about being the white sheep,” Bones murmured.

“No,” Chekov said in a low voice. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”

The door opened again, but this time the figure who came out was smaller. Jim’s breath caught in his throat as he looked into the eyes of an obviously terrified boy, thin and spindly, his eyes wide and his knees shaking. He was no older than Slim, maybe even younger. Jim wondered what the boy had done to get guard duty.

“Y-you will come with me,” he stammered, the English words thick on his tongue.

Jim stood his ground. “And who are you?” he asked, keeping his voice neutral.

The boy flinched. “I—I am ze one who will take you where you are to go.”

“Your name,” Jim prompted, keeping his voice as flat as possible.

“Aleksandr Nikolaevich Chekov, sir,” the boy responded. “Zis way. Please,” he added quickly.

Jim nodded to his men, and they fell into step behind Aleksandr.

It was something he’d learned over the years. Press with a question, nine times out of ten people would continue to be evasive. Push with an order, they’d often respond without thinking, or be too afraid not to. He felt like a monster, trying to intimidate this kid, but he took a little bit of refuge in the fact that that didn’t exactly seem to be a challenge.

The hallway they found themselves in was dark and foreboding, and Jim half-expected to meet a squadron of men in white body armor and hear the sounds of heavy breathing. Instead there were only their own footsteps and the occasional soft beep of a door alarm as they passed it. The hallway twisted and turned several times. Jim tried not to get anxious, but he realized that this was basically a maze. If they needed to get out in a hurry, they probably wouldn’t be able to.

The game was being played both ways. Jim just had to hope he was still good at it.

“How old are you, Aleksandr Nikolaevich?” Chekov asked suddenly.

The formal Russian address felt odd, almost archaic, but Jim knew enough about the Chekov family to know that they were somewhat old-fashioned in a lot of ways. Aleksandr swallowed twice before he was able to answer. “Sewenteen, sir.”

He _was_ Slim’s age. Chekov studied him. “You wish to attend Starfleet Academy?”

Aleksandr actually tripped over his feet before turning to Chekov with wide eyes. “How—how did you—?”

“Zat is why you are on escort duty, is it not?” Chekov said quietly. “At so young an age? You are being—brought into ze fold. And punished for wanting to leave.”

“Yes,” Aleksandr whispered, his shoulders slumping. “Zat is true.”

Bones cut a glance at Jim, who could read the question in his husband’s eyes and gave a slight nod. They would be bringing Aleksandr with them when they left the planet. If they could do it without getting killed.

Jim was beginning to question his decision to bring most of his senior command with him.

It took about twenty minutes before Aleksandr brought them to a halt before a pair of ornately-wrought iron doors. The same symbol that was painted on the buoy stood out in the center. Jim studied it. It was two straight lines, one with a line coming off of it at an angle that reached to the bottom of the symbol, the other of which had a short tail at the top and bottom facing in opposite directions. The one with the angle to the bottom was also bisected by a short line in the middle.

“Fascinating,” Spock said, studying the image. “Tell me, Mr. Chekov, what is the significance of this symbol?”

“It’s—” Chekov and Aleksandr began at the same moment. They looked at one another, and then Chekekov gestured for Aleksandr to hold off. The lad nodded, stepping back and clasping his hands behind his back.

Chekov took a deep breath. “It’s based on Norse runes, sir. Zis one is _uruz_ —strength of will—overlaid with _naudhiz—_ unfulfilled desire. And zis is _eihwaz_ —strength—but it literally means ‘yew’.”

“That makes sense,” Bones mumbled.

Jim gestured to the door. He was slightly intimidated by the symbol, which he guessed was the point, but he wasn’t going to show it. “Is this where we’re going?”

“Yes, sir.” Aleksandr stepped forward and knocked twice.

The doors swung inward with a melodramatic groan. Aleksandr gulped, then stepped forward. Jim nodded to his men, who followed him into the room. He could feel Chekov’s trepidation, but tried very hard not to show any visible outward reaction to it. It would be a death sentence for them if they did.

Evgeny was there, standing off to one side. There were seven other men in the room, arranged in what was clearly a hierarchy on either side of an ornate iron throne. In fact, Jim thought it looked very much like the one described in that ungodly-long fantasy series Sam had read bits of to him when they were kids, or at least how he’d always imagined it. Sitting on the throne was a big, beefy man, broad-shouldered and solid, with close-cropped steel-grey hair and eyes that were a nearly midnight blue, his every feature stamped with cruelty. His eyes locked on Chekov, and he sneered.

“So,” he said, his voice booming and echoing off the walls. “You return at last. With gifts.”

Chekov turned his head to look at Jim, lifting his eyebrows slightly. Jim realized, with a start, that he was silently asking for permission to speak—and then he got it. The man before him was not a man who encouraged underlings to speak without leave, and for Jim to allow it of Chekov would have meant he’d be expected to punish him, something Jim refused to do. He gave a short, sharp nod, giving Chekov the permission he’d already known he had.

Turning back to the man, Chekov threw his shoulders back and managed to speak without his voice shaking. “I am here because it was commanded, sir. But I do not return. And zese men are not _gifts._ ”

“You dare contradict _me?_ ” The man half-rose from his seat. The man standing to his right—a bigger, burlier version of Chekov with a full beard—reached for his hip, where Jim could see a weapon.

He took a half-step forward and spoke out with a bravado he didn’t feel. “Raise a hand to one of my men and prepare to reap the consequences. You do not command my men. Or me.”

The man sat back. He actually seemed impressed, if his smirk was anything to go by. “Keptin of ze _Enterprise,_ you speak big words for a man who holds none of ze power.”

“We came in good faith,” Jim shot back. “And you know nothing of our power.”

“Zat is true enough.” The man waved a hand at the man to his left, who looked disappointed, but moved his own hand away from his weapon. “Well, zen, perhaps introductions are in order. I am Andrei Nikolaevich Chekov, monarch absolute of ze planet Unï.”

Jim inclined his head, ever so slightly. _Well, you asked to speak to the big fish._ “And I am James Tiberius Kirk, captain of the Federation starship U.S.S. _Enterprise._ ”

“Why have you come here, Keptin of ze _Enterprise?_ ” Andrei asked.

“I have come to ask your permission for our ship to be allowed to leave your space,” Jim replied. “Whomever I spoke to before told me it was not his to grant that permission.”

“And for zat, you needed five armed guards?”

Jim gestured dismissively towards the eight men streaming on either side of Andrei’s throne. “You needed _eight_ armed guards to speak to me?”

“I need only one to take you down,” Andrei rumbled. “But zese are my sons—my _loyal_ sons,” he added, with a dirty look shot in Chekov’s direction, “and my nephews. Zey are here because I include zem in my counsel. Not because I fear you.”

“I brought my men for the same reason,” Jim said.

“Perhaps, zen, you would care to introduce zem,” Andrei said.

“You first.”

Aleksandr made a small, strangled noise that might have been a squeak of fear. Andrei grinned. “Very good, Keptin of ze _Enterprise._ Not many would dare to make such demands of me. Wery well, I shall.” He began gesturing to each man in turn, alternating from right to left, obviously in order of their relative importance to him. “Nikolai Andreiovich, my eldest son. Fyodor Andreiovich, my second son. Evgeny Andreiovich you know. Pyotr Andreiovich, my youngest son. And my four eldest nephews, sons of my brother Grigory and my brother-in-law Boris.”

There was a mutinous look in the eye of the man on the far left—as though he resented the fact that he meant so little to Andrei that he didn’t even get introduced by name. Jim was starting to understand how things worked on this planet and really wished he didn’t.

“These are my most trusted men,” he said aloud. “Lieutenant Commander Scott, Commander Spock, Dr. McCoy, Lieutenant Sulu, and Lieutenant Chekov.”

“If you trust Pasha, you are fool,” grunted one of Chekov’s cousins, the one of second-greatest relative importance.

Jim held out a hand swiftly to check Sulu’s angry retort, not even having to look at the man to know he was gearing up to explode. Without taking his eyes off of Andrei, he said, “We are not here to listen to the rambling of underlings and fools. We are here for a purpose.”

Andrei chuckled. “Speak, Keptin.”

“We entered your space without knowing,” Jim said, managing to keep his voice steady. “May we have your permission to leave?”

There was a long pause. Then Andrei laughed. It was a deeper, more malicious version of the laugh that had come from the buoy and immediately set Jim on edge. He was pretty sure they were going to be fighting their way out of this one.

“It is easy to grant you permission,” he said at last, still laughing. “But you must do something for me in return.”

“Must?” Jim put every ounce of coldness into that single syllable that he could.

“Captain Kirk _must_ do what the Federation commands,” Spock said mildly. “He _must_ do what Starfleet regulations demand. He _may_ do what you request, _if_ it will not violate either of those things.”

“You let your underlings speak for you?” Andrei still sounded amused, but there was a slight narrowing of his eyes.

Jim kept his tone as flat and cold as he could. “My men understand me. They know the way my mind works. I don’t _need_ to speak for them to know what I require of them. Now. What is your request in exchange for permission to leave?”

Andrei rose from his seat and took a half-step towards them. Jim had to fight with himself not to steal that half-step back, not to cringe or back down in front of the man, who was frankly beyond intimidating and well into terrifying. He made Frank look like a playground bully.

“Ze man who stands with you,” he rumbled, “is a man who ran away from home. He ran away from his family, from his destiny. He abandoned his responsibilities. He killed his mother.”

Chekov made a small, obviously involuntary noise in the back of his throat. Fyodor sneered at him. “You didn’t know zat? She died not three months after you left. You always were her favorite.” He spat the words out, as though they tasted nasty.

“And he has found his refuge with you,” Andrei continued, as though he hadn’t heard. “Well, you may keep him. He is useless to us. However…our laws say zat he must pay for what he has done.”

“He found his own destiny,” Jim said, as steadily as possible.

“At ze expense of ze family. Ze debt must be paid. He must be punished.”

Chekov opened his mouth to speak, but Jim shook his head, turning to look at him. “No, Mr. Chekov. Don’t even say it.” He offered Chekov a quick, friendly smile, then turned back to Andrei with all seriousness. “Lieutenant Pavel Chekov is a member of Starfleet, and a member of my crew. Any debts he owed before joining have been transferred to the organization—and to me.” He took a deep breath and lifted his head a little higher. “If there is a debt to be paid, it is I who will pay it.”

“Captain,” Sulu protested.

“This is non-negotiable,” Jim said without taking his eyes off of Andrei. “Either I pay the debt, or you accept that it has been paid and let my ship go.”

Andrei scowled. “What kind of a choice is zat?”

“The only logical one,” Jim replied. “You should know that I will never allow you to harm one of my men. I thought I made that _perfectly_ clear earlier. If you try to harm them, we will resist you. We will fight our way out, destroy the controls to the tractor beam holding our ship, and leave, with or without your permission. So. _Either_ you may grant us your permission to leave, in which case we will never bother you again, _or_ you allow me to pay what you consider my senior navigator’s ‘debt.’ Which will it be, Andrei Nikolaevich?”

“Jim,” Bones whispered behind him.

Jim wasn’t stupid. Far from it. He knew the sort of “payment” Andrei probably had in mind. Chekov’s words from back on Pollux IV kept running through his head: _A master at inflicting the maximum amount of pain without risk of death._ The words had frightened him then, and they terrified him now. But he’d be damned if he allowed that sort of pain to be inflicted on his crew. Not while it was within his power to stop it.

He lifted his chin just a little bit higher, and waited.

After a long moment of silence, Andrei grinned his shark-like grin again. “ _Da._ I agree to your terms, Keptin of ze _Enterprise._ You will pay ze debt for ze boy, and we will release your ship.”

“Release my ship first,” Jim said immediately.

“And what guarantee do I have zat you will not immediately leave if I do?”

“Our ship’s sensors cannot penetrate iron and stone,” Spock said calmly. “Which I suspect was your intent in building this facility in such a fashion. We can neither communicate with the ship nor be beamed out from this location.”

“And my word is my honor,” Jim informed Andrei. “I do not leave my debts unpaid.”

Andrei lifted one eyebrow, but nodded. He raised a crude communicator, one that looked rather like an old-fashioned walkie-talkie, and spoke in Russian. “Disengage the tractor beams. The ship will be leaving within the hour.”

Jim said nothing, but internally, he gave a sigh of relief. _Within the hour._ That meant that, whatever Andrei had in mind for him, it wouldn’t last too terribly long.

Someone on the other end gave confirmation, and Andrei set the communicator aside. Still speaking Russian, he turned to Aleksandr. “Take them to Chamber Nineteen. We will be there shortly.”

Aleksandr turned white as a sheet, but he swallowed hard and managed, “ _Da,_ Master.” Without another word, he turned and beckoned to the men from the _Enterprise._

They followed him silently. Jim’s mind kept going over all the potential fallout of this scenario. He knew Andrei wouldn’t kill him, but that wasn’t necessarily a comfort. As Chekov had said, death had an end. Jim had no doubt that Andrei could leave him with permanent, crippling pain—maybe even effectively end his Starfleet career. His stomach roiled at the thought—of being useless, of being unwanted. Of tearing his family apart.

But—he straightened his spine unconsciously—better him than Chekov. He’d dealt with pain before. Whatever was thrown at him, he could handle it. Even if he lost his job, he would be all right. He had Bones, after all. He’d make it through this with Bones. _For_ Bones.

Chamber Nineteen turned out to be a round, mostly empty room, something like an arena. There was a chair on a raised dais, less ornate than the iron throne in the main room but still obviously for Andrei to sit in, and there was a small area off to one side penned off, the top of the fence coming to about mid-chest. The center of the room was a depression, perhaps eight feet in diameter and a foot deep, and Jim’s heart thudded painfully in his chest when he noticed the drain set into the floor. It wasn’t hard to guess at its purpose. Otherwise, however, the room was empty.

Aleksandr pointed at the penned-off area, his hand shaking. “Y-you will stand zere. Please,” he tacked on quickly. Turning to Jim, his eyes wide and fearful, he added, “N-not you, K-Keptin. Wait here.”

“Captain,” Spock began.

“Go on, Spock,” Jim said, quietly but firmly.

Bones stopped long enough to pull Jim into a quick, tight hug before joining the others in the penned-off area. He was obviously worried. Chekov looked terrified. Sulu and Scotty both looked somewhere between concerned and angry. Only Spock was, outwardly at any rate, perfectly calm.

The door suddenly slammed shut behind them with an echoing _clang,_ making Aleksandr jump. Jim flinched slightly, but remained otherwise still. A moment later, the door opposite where he stood opened. Fourteen men of varying sizes streamed into the room, a seemingly constant flow of red-trimmed black, and stood silently along the walls. Two smaller men came in, one carrying another chair—less ornate than the first—and the other pushing a cart covered in black cloth. Behind them came Andrei and two more men of about his age, one looking close enough to him to be his twin and the other smaller, darker, with a hooked nose and stooped shoulders. Last of all came Nikolai, who had changed into tight-fitting black pants and socks, nothing else. Shirtless, he appeared even more massive.

Andrei sat in the ornate chair; the man who looked like him, presumably his brother Grigory, sat in the simpler chair, while the third stood silently to his left. The door slid shut behind them, and Andrei clapped his hands twice.

“Keptin Kirk,” he boomed, a mocking twist to his words. “Remove your shirt and stand in ze center.”

Silently, Jim did as he was told. He stood just in front of the drain, his feet shoulder-width apart, waiting, his eyes fixed on Andrei. He was aware, however, of the cart being pushed up to the other side of the pit, of Nikolai removing the cloth, of the light in the room glinting off something on the cart. Nikolai studied the items, then selected one and stepped into the ring, uncoiling the object as he did so. It was a whip.

“Ze first charge is zat of desertion,” Andrei continued. “Ze payment for zat is Moses’ Law. On your knees.”

Jim swallowed hard, then knelt on the ground. He didn’t take his gaze off of Andrei, however, even as Nikolai moved to stand behind him. The first crack of the whip was like a thunderclap as pain erupted along his back, and he couldn’t help but jerk forward at the impact, but he didn’t blink. Nor did he blink during the remaining thirty-eight lashes. The pain sort of blended together until he was hardly aware of it by the fifteenth or twentieth strike.

At last, Nikolai stepped around in front of him and laid the whip on the cart again. Jim’s back was raw and tacky with blood, but he didn’t fool himself into thinking the worst was over. This was only the first charge. The other charges would likely have more severe punishments.

As if in answer to his thought, Andrei announced, “Ze next charge is zat of cowardice—running from his responsibilities.”

Two of the silent men—Evgeny and another man of similar size, one Jim didn’t think he’d seen before—came forward and grabbed Jim’s arms, hauling him roughly upwards. He scrabbled to get his feet underneath of himself as Nikolai came towards him, swinging a blackjack almost casually, with a slight grin on his face.

Jim didn’t have Spock’s Vulcan abilities, but if there was one thing he knew how to do, it was to shut his mind off from pain. _Don’t let him see your weakness._ It was something he’d learned early on with Frank, not to give the man any hint to how badly he hurt, not to give him the satisfaction he was after. Jim kept his eyes fixed on Andrei, never flinching as Nikolai swung the blackjack again and again. He felt several ribs crack, his collarbone fracture, bruises welt up on his arms, but he didn’t let himself react. He forced the pain down. Andrei’s smile faded more and more until he was giving Jim an ugly glower.

Nikolai’s last swing was upwards, right between Jim’s legs, and he couldn’t control the attempt to curl into himself as the pain lanced upwards. His guards let go abruptly, and he dropped to his knees, caught off-guard for a moment. But he managed to raise his head, shaky as he was, and look Andrei in the eye. Maintaining that eye contact, he slowly but surely rose to his feet until he stood, alone and unaided, wavering but upright.

Andrei snorted. “You are quite resilient, Keptin. No matter. Ze debt is almost paid, and zen you and your…men…may leave.” He gestured, and Evgeny and the other man quit the arena…as did Nikolai, leaving Jim completely alone and more than aware of the blood dripping down his back. It hurt to breathe, but he made himself do it anyway. He wouldn’t let Andrei think he’d won.

“Ze last charge is zat of causing ze death of Yelitzaveta Ivanovna Chekova,” Andrei said. He snapped his fingers and held out his hand. Nikolai plucked a small, brightly-shining object from the cart and laid it in his father’s palm.

Andrei leveled the object at Jim. “Zis,” he promised, “will be like nothing you have ever felt before.”

He pressed the trigger.

In some distant part of his mind, Jim thought that he'd like to tell Andrei he was wrong; he _had_ felt this before. Somehow, they had managed to create a device that perfectly mimicked Apollo’s burst of power. Again he felt that strange sensation of energy surging through his veins, white-hot and furious, wrapping around his heart and squeezing it. The arrhythmic beats accelerated, jumped furiously, stuttered and strained. Even as Jim tried to fight back, fight for consciousness, he felt a tightness in his chest, and his whole body flooded with ice as his heart stopped beating.

His eyes widened, his mouth opened in a soundless cry as he dropped to his knees. Cruel laughter echoed around him, and from what seemed like forever away, he heard Bones’ voice, screaming in terror. “ _Jim!”_

_Bones,_ Jim thought silently, and then the world went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd apologize for this ending, but I've been planning it for months...


	106. In a Red Jagged Line

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy birthday, Ricechex! :) Have some h/c (sorta)!

Leo couldn’t see Jim’s face—only Andrei’s, and the faces of the silent watchers—but he _knew_ his husband. So when Jim’s whole body suddenly jerked, he knew immediately what had happened.

His heart. Jim’s heart had stopped beating.

He wasn’t aware of getting out of the pen in the corner. Nor was he aware of the scream that had ripped from his throat. His world had shrunk to Jim, Jim who was on his knees again and crumpling to the floor. Jim who was _dying._ Again. And Leo would be damned if he let that happen.

Somehow, he made it across the room and caught Jim just before he hit the ground, his other hand unholstering the hypo that would—hopefully—get his heart beating again. With more force than he usually used, he jabbed the point against Jim’s shoulder and dispensed the medication, then flung it aside and pressed his hand to Jim’s chest. He gasped in relief as he felt a pulse—thin, faint, horribly fast, but present nonetheless.

“We have to get him back to the _Enterprise_ now, or he’ll die,” he said, his voice coming out harsh with fear and distress.

“Ze debt is paid,” Andrei said in a bored tone of voice. “You may leave when you wish.”

Leo got to his feet, hefting Jim into his arms and looking desperately around for Aleksandr. The boy looked terrified, his jaw trembling. Chekov spoke to him sharply in Russian, and Aleksandr seemed to shake himself out of his stupor. “Zis way! Hurry!”

He took off running, the men from the _Enterprise_ following him. Leo was vaguely aware that the others were there, heard a buzzing sound that might have been someone trying to speak again, but he focused only on Jim, whose blood was soaking his arms and dripping to the floor as his heart struggled to compensate, and on Aleksandr, who was showing them a much more direct route out than they’d taken in.

At last they emerged into the courtyard and stood blinking in the harsh sunlight of the planet. Spock skidded to a halt and flipped out his communicator, speaking rapidly. “Spockto _Enterprise._ Spockto _Enterprise._ SeventobeamupLieutenantUhura.”

There was no audible answer from Uhura, who obviously didn’t waste time acknowledging that she could have spent contacting the transporter room—even though, strictly speaking, Starfleet protocol dictated that she do so. Mere seconds later, the transporter beams had grabbed them and brought them back aboard the _Enterprise._

Kyle’s face went pale when he saw Jim in Leo’s arms, but Leo didn’t stop to breathe or explain. He leapt off the platform and bolted towards Med Bay as fast as he could, praying he was on time. Praying for one more miracle.

“Dix!” he shouted as he burst through the door.

“Doctor?” McCall looked up from a PADD she was studying. “Oh, my God!”

“We need to get him into surgery. _Now,_ ” Leo said urgently.

Without another word, both McCall and Chapel went for the surgical gowns. Leo lay Jim down on one of the surgical beds, then bent over to kiss his forehead before running for the sanitizer.

Five minutes later, all three of them were back in the operating theater, gowned, scrubbed, and ready to get started. McCall set up the IV, while Chapel keyed up the diagnostic. Leo spoke in a clipped, terse tone. “Blood loss, bruising, likely some bones broken, possibly internal bleeding, but what I’m most concerned with right now is his heart. It stopped beating for a short period of time—I’m not certain how long—and I got it going again, but only just. Combined with previous arrhythmia and scarring on the muscle…”

“He’s likely going to need surgery to repair it,” Chapel completed. She pushed the diagnostic over Jim’s chest. “A transplant?”

“When he had his physical, it wasn’t bad enough that it couldn’t be repaired. There was some additional electrical damage done to the organ, but we should still be able to fix it rather than have to give him a new one. Which is good, because I don’t think we just happen to have a genetically-compatible human heart lying around anywhere, and it’d take too long to make him one.”

McCall hung up the bag of fluids as the diagnostic beeped. Leo studied it rapidly and swore. “Damn! We’ve got to get him open and get his heart repaired, _now._ He’s gonna need blood, too, and we still have to fix the scourge marks on his back, but the heart’s the priority. Dix—”

“On it.” McCall dashed for the cart with the surgical supplies on it. Chapel went straight for the cooler where the blood supply was kept.

They’d done this once before, back during their Academy days, when Jim had nearly died on a survival course gone horribly wrong. Thank God Chapel remembered Jim was A-negative—Leo didn’t have to tell her. And they worked together well enough that they didn’t need to speak to one another much. They’d saved him once. They could save him again.

They hooked Jim up to the equipment necessary to keep his brain supplied with oxygen while they worked on his heart, and then Leo pressed the laser scalpel to his chest and got to work.

This was one of those situations where protocol got tricky. Technically, as the Chief Medical Officer, Leo was supposed to do any major surgeries on high-ranking officers, even if he wasn’t technically on duty when they went under. But he was also Jim’s husband, and there were all sorts of ethical and emotional reasons that he probably shouldn’t have been operating on him. On any other ship, Leo would have had to step aside and let M’Benga or Weaver or even Brackett take over.

But this was the _Enterprise._ Things were done a little more loosely aboard anyway. And then…this was Jim they were talking about. Jim had a long-standing and deep-seated distrust of medical professionals, one he unfortunately had good reason for. Leo was the first doctor Jim had ever really trusted, and he was still the only one he trusted completely.

And Leo wasn’t about to entrust his husband’s life to anyone else, even the most competent doctor he’d ever worked with.

The seconds ticked by, broken only by the buzz of the equipment and the soft murmurs as Leo and his nurses spoke to one another, requesting tools and directing procedures. Chapel proved herself a competent second pair of hands, which was a relief, because Leo wasn’t going to walk away from Jim long enough to call in another doctor to assist. McCall kept both of them supplied with gauze, tools, and wipes to remove the sweat from their foreheads, while also making sure the blood and oxygen kept flowing.

At last, at long last, Leo waved McCall and Chapel back. Taking a deep breath, staring down at Jim’s face to memorize every sweep and curve of it, he reached for the last tool he needed and pressed it to Jim’s upper arm. If everything worked correctly, it would jump-start Jim’s heart, which would start beating steadily. Then they could close the incision, run the regen over his back and the bruises, and get him to a recovery room.

If everything worked correctly.

Leo closed his eyes for just a moment, then activated the device.

Jim’s whole body jumped upward involuntarily as power surged through it. One or two nerves sparked briefly with activity, and Leo would have been prepared to swear that he could see Jim’s brain glowing through his skull, even though he knew that was impossible. A moment later, his heart began visibly pumping, slow and steady, squeezing blood through his veins.

Leo exhaled a shuddering sigh of relief. “Let’s close him up,” he said hoarsely.

It didn’t take long at all for them to put Jim through the regen. Once the last of the wounds had closed up and the last bruise had faded, Leo bent over and brushed Jim’s hair tenderly back from his forehead before kissing it softly, then straightened and nodded. “All right. Take him into recovery. I’ll be there as soon as I’ve done his reports.”

“Aye, Doctor.” McCall smiled at him before moving the last of the equipment out of her way.

Leo stepped out of the surgery room, surprised at how tired and stiff he felt—until he glanced at the chronometer and swore. He should have known it wouldn’t be a simple procedure, no matter the outcome, but he hadn’t expected it to take _that_ long. He’d been in surgery for nearly five hours.

“Pa?”

At the sound of Slim’s voice cracking on that single syllable, Leo looked around in surprise. His stomach dropped as he saw Slim, looking at him with wide eyes from where he perched on the edge of an exam table. Addie sat in his lap with her head on his chest, looking scared and miserable. She sat up when she saw Leo come out, though, and stared at him. Two big tears stood in her eyes, and her lower lip began to tremble.

“Daddy?” she whispered. “Papa, is Daddy okay?”

Leo gasped with surprise and pain. He’d been so focused on Jim, on saving his husband, on a surgery he hadn’t thought he’d even be the one to _do,_ let alone so quickly, that he had completely forgotten about their children. It had never occurred to him to find out if they knew what was going on or where he was, and he hadn’t even thought about the fact that they might worry if they didn’t hear from their parents.

“Oh, baby,” he said brokenly, holding out his arms. He crossed the room in two big steps and wrapped both of them into a tight hug. Addie’s tears had begun flowing copiously, and Slim was trembling head to toe. Distantly, Leo thought that maybe this hadn’t been the best way to go about it, but he’d been struck with the sudden, overwhelming need to hold his children to him.

“Chekov told us what happened,” Slim said, his voice shaking madly. “He told us what they did to ’m an’—Pa, is he—?”

“He’s okay,” Leo said, and with those two words, the dam of emotion he’d been holding back broke and he began crying as well. He held his children closer, well aware of how close they’d all come to losing the bright center to their universe. “We got his heart fixed, patched him up, gave him a transfusion. He’s resting now, but he’s okay. He’s gonna be okay.”

Slim gasped, clutching Leo and Addie tighter. “Jesus, Pa, you scared the hell outta me.”

“Scared the hell outta myself, too. I’m sorry, son.” Leo let himself hug his children a little longer, then reluctantly pulled back. “I’ve gotta go update your dad’s medical files, but once I’m done with that, we’ll all go in and sit with him together, okay? We’ll sit with him until he wakes up.”

“’Kay.” Addie snuggled back against Slim. She looked less terrified, but still pretty upset, and she popped her thumb into her mouth. She hadn’t done that in months.

“Go ‘head, Pa,” Slim said softly, stroking Addie’s curls. “We’ll be here.”

Leo forced himself to remain calm as he went into his office and pulled Jim’s records. He didn’t need to read them; he knew them by heart, even more than he did the rest of his patients. Still, he found himself staring for a long moment at the orders that had come through almost nine months previously. Leo had submitted the shipwide medical reports, and received two responses—one from Admiral Archer, commending him on the health of the three children aboard and the success of the “experiment” being conducted, and the other from Starfleet Medical, confirming Leo’s analysis of how long Jim had and scheduling him for surgery to repair the damage to his heart twelve hours after their scheduled arrival back on Earth. At the bottom of the orders was a personal note from Phillip Boyce, assuring Leo that he would personally take charge of Jim’s surgery.

While Jim distrusted medical professionals in general, Leo had never intended to actually be the one doing Jim’s surgery. They’d long ago come to an agreement: Leo would take care of Jim during emergencies or routine physicals, but anything like a scheduled surgery would be handed over to another doctor. Leo welcomed any chance to be Jim’s husband instead of his physician. He hadn’t told Jim about Boyce’s promise, but he knew it would have eased Jim’s mind, since Boyce was the only other doctor Jim came close to trusting completely.

It was immaterial now, of course. Leo took a deep breath and updated Jim’s medical records, then reached for the recording device and switched it on.

“Chief Medical Officer’s Log, stardate 2274.115,” he began. “An unexpected encounter with a planet previously believed to be uninhabited resulted in a medical emergency. The inhabitants of the planet subjected Captain Kirk to three stages of physical torture—scourging, assault with a blunt object similar to a blackjack, and a form of electrical shock. The latter caused the captain’s heart to stop beating for an indeterminate period of time. Combined with previously-noted damage sustained during the encounter with the being on Pollux IV, it was necessary to bring Captain Kirk in for immediate emergency surgery to repair the heart.”

He willed his mind blank of anything but the facts as he listed the damage that had been repaired and the steps taken. He ended with, “Once Captain Kirk awakens, his condition will be assessed to determine the length of his convalescence. Meanwhile, it will be necessary for First Officer Spock to take temporary command of the _Enterprise._ McCoy out.”

Switching off the device, Leo ran a hand through his hair and stripped off his scrubs. Glancing down, he was momentarily surprised to see his uniform saturated with blood—had the scrubs leaked?—before he remembered cradling Jim on the planet, and the deep wounds caused by the whip Nikolai had wielded. Swallowing the sudden taste of sour in his mouth, Leo quickly stripped off his shirt and cleaned up before changing into a black, fitted sweatshirt and jeans—something more casual. He was off-duty now. A civilian. A man who was worried about his husband. And he intended to sit with his family until his husband awoke.

He emerged into the quiet of Medical Bay. It was the middle of Beta shift, generally a quieter shift than Alpha and for the most part free of real problems. The only other patient staying for the moment besides Jim was a crewman with a particularly nasty stomach flu who couldn’t be sent back to communal quarters, and he was easy enough for the orderlies to look after, merely keeping him hydrated. M’Benga was studying the crewman’s charts, but Leo could see that he had one eye on Slim and Addie, who hadn’t moved from the position he’d left them in. When he saw Leo, however, he put the PADD down.

“Leo,” he greeted quietly, his deep voice rumbling. “How’s Jim?”

“Stable,” Leo answered. “We repaired the damage to his heart, and he’s resting now.” Gesturing to his children, he added, “We’re just going in to sit with him.”

M’Benga nodded. “I hope you don’t mind—I already pinged Joe, and he’s willing to step in and cover Alpha tomorrow. I sent the schedule change to Mr. Spock for approval.”

“Thank you, Geoff.” Leo gave M’Benga a relieved half-smile. He knew he wouldn’t be able to concentrate on his work, especially if Jim was still out. And the next day was his scheduled day off, so that was two days he could spend with Jim.

Slim got up from the table, sliding Addie to her feet and taking her hand. She reached for Leo wordlessly, and he took her other hand, then led the three of them into the recovery room where Jim lay, his face pale, his chest rising and falling the only movement. Leo’s eyes sought out the monitors above the bed. Jim’s pain was at a manageable level, his pulse and respiration were good, and—most importantly—his heartbeat was strong and steady. They’d done it.

Leo sat down in the chair next to Jim’s head, reaching over to take his hand and stroke the back softly with his thumb. Slim pulled another chair over to sit next to him, and Addie crawled back into her brother’s lap. They sat in silence for a long while, merely watching Jim as he slept.

Finally, Slim spoke quietly. “How did y’all knock out the tractor beam?”

“We didn’t,” Leo answered just as quietly. “Your dad made a deal with the devil to get the ship free.”

“What did he have to do in exchange?”

“Tell you later.” Leo’s eyes cut over to Addie, whose thumb was creeping towards her mouth. She’d stopped sucking her thumb months ago, but obviously she was so miserable and scared that she needed the comfort.

Slim nodded, pressing a soft kiss to the crown of Addie’s head before resuming his vigil. After a moment, he began to hum, then to sing softly. Leo choked back a sob as he realized that it wasn’t a cowboy tune. Slim was singing the lullaby version of “Flying Dreams” from _The Secret of N.I.M.H.,_ the one that had played over the scene of Mrs. Brisby tending to her desperately ill son.

It hit Leo hard. It reminded him of the dance he and Jim had shared on the observation deck in the starlight, but he was also thinking of that darkened room, of Cynthia’s timid voice asking if her brother would get better and Martin standing at the foot of the bed and watching with barely-concealed fear, and somehow even knowing that Timothy had been all right in the end didn’t help him much. He bit his lip and gripped his hands together tightly to keep from shaking apart.

“Sorry, Pa, I didn’t think,” Slim said softly.

“It’s all right.” Leo’s voice didn’t sound very convincing to him, and it probably didn’t convince Slim either.

Addie didn’t even try to hide her misery when she spoke. “Slim, I want Gottlieb. I forgot him.”

Immediately, Slim got to his feet. “C’mon, Addie, we’ll go get him.”

“And then come back.”

“Of course,” Slim promised. He didn’t set Addie down to walk, even though she was definitely getting too big to be carried. Somehow, Leo thought with a pang of distress, she looked tinier in Slim’s arms than she did any other time. Maybe it was just unhappiness making her seem smaller, but he was willing to lay odds on it being Slim’s gradually broadening shoulders. Slim had hit another growth spurt, while Addie’s were slower. Leo guessed she took after his side of the family; his grandmother was hardly a meter and a half in height, his mother only a few centimeters taller before age and illness had stooped her. Even his father had been just shy of two meters.

Leo sat in silence for a long moment, watching Jim breathing just to reassure himself that he still was. At last he heard the footsteps of someone returning, but it didn’t sound like Slim—or Addie. Frowning slightly, he turned to look.

It was Chekov.

Chekov, very pale, somehow looking thinner than he had only hours before, his eyes wet and extremely bloodshot. He stared at Jim, at the indicator lights over his bed, and then turned to look at Leo. He was trembling all over. “Doctor—” he began, his voice small and higher than normal, cracking in the middle of the simple word. He swallowed and seemed to forget what he meant to say.

Leo didn’t even think twice. He wasn’t even sure he thought once. He rose to his feet and pulled Chekov into his arms, hugging him the way he had Slim and Addie. Chekov let out a small, hoarse sob and clutched at Leo’s shirt, burying his face in his chest as the tears began falling.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “ _Mne ochen' zhal'._ I’m so sorry.”

“No,” Leo said softly. “Chekov, it’s not your fault. It’s _not._ ”

“I never should have l-let him—”

“Kid, we don’t _let_ Jim do anything. And there’s no way we could have stopped him. He always does this—draws the fire, taunts the enemy, takes the punishment. It’s his nature, and I don’t mind telling you that it scares the hell out of me. But it’s not your fault. None of this is your fault.”

Chekov drew a breath. “I wish I could believe zat.”

Leo sighed deeply. “Yeah. I know the feeling.”

He kept hugging Chekov for a little while longer. Both of them needed the comfort, if he was honest. At last, though, he pulled back and looked down at the navigator. “How’s your…cousin? Brother?”

“Nephew,” Chekov said softly. “He’s fine. We made him eat something. Mr. Spock assured him zat he can stay aboard ze _Enterprise_ until he turns eighteen and promised to start sending him practice tests for ze Academy. He’s sleeping on ze couch in my quarters for now. But I…” He hesitated, then glanced at Jim’s still form.

Leo nodded in understanding. “You can stay as long as you like, kid.”

Chekov nodded in reply, pulling back and wiping at his eyes. He took a seat on Jim’s other side, then looked up and met Leo’s eyes. “Thank you, Doctor,” he whispered.

“Of course,” Leo said softly.

It was probably another twenty minutes—longer than Leo had expected—before Slim and Addie returned, but when they did, Leo understood why it had taken so long. Addie had changed into her favorite nightgown, the yellow one with the blue rosebuds sewn on it, and her hair was braided. She held Slim’s hand in one of her own, while her other arm clutched Gottlieb to her chest. She still looked upset, but her face bore a freshly-scrubbed look, and Leo thought he could smell baby powder.

“I talked her into taking a bath,” Slim explained quietly. He nodded to Chekov, obviously not surprised to see him there, and resumed his seat. “Thought it might help to keep a bit of a routine going.”

“Good thinking,” Leo said, glancing at Slim’s other hand. He was holding a PADD. “What’s that?”

“It’s a very special book,” Addie said, with an air as though she was repeating something she’d been told. “Grandma used to read it to Daddy when he was a little boy, when they were sick or sad.”

“It’s _The Wizard of Oz,_ ” Slim provided. “Addie insisted I bring it.”

Addie climbed into Chekov’s lap and leaned back against him. He didn’t even look surprised; it was clear to Leo that he was sort of beyond any emotion but misery as he wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin on the top of her head, rocking back and forth slightly.

“Read,” Addie commanded, popping her thumb into her mouth and bringing her tribble up under her chin.

Slim activated the PADD, propped one foot on his knee, and began to read.

Leo was only half-listening as Slim read. The rest of his attention was focused on Chekov and Addie. Just as he’d noticed from the beginning, the very act of Chekov holding the little girl was going a long way towards calming him. His face was gradually relaxing, a lot of the fear and strain fading away. While his eyes were still bloodshot, they were merely pink as opposed to violently red. They were also growing heavier as Slim’s voice washed over him. Addie’s lashes, too, were fluttering against her cheek.

It didn’t even occur to Leo that _he_ was getting sleepy, too, until something made him start upright. He looked around in confusion, momentarily disoriented as he tried to figure out where he was. He was sitting in the same chair, slumped over sideways and with a very painful cramp in his side from the armrest. The dim lighting told him that it was somewhere in the middle of Gamma shift. Addie was sound asleep, tucked under Chekov’s chin; the navigator snored quietly as he curled around the little girl. Slim was dozing, his hands folded over the PADD.

Leo’s gaze traveled to the indicators above Jim’s biobed. Temperature, pulse, respiration—all were normal. The K-3 indicator was a little higher than he would have liked, but that was only to be expected after surgery, and especially after the painkillers had had time to wear off. There were no alerts chiming, though, and he wondered what had woken him.

Then he heard it—the soft noise, half gasp and half moan—followed by a breathy whisper. “’Ones?”

Leo whipped his head around to see Jim beginning to stir, his eyes still screwed up. He could barely hold back a gasp of relief. “Jim,” he said softly, leaning forward to grip Jim’s hand. “I’m right here, darlin’. Open your eyes.”

Jim’s lips parted as he breathed out Leo’s name again. He turned his head towards Leo. “I can’t see you,” he said, sounding almost frantic. “Why can’t I see you?”

“Because your eyes are still closed, Jim,” Leo said gently. “C’mon, darlin’, let me see those pretty blue eyes of yours.”

“Oh.” Jim exhaled, and his eyes slowly opened. It took him a moment, but he focused on Leo and visibly relaxed. “Hey there.”

“Hey.” Leo bent over and kissed his cheek. “How are you feeling?”

Jim considered for a moment. “Sore.”

“That’s fair.”

“Bones…we’re on the _Enterprise_? We made it?”

“We made it,” Leo assured him. “Everyone’s here. We brought Aleksandr, too. Andrei may have been a right son of a bitch, but he kept his word. He let us go once you’d ‘paid the debt.’” He wasn’t able to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

Slowly, Jim stretched out his fingers and laced them with Leo’s. “’S okay,” he managed. “I don’t…regret it.” He paused, then looked up at Leo a little anxiously. “Did I pass out?”

“Your heart stopped,” Leo said, his voice breaking. “Remember that damage I told you about, how it wouldn’t need surgery ‘til we got back to Earth unless it got worse?”

“Yeah?”

“It got worse. We had to do surgery right away or we—” Leo broke off and swallowed hard. “Anyway. You’re gonna be all right now, but you’ll have to stay in Med Bay for at least a month. Maybe longer.”

“Shit, Bones!” Jim actually tried to struggle to a sitting position. “I can’t—”

“Yes, you can,” Leo said forcefully, pushing Jim back into the biobed and barely remembering to keep his voice down. “Lie down. Spock can take command while you recover. The ship will be fine.”

“And if we run into Nylund—”

“He can go fuck himself. Jim, it was already documented that you needed this surgery at some point. Hell, Phillip Boyce had already signed on to do the surgery when we got back to Earth. It was medically necessary that we do it immediately, and that wasn’t your fault, it was Andrei Chekov’s.”

Jim sighed. “Nylund would say I shouldn’t have offered to take Chekov’s place.”

Leo sighed, too. “I’m not necessarily gonna argue with that. You know I hate it when you do this. But…I understand why you did. And honestly, Jim, I don’t like the idea of it bein’ Chekov in this position, either.” Involuntarily, he glanced to where the navigator slept.

Jim turned his head to follow Leo’s gaze, and his expression softened at the sight. “Ought to wake ‘em up,” he murmured. “Make ‘em go to bed.”

“They’re sleeping. I’m not gonna disturb them.” Leo stroked Jim’s hair back from his forehead. “Get some rest yourself, darlin’. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

“’Kay.” Jim’s eyes fluttered shut without complaint, which told Leo just how weak and tired he still was. “Love you, Bones.”

“Love you, too, Jim. More than anything.”

Jim’s breathing evened out, and he fell asleep. Leo watched him for a moment before settling his head down beside him and letting himself sleep, too.


	107. Never So Far Away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is from "Evermore," which is performed by Allison Krauss but was written by Sandra Boynton (yes, the children's author). It's a beautiful song and I highly recommend it.

Bones was right. He always was.

Jim wanted to deny it, but he was too weak to even sit up on his own for several days following his surgery. It was almost as bad as he’d felt after being brought back to life, but at least this time he had Bones with him. Bones didn’t leave his side for the first forty-eight hours, and even when he went back to work, he was in checking on Jim every so often. He also made sure to keep Jim updated on his progress, which definitely helped matters.

Spock reported every day as well, updating him on the ship’s progress in his typical efficient manner. The _Enterprise_ was merely doing a routine patrol of the star sector, no first contact situations or tricky diplomatic incidents. Repeatedly, Spock assured Jim that he could rest and relax, that the ship was doing quite well without him.

Jim wasn’t sure that was very comforting.

Over those first few days, Chekov had apologized at least sixty times, and Jim had told him again and again that it wasn’t his fault. Sulu had finally been the one to convince Chekov, although Jim had never asked how. He could guess, though.

Uhura had done well running the ship while the other six were on the planet, although she’d turned up to visit Jim the day after his surgery and spent the better part of an hour threatening him to within an inch of his life if he ever left her in complete charge again. Scotty had come by on the third day and offered him a sip of booze, which Jim wouldn’t have accepted anyway, but Bones had overheard it and Jim had fallen asleep partway through _that_ rant. He’d woken up to find Slim sitting by his bed, quietly reading aloud.

It was surprising how often Slim was there. He still worked in Engineering every other day, and apparently he’d taken Aleksandr under his wing, so on days when he wasn’t crawling over the warp core, he was showing the other boy around the ship or patiently working through Academy practice tests with him. But at the start of Beta shift, without fail, he came into Jim’s room with a PADD under his arm and sat with him for at least an hour, talking or reading or playing tri-chess. Jim honestly hadn’t expected his son to be there so often, although he didn’t know why. But he was grateful for it anyway.

As he got stronger, he got impatient to get out of bed, but Bones still wouldn’t let him. One day, about three weeks after his surgery, he decided to get up anyway, doctor’s orders be damned. The whole room spun like a roulette wheel and he’d almost fallen to the ground—would have, if Gage hadn’t heard him moving around and come running—and the next day he’d spiked a fever. He’d promised Bones after that that he would listen.

Bones had scoffed that he’d believe it when he saw it.

Now, Jim was at least able to sit up on his own, although he really needed to raise the bed after he did so he could have something against his back. He was almost back on a normal sleep pattern, although he had to admit—if only to himself—that he had to really force himself to stay awake more than eight hours in a row. He’d even been allowed to get out of bed and take a walk around Med Bay once a day, and even if he’d needed Bones on one side of him and one of the nurses or orderlies or visitors on his other side, he’d been _upright_ and that was what mattered.

What Jim hadn’t done was ask how much longer he’d be confined to Medical, and a biobed. He had kept careful count, and he’d been there for fifty-four days—close to eight weeks, almost a month longer than he’d expected. Slim’s birthday was coming up fast, and Jim really didn’t want to be in the hospital on his son’s eighteenth birthday, especially since it would be his last chance to celebrate with the boy before he left for the Academy. But Jim wasn’t going to aggravate his husband by whining or nagging, no matter how much he wanted to. Partly it was that he’d promised to be good. Partly it was that he didn’t want to cause a massive fight. Partly it was that he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer, unless it was “until tomorrow.”

He managed to sit up and smile warmly as Bones came into the room. “Hey,” he said, aware that his voice was still raspy and a little hoarse.

“Hey, darlin’.” Bones leaned over to kiss Jim’s forehead. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” Jim said, same as he’d said every day for the last several weeks. He braced himself for the usual grumble of _I’ll be the judge of that._

To his surprise, however, Bones actually nodded, the corners of his eyes crinkling upwards in a smile. “Good. You look a lot better, too. All your numbers have been good the last few days, you’re keeping everything down, and everything seems like it’s healing properly. We’re gonna do one last screening of your heart, and if it looks good, I’ll be releasing you after Alpha shift.”

Jim’s spirits soared. “Really?”

“You won’t be able to go back on shift until the first of the week,” Bones warned him. “And you’ll be on light duty for a month, which means if there’s a crisis, Spock will need to take over. But, yes, Jim, you’re finally healed and ready to go.”

“I’ll behave.”

“You’d better. C’mon, let’s go get that screening done.”

Jim pushed the blanket down and swung his legs off the bed. It surprised him that Bones didn’t immediately come over to his side, but after a moment or two, he was able to stand on his own. He wobbled briefly, but remained upright.

“Good job,” Bones said with a smile. “Need a hand?”

“Yeah,” Jim said after a moment’s thought. “Thanks, Bones.”

“Any time, darlin’.” Bones held out his arm like a true Southern gentleman—which, well, he was. Jim leaned on him gratefully as they headed out into Med Bay proper.

The nurses and orderlies on duty called out cheerful greetings as Jim came out. He waved and smiled back at them as Bones led him over to the machine that had diagnosed him all those months ago. This time, Jim noticed with a feeling of gratitude that there were two metal bars of the right height to be gripped to keep him upright as he stood where he was supposed to stand. He gripped them, just in case, and stood as still as he possibly could, his eyes once again fixed on Bones as he pressed the appropriate buttons and waited.

This time, however, Bones’ face didn’t turn pale. Instead, he watched the results crawl across the screen, then broke into a broad grin. “Healthy as a horse, Jim. Everything healed up just the way it should.”

“Thank God.” Jim let go of the railings, stepped away from the machine, and practically fell into Bones’ arms, hugging him tightly. “I never doubted you’d saved me, but…I’m glad we’ve got proof that I’m all right.”

“You sure are, darlin’.” Bones hugged him back, resting his cheek against Jim’s.

To Jim’s surprise, he realized that Bones was actually trembling. He didn’t know why, though, so he deliberately said nothing. After a long moment, Bones finally released him, and together they headed back to Jim’s room.

“Stay here until Alpha’s over,” Bones told him. “I’ll bring you some clothes. We’ll go have dinner together and then head back to quarters, nice and slow.”

“Gotta admit, Bones,” Jim said softly. “I’m looking forward to getting to hold you again tonight.”

Bones stood still for a long moment, then came over and kissed Jim softly on the lips. “Me, too,” he whispered.

To his irritation, Jim drifted off to sleep after Bones left him, although he woke up when Chapel brought him lunch. After eating, he picked up the book Slim had brought him a few days previously and started reading. It was a six-book saga, one Jim had never read before, and he was about halfway through the second book. So enthralling was the prose that Jim didn’t even realize how long it was until he finished the book and glanced up to see Bones just stepping through the door, a bundle under one arm.

“I brought your clothes, just like I promised,” he said. “Ready to go?”

“Yeah,” Jim said, surprised at how quickly time had passed. “Let’s get out of here.”

Bones ended up needing to help Jim with his boots, but for the most part, he was all right. And he found, to his mild surprise, that it was easier to stand up in his own clothing than it had been barefoot and in a hospital gown. He didn’t even need to lean on Bones as they headed out of Med Bay and towards the mess hall.

Slim and his friends, together with Aleksandr, Addie, and baby Jame, were already gathered around a table by the time Jim and Bones got there. Addie was determinedly cutting her chicken into bite-sized pieces; Nic’tlarn had one eye on her and the other on Jame, who was drinking out of one of the cups with lids that Addie had used as a toddler. The others were talking, teasing one another through mouthfuls of food, while Aleksandr sat silently, his eyes flicking back and forth between the others with an expression similar to the ones Slim had worn a lot when he’d first arrived on the _Enterprise_. Jim noticed that all of the engineers were eating like they were starving.

Gaila was the first to notice him. She beamed ear to ear, jumping to her feet. “Captain!” she called merrily. “Good to see you up and about again!”

Slim looked up, too, and grinned around his mouthful of food. Addie dropped her knife and fork and jumped up to give Jim a hug. “Daddy!”

“Mind if we sit with you?” Jim asked lightly.

Simril scooted his chair to one side. Sulu moved his own a little closer to Chekov. There was one chair left at the table, and Sulu tugged it closer to himself so that there would be room to add another. Bones nudged Jim into the seat and swung another chair over to join him. “I’ll be right back with dinner,” he promised, kissing Jim’s cheek as he headed over to the food slots.

“Twenty-four hour pass, sir?” Sulu asked with a teasing smile.

Jim smiled back. “No, I’ve been sprung. Cleared for light duty starting next week.”

“Good,” Chekov said, looking and sounding relieved. “We were worried.”

“You’re not sick anymore, Daddy?” Addie asked.

“Nope. Papa said I’m healthy as a horse.”

“Good. I like horses.” Addie went back to her meal. Slim, Cayne, and Simril all attempted to disguise their laughter as coughing.

Bones returned with two salads, a tall glass of orange juice, and a glass of what had to be sweet tea. Putting the juice and one of the salads in front of Jim, he said, “How long have you been here? Alpha’s only been over twenty minutes.”

“Ten minutes?” Nic’tlarn guessed. “Maybe a bit more.”

“Why do you ask?” Slim asked, swallowing hard.

“Because you’re all almost finished with your food.”

Slim looked down in surprise at his plate, then around the table. “Uh. Reckon we were hungry.”

“The multiphasic control sequencer went down at the beginning of Alpha,” Gaila informed Jim, sopping up the last of whatever was on her plate with a piece of bread. “Took us most of the shift to get it up and running again. Nobody really had time to stop and eat.”

Jim’s stomach lurched. Something in his expression must have shown, because Simril said in a surprisingly gentle tone of voice, “The MCS is probably the most important delicate piece of equipment in the engine room, next to the warp core. If it goes down, it requires basically a full shift of engineers to maintain, contain, and restore it. And this went down pretty spectacularly. If even one person had walked away, the whole thing could’ve blown out.”

Addie stopped eating and looked up at Simril with wide eyes. “Really?”

The expression on Simril’s face was reminiscent of a deer caught in the headlights of a passing semi. Luckily, Gaila spoke up cheerfully. “Oh, yes, on any other ship, but not on the _Enterprise._ Mr. Scott can fix anything inorganic.”

“What’s inorganic?” The introduction of a new word distracted Addie from her worry.

Jim mostly tuned out as Nic’tlarn and Gaila attempted to explain in a preschool-friendly way, instead focusing on his salad. It was really good, surprisingly, or maybe it was just that he’d been living off of broth and Jell-O for the last several weeks. He made himself eat at a normal pace, though, knowing that Bones would grumble about the fact that he was going to choke if he ate that damned fast. It was a familiar argument—so many of them were—but Jim was just too relieved to be out of Med Bay to pick up any of them.

That, and he’d really missed his husband being closer than a chair next to his bed.

Spock and Uhura joined them after Jim had finished about half of his salad, while Slim and his friends were nursing their drinks and debating whether or not they wanted to play a game or just call it a night and Addie was engaged in serious, high-level negotiations with Bones over whether or not she had earned a chocolate chip cookie.

“Captain,” Spock said with a formal nod. “I am glad to see that you have been released from sickbay.”

“I’m glad to be up, Spock,” Jim said, returning the nod.

“Aunt Nyota, I ate _all_ my vegetables _and_ I picked up all my toys without Zizi Nico having to ‘mind me,” Addie said as she turned to enlist a new ally in her endeavors. “Don’t _you_ think I deserve a cookie?”

“Hmm.” Uhura stroked her chin briefly. “Well, yes, I think that’s cookie-worthy behavior. _But,_ if you have a cookie now, then we can’t have ice-cream sundaes before bed. Remember, I promised you last week that we’d do that next time you spent the night with Uncle Spock and me?”

“I don’t need a cookie, Papa,” Addie said immediately, turning back to Bones with a sweet, innocent grin.

Bones snorted, but he was smiling affectionately. “That much sugar, I’m glad you’re keeping her tonight and not us.”

“I’m off tomorrow, Nic’tlarn, if you’d like me to keep her for the day as well,” Uhura offered.

Nic’tlarn gave her one of xer shy, quiet smiles. “Thank you, Lieutenant, but I think Jame would be lonely without her friend.”

Jame let loose a string of baby babble, smiling ear to ear as she did so. Addie grinned back at her, wrinkling her nose. “I promise I’ll be good.”

“I know, _nin’kya._ You always are.” Nic’tlarn patted her shoulder.

Bones glanced at Slim. “Your curfew is 2230 tonight.”

“I ain’t gonna make it that long, but thanks, Pa.” Slim smiled slightly, then glanced back at his friends. “So, Fizzbin?”

“Sounds good to me,” Simril said, tossing off the last of his drink.

“We’re in,” Sulu said, jerking his head at Chekov.

“What is Fizzbin?” Aleksandr asked tentatively.

Slim, Gaila, and Simril exchanged evil grins. “Come on, we’ll show you.”

Jim groaned as the engineers, with Aleksandr in tow, headed off. “They’re gonna break that poor kid’s head.”

“If his family didn’t break him, I don’t think anything they throw at him will,” Bones muttered under his breath.

“I like Uncle Sasha,” Addie announced, stacking her dishes neatly together.

Uhura smiled. “He’s a nice young man. All right, Addie, ready to go have our party?”

Addie bounced to her feet and picked up Jim’s plates as well. “Soon as I put all the dishes away.”

“Good girl.” Bones smiled fondly. “G’night, sweetheart.”

“Good night, baby,” Jim added.

“Night-night!” Addie beamed at both of them before heading over to the receptacle. Uhura laughed and followed after her.

Spock rose to his feet. “Will you be on the bridge tomorrow, Captain?”

“No, not until the first of the week,” Jim answered. “But I’m up and about, so I’ll see you after Alpha shift for a debriefing as usual.”

“Until tomorrow, then.” Spock inclined his head and followed his fiancee and goddaughter.

Jim looked up at Bones. “Can we…go back to quarters now?”

Bones kissed Jim’s cheek gently. “Let’s go, darlin’.”

Jim counted himself fortunate that he was able to walk all the way back to quarters without Bones’ help. He was even able, once he got there, to pull off his boots and shirt by himself. But before he could attempt to get his pants off, he caught sight of himself in the mirror on the wall and froze, staring.

His skin was paler than usual, which only served to accentuate the silvery scars set into his skin. There was a new one, too, a faint red line down his sternum. Regens were all well and good, but all they did was accelerate the healing; if a cut went deep enough, like a surgical incision, there would still be some scarring. This, then, had to be where Bones had cut him open in order to get at his heart. He’d lost weight, too. He hadn’t even really noticed that his clothes hung looser on him, so used was he now to the baggy hospital gown, but the layer of pudge Bones always teased him about was gone. There had clearly been some muscle atrophy during his hospital stay, too.

Staring out of the mirror, hollow-eyed and barely alive, was the scrawny kid who’d sat on the observation deck of the _Lexington_ and flatly declared to the officer who brought him a tray of food that he was never going to love anything again.

“Jim?”

Bones’ voice sounded like it was coming from far away—maybe from thirty years’ distance. Jim felt as trapped as he had the night of Slim’s fourteenth birthday, when he’d been caught in a waking nightmare, surrounded by ghosts. His heart was pounding in his ears—steadily, so there was that—and he realized he was having trouble breathing. Some small, detached part of his mind recognized it as a panic attack.

Suddenly, Bones appeared in the mirror beside Jim. He put his arms around him and held him, pulling and turning him away as he steered him towards the bed.

“Come on,” he said in his ear, his voice low and soothing. “Let’s lie down. It’s all right, darlin’. You’re here with me and you’re safe.”

Jim allowed Bones to lay him down on the bed and strip his pants off. He didn’t bother trying to get him into sleep pants, though, just stripped down to his own boxer-briefs and then crawled into bed beside Jim, wrapping him up in a hug. Jim rolled into his husband, clinging to him tightly. For long moments, they merely lay in the darkness and held each other.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Jim finally asked. His voice broke a little bit—he couldn’t help it.

“Tell you what, Jim?”

“Why didn’t you tell me I looked so…so bad?”

Bones didn’t answer for a moment, running his fingers through Jim’s hair tenderly instead. At last, he said in a low voice, “I didn’t think about it. Partly it’s just been so gradual, and I’ve seen you every day, so it isn’t as startling for me—or for anyone else. Partly…I’m just so damn thankful you’re alive that the fact that you’re breathing is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

“I knew you’d fix it,” Jim murmured. He freed one hand to rub at the new scar on his chest.

“Not your heart, Jim.” Bones took a deep breath. “You remember that day you got up before you were ready, and you almost fell?”

“Yeah. The next day I spiked a fever. You grumbled at me about not listening and I said I’d behave.”

“Jim…that was a week later, that conversation.”

“ _What?_ ” Jim sat up abruptly, shocked.

Bones sat up, too. “Didn’t you wonder why you were in Med Bay so long when I only told you a month at first? You caught an infection…normally it wouldn’t have been so bad, but your immune system was compromised as it was. We had a few days where…we weren’t sure if you’d make it.”

His voice broke on those last words. Jim’s whole body flooded with ice. “God, Bones, why didn’t you tell me?”

It wasn’t just the whole nearly-dying thing, which he really felt like he should have been made aware of. It was also the fact that he’d lost a week in his calculations. Jim _hated_ losing time, he hated not having all the information, but more importantly, if he was doing the math right, Slim’s birthday was only six days away. “Shit, I haven’t thought of anything for Slim…”

“Jim, I’m sorry.” Bones closed his eyes briefly and looked away. “I—I should have told you, but—that would’ve made it real. And it was my fault. If I’d taken better care of you, it never would have happened. I didn’t…I didn’t want you to hate me. Not until I was sure you’d be better…”

“Ah, Bones.” Jim suddenly realized that Bones wasn’t touching him. Between that and the way his eyes slid off of him, Jim was pretty sure Bones was somehow punishing himself—like he didn’t think he deserved Jim in his arms, much less in his life.

Jim knew something about punishing himself like that.

He managed to reach over and wrap his arms around Bones, holding him tightly. Bones stiffened, then slowly relaxed, tucking his face into the curve of Jim’s neck as he pulled Jim into a hug.

“I don’t hate you,” Jim whispered into his husband’s ear. “I _don’t,_ Bones, and nothing you can ever do will make me. I love you so much it hurts. And I know you love me. I know why you didn’t say anything. It would’ve just made me more anxious, and then it would have taken me longer to get well. We both know that.”

“I shouldn’t have let you get like that,” Bones whispered. “I never should have let that happen.”

“Bones. You didn’t _let_ anything happen. It happened. Would’ve probably happened no matter who my primary physician was, because let’s face it, I’m stubborn as hell.”

He felt Bones smile against his neck, at least a little. “Not gonna argue with you, darlin’.”

Jim chuckled softly. “You saved me. I know you did, even if I don’t know how. Just like you always do. Just like you always will.”

“Just like you always do me,” Bones said quietly. He pulled back just enough that Jim could see his face. “Whether it’s by puttin’ yourself in the line of fire or thinkin’ us a way out of an impossible situation, I know you’ll always save me. Somehow.”

“Of course I would, Bones.” Jim shifted one hand to cup Bones’ cheek. “I’m not me if I don’t have you.”

Bones leaned into Jim’s hand for a moment, then turned to kiss his palm. A moment later, he tugged Jim back into a lying position.

“C’mon,” he murmured. “You’re still healing, darlin’. Let’s get some sleep.”

“Okay, Bones.” Jim settled on top of his husband, resting his ear against Bones’ chest. “Love you. Really love you.”

“Really love you, too, Jim.” Bones rubbed Jim’s back in slow, soft circles.

Between the comforting feel of Bones’ hand, the steady thud of his heartbeat, and the warmth of his body against his, Jim was asleep in mere moments, safer and calmer than he’d felt in weeks.


	108. The Precipice of Madness Maybe Greatness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had no idea where this chapter was going to go until it got there, so enjoy the adventure.
> 
> Title is taken from a Mikey Mason song that has not yet been released to the general public.

Slim knew to expect some sort of big shindig for his birthday, regardless of what he might want. It was his eighteenth, the age of adulthood, and it was also his last birthday before he left for Starfleet Academy. His friends and his family would both want to celebrate. _Addie_ would want to celebrate. He’d hoped, secretly, that his dad would still be too sick to do anything, and that would temper everyone else. But Jim was doing a lot better—he’d even been cleared for active duty, albeit light duty—and Slim resigned himself to the inevitable fuss.

It so happened that his birthday was one of the days he wasn’t scheduled to work in Engineering. Slim was secretly relieved. He’d talked to Leo the night before and obtained permission to sleep in an hour longer than usual. At least, in theory. In practice, he was awake at the usual time, hiding under his blanket with the book he’d been reading the night before. He heard muffled voices outside his door—it sounded like Leo telling Addie not to go in and wake him up—and then, blessedly, silence.

Sighing, he threw back the blankets and sat up, propping his PADD against his raised knees. He’d probably reread this series in its entirety at least four times since Winona had given him the first one in paperback, but he didn’t care. The storyline enthralled him as much as it had the first time. And the tenth chapter of the seventh book still hurt him just as much.

Today, however, he was still only on the fourth one, his favorite. He kept half an eye on the chronometer inset on the top corner of the PADD as he read. It wasn’t like anyone would know if he went over the hour he’d been given…but _he’d_ know, and he’d feel guilty if he passed it.

He reached the end of a chapter with about five minutes to spare. Reluctantly, knowing he’d never have time to read another chapter and not sure if he’d even be able to get to a stopping point, he bookmarked his place and got up to get dressed.

Slim’s wardrobe wasn’t extensive. Apart from his mock-uniform shirts and pants, he had a couple of sweaters, a few t-shirts, a single flannel shirt, and the fancy outfit he’d worn to go dancing with Audra. Since there was nobody he had to impress, he went for his most comfortable pair of jeans and the well-worn sweater that had been all he’d owned when he was in foster care. It had been far too big then. Now, it fit snugly across Slim’s shoulders and chest, not tight enough to be uncomfortable. He brushed his hair, slid his feet into his boots, and started for the door. On second thought, he went back and grabbed the PADD. Maybe he’d go up to the observation deck and read for a while.

The mess hall was empty. It was just after the change of shift, so Beta had not yet arrived for food and Gamma was still sleeping. Slim ate quicker than he probably should have and was able to slip out just before the first officers arrived, heading up on a blissfully solitary journey to the observation deck.

Stepping out onto the floor, he took a deep breath, feeling something in his chest loosen at the sight. He drifted over to his corner, eyes fixed unwaveringly on the heavens. In the distance, the swirl of the Allyn Nebula was just visible, and the other stars danced and spun in their spheres. A chunk of rock tumbled lazily by, almost near enough to brush the viewscreen, but there was a slight shift in the alignment of the stars and it skipped right on past.

Sometimes, Slim was a little jealous of his father for having been _born_ in space, literally among the stars. But then, he’d been born mere meters from his own father’s death, so there was that. And Jim had lost his brother. Slim at least still had Addie. All in all, he was lucky, even with a boring birthplace like Earth.

With a sigh, he sat on the floor, his back to the edge of the bench, and propped his PADD on his knees again. He might have practically known the story by heart, but that didn’t stop him from sinking into it, from allowing the rest of the universe to drift away and his world to shrink down to a group of teenage bombers and a pair of idiots in love with insane amounts of emotional baggage and a stunning inability to communicate.

In some ways, they reminded him of his parents.

He wasn’t even aware of how long it had been until he read the final words of the book and lowered it with a sigh, surprised to realize he was a little stiff from having sat for so long. With a frown, he swiped down on the top of the screen of his PADD, then let loose with a string of Swahili that would have blistered his godmother’s ears had she been there to hear it.

“ _1457?!_ When did it get to be almost three o’clock?”

“Right after it got to be half-two,” said a voice from behind him.

Slim didn’t need to look around to see who it was. The Russian accent was so much thicker in Aleksandr’s voice than in his uncle’s, understandable when you considered that Chekov had been away from his family longer than Aleksandr had been alive. And at this time of shift, there was nobody else who would have been on the observation deck anyway. “Hey, Aleksandr.”

Aleksandr drifted over to where Slim sat and slid to the floor next to him. He, too, had a PADD in hand, but he didn’t turn the screen on. Instead, he watched the stars for a while. It was one of the things Slim liked about the other boy—that they could just sit in silence and _be_ , not expecting anything out of the conversation. Neither of them were really big talkers.

Finally, though, Aleksandr did speak. “If you are going to continue to call me Aleksandr, I am going to call you Thomas.”

Slim shrugged. “Your call, I guess. But what else would I call you? I didn’t know you had a nickname.”

“I…I don’t,” Aleksandr admitted. “But ze short form of Aleksandr is Sasha.”

Slim glanced sideways at Aleskandr. He’d be the first to admit that he didn’t understand how Russian naming conventions worked, but it didn’t really matter. “Slim ain’t a short form of Thomas, you know. So if you want me to call you Sasha, then you c’n call me TJ, like the other cadets do.”

Aleksandr turned bright red. “I am not a cadet.”

“Well, not yet you ain’t, but you will be. Right?”

“I want to be.”

“Then you will be. So. TJ an’ Sasha?”

Aleksandr—Sasha—was still blushing, but he smiled. “ _Da_.”

Slim smiled back, then sighed and leaned back against the bench, letting his head fall back. He’d had a nice, relaxing day, but knowing he only had an hour or so left before someone would ferret him out for a “surprise” party made his stomach cramp painfully. And he’d have to act like it didn’t bother him, to avoid upsetting Addie…

Suddenly, his PADD let out a chirrup. Slim and Sasha both flinched, but Slim fumbled for the device and keyed it on. To his surprise, he had a message.

A slight frown puckered his forehead as a whole different kind of nerves assailed him. There was no reason for him to be getting messages—unless this was an official communique from Starfleet Academy. Were they sending him a message that there had been a mistake, that they had overbooked the cadet class, that he wouldn’t be going after all that year? Had they mixed his results up with the Andorian who’d been rejected for a fourth time? Was it _he_ who had been told not to apply again?

Taking a deep breath to steady his nerves, Slim swiped the screen with his thumb, calling up the message program. The message had been sent to several people, he noticed at once, which didn’t make him feel better—until he read the first line.

It was from T’Mel, at long last.

“Is—everything all right?” Sasha asked hesitantly.

Slim nodded. “It’s from T’Mel.”

“Who?”

“She’s a Vulcan, we took the Starfleet entrance exams together, her an’ a few other guys. Braeden an’ M’err an’ Sparky an’ I all messaged each other to say we got in, but that was a few weeks ago. We ain’t heard from T’Mel yet—at least I ain’t—so I was startin’ to get worried.”

Sasha bit his lip. “May I see?”

Slim scrolled back to the start of the conversation, then angled the screen so that Sasha could see it, too. Sasha read through the initial messages, his lips moving silently as he read some of the bits, then nodded. “Okay. I have read all but ze last one.”

“Good. Me, too.” Slim adjusted the screen so that only T’mel’s message showed, then bowed his head over the screen to read.

[ _T’Mel of the_ Intrepid _wishes health and long life to you all. I must apologize for the long delay in responding. My father did not deem it logical—or necessary—to allow me access to the subspace messaging system, despite knowing that I was awaiting the results of my entrance examination. It is thanks to V’Las that I am at last able to read my messages and contact you in return. I, too, have been accepted into Starfleet Academy. When presented with the list of majors to choose from, I made the logical decision to select a secondary option, as I was uncertain that I would be able to obtain a spot as an Anthropologist. However, I was accepted into both programs, and so I will be studying both Anthropology and Astrophysics. This way, at least, I shall be useful in multiple situations. I look forward with great anticipation to seeing all of you once again in precisely thirty days’ time._ ]

Slim couldn’t help let out a gasp of mingled relief and fear. He was glad for T’Mel that she had gotten in—although he wasn’t surprised—and he was pleased that all of his new friends would be attending with him. But _thirty days?_ How had he not realized it was coming up that quickly?

“Are you all right?” Sasha asked again, looking up at him. “You look like you are about to throw down.”

“What?” Slim glanced at Sasha, startled and confused.

“You know—” Sasha indicated Slim’s face, then pantomimed doubling over and clutching at his stomach.

“Oh. Throw _up._ ” Sasha actually spoke pretty good Standard, but euphemisms and colloquialisms sometimes slipped past him. And his family, in defiance of most people in the Federation, spoke Russian almost exclusively unless they were dealing with outsiders, which had been rare in the last year or so. Usually Slim was pretty good at catching linguistic tangles and re-interpreting them on the fly, but apparently the panic had gotten further into his brain than he thought. He was most definitely not all right.

“ _Da,_ that.” Sasha hesitated, then touched Slim’s hand. “Are you ill? Ze message is good, isn’t it?”

Slim drew in a deep breath, trying to force the air properly into his lungs. “It is. Everyone I too the exam with—all my new friends—we’ll all be goin’ together. I just…thirty _days?_ ”

“Zat is too long?” Sasha ventured.

“It ain’t long _enough._ I didn’t—I ain’t ready.”

Slim had never been more certain of anything in his life. He wasn’t ready for any of it. He wasn’t ready for the rigorous academics. He wasn’t ready for the physical training. He wasn’t ready for four years grounded on Earth except for occasional forays into space. He wasn’t ready to leave his family.

“You have another message.”

Sasha’s voice filtered through the fog of Slim’s panic, and he glanced down at his PADD, just as it chirrupped again. Sure enough, there were two messages that had come in. Since he hadn’t locked the screen, he was able to see immediately that the first was from Sparky. [ _Thirty days? What do you mean, thirty days? My letter said the shuttles would bring us to Starfleet Academy on 2274.212._ ]

The reply was from T’Mel. [ _That is correct. Today is 2274.182. We will be arriving at Starfleet Academy in precisely thirty days._ ]

Before Slim could open his mouth, there was another sound, heralding a message from Sparky. [ _FUCK ME WITH A CHAINSAW._ ]

Slim couldn’t help but laugh. “God, four years with Sparky’s gonna be fun.” He looked over at Sasha. “Sorry, I just—”

“I understand,” Sasha said with a nod. “Ze universe is changing rapidly. You will be going far away from everyone and everything you know, and to a place you know wery little about. And you know people, but only a little. It is scary.”

“Kinda like when you came aboard the _Enterprise,_ ” Slim guessed, feeling a pang of guilt.

Sasha hesitated. “ _Da,_ but…when zat happened, I had no time to think. I did not know I would be coming aboard until I arrived.”

Before Slim could respond, there was another chirrup as a message arrived, from T’Mel again. [ _If I am interpreting your request correctly, that would be painful, illogical, and anatomically impossible._ ]

Slim started laughing. He dropped his PADD to his lap and nearly doubled over with laughter. In some distant, rational part of his mind, he knew this wasn’t nearly as funny as all that, and there was no reason for him to be laughing so hard, but he couldn’t stop. He gasped for air, clutching his stomach as his laughter echoed off the walls.

Someone was rubbing at his back, murmuring softly in his ear, and Slim found himself responding to the touch. The words gradually filtered into his ears. “Shh, shh, s’ all right. Calm down, sweetheart. It’s all right.”

Slowly, Slim’s laughter died out, and he was able to get air into his lungs. He was mildly surprised to find that his throat was raw and his face was wet. He straightened carefully and looked up to find Audra kneeling next to him, worry in her green eyes. Sasha was right behind her, also looking worried.

“You all right?” Audra asked softly.

“Yeah…yeah…” Slim wiped at his face and sat back. “God. Sorry, it ain’t that funny…”

“You were hysterical.” Audra handed him a bottle of water. “It scared Aleksandr here…I was comin’ to look for you anyway, lucky thing. What happened?”

Slim didn’t know how to explain it, so he just turned his PADD on again and handed it to her. Audra read through the messages, her face carefully blank, although her lips twitched as she, presumably, got to the end. At last, she handed it back to him. “You ain’t ready to go?”

“No,” Slim admitted. He swallowed hard against the sudden knot of nerves in his stomach. “Even knowin’ what today is, I wasn’t thinkin’ ‘bout it bein’ so close to me leavin’.”

Audra brushed her fingers lightly along Slim’s cheek. “Slim, that was a panic attack. You oughta talk to your pa ‘bout it.”

“I will.” Slim was about to get up, then sat back with a groan. “Go on, where’ve they got it set up?”

To her credit, Audra didn’t act like she didn’t know what he was talking about. “Tertiary gym, but…Aleksandr, would you run down there an’ ask Dr. McCoy to come up here?”

“ _Da._ ” Sasha looked bewildered, but he pushed to his feet and headed for the lift.

Audra waited until he was gone, then sat down next to Slim and hesitantly put her arm around his shoulders. “At least…T’Mel is goin’. That’s good, right?”

“Yeah, that’s the whole crowd,” Slim said softly. “Glad she finally got back to us either way.”

“You been worryin’ the whole time? Three months without hearin’…”

“I reckoned she was busy,” Slim said with a shrug. “Wondered every so often, but I wasn’t really that worried. Hell, for all I knew, I’d got the wrong T’Mel. _Intrepid_ ain’t exactly a rare name for a ship.”

“Load off your mind to hear from her, though, I reckon.”

Slim finally turned his head, puzzled, to look at Audra. “Auds, why are you beatin’ this horse to rawhide? You met her before?”

Audra looked startled and turned her head away quickly, but Slim had seen a flash of something in her eyes, something he couldn’t identify. “No. I’d never heard of her ‘til you mentioned her.”

“Then why are you so worried ‘bout her?”

Audra didn’t answer for a long moment. Slim stayed quiet, knowing she’d get to it in her own time if he let her. Finally, she said softly, “I reckon…I reckon I was wonderin’ if I _needed_ to be worried ‘bout ‘er.”

Slim frowned. “I don’t know her too well, but I reckon she can take care of herself.”

“Not like _that._ I just…” Audra took a deep breath, and her arm slid off his shoulders almost unconsciously. “She’s your age. Closer to it ‘n I am. An’ you’re gonna be with ‘er for four years…I was worried you might’ve…you know.”

Slim stared at Audra, his mouth hanging open. Audra was _jealous?_ Of someone Slim barely knew, of someone he’d met once—of someone she’d never met. On the one hand, it made no sense and brought back the memory of what he’d said to Jim, back on Miri’s homeworld, when Miri had watched Jim comforting Slim. _Dad? Girls are weird._

On the other hand…something inside of him was dancing with joy, and he didn’t even try to examine the reason why. For some reason, the idea that Audra might have been jealous made him inordinately happy.

“I get it, I do,” Audra said quickly, as if she was having to force the words out. “She’s a Vulcan, so she’s probably real smart. An’ she’ll be strong, an’ I reckon she’s pretty, an’—”

“An’ she’s an _Anthropologist,_ Audra.” Slim reached for Audra’s hand and gripped it tightly. “She ain’t someone I c’n talk warp cores an’ machine specs with. She ain’t someone I c’n laugh at the same jokes with. She probably ain’t much of a singer. She ain’t my kind of pretty.” He squeezed her hand tighter, willing her to look at him again. “She ain’t _you._ ”

A blush spread across Audra’s cheeks, and she turned to look back at him. “Slim—”

“I mean it. I hardly know T’Mel. I knew we’d be friends right from when I met ‘er—like Nico an’ Kelly an’ Port—but it ain’t like I felt when I met you.”

“Or Miri,” Audra teased.

Now it was Slim’s turn to blush. “Yeah, okay, granted. But the way I felt when I met you ain’t the way I felt when I met Miri, either.”

He wanted to say the words, but he didn’t think he could get them out without them choking him. Audra seemed to understand, though. She squeezed his fingers back, but didn’t say anything.

“Slim?” Leo’s voice came softly from the direction of the door.

Slim almost started to pull away from Audra, then stopped himself. His parents knew he and Audra were keeping company. There was no reason for him to act like they weren’t, really. “I’m over here, Pa.”

Audra slid her arm from around his shoulders, almost reluctantly. “I’ll get out of your way—”

“It’s all right, Ensign, you can stay.” Leo slid onto the floor next to Slim. “If that’s all right with you, that is.”

“It’s fine.” Slim gave Audra a gentle smile, then turned to look at Leo. “I’m okay now, Pa. I think.”

Leo rested his hand on Slim’s forehead, then his cheek, for a moment before sitting back and cocking his head to one side. “Aleksandr said you had a fit of hysteria.”

Slim nodded, feeling himself blush for a completely different reason. He didn’t know why it embarrassed him so much, but it did. “Yeah, I…we finally heard from T’Mel, an’ she mentioned that we’ll be goin’ to the Academy in thirty days. I…didn’t realize it was comin’ up that fast.”

“I didn’t, either,” Leo said softly. “And that made you laugh?”

“No, Sparky’s reaction was to say ‘fuck me with a chainsaw’ an’ T’Mel said that would be ‘painful, illogical, an’ anatomically impossible.’ _That_ made me laugh.”

Audra gave a snort, then clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle it. Leo’s lips twitched. “Yeah, I can understand that.”

Slim sighed. “I’m doin’ better, honest. I just…it’s been a helluva day. I was already on edge ‘cause I knew y’all were plannin’ some sort of big shindig for my birthday…”

Leo looked a little guilty. “How’d you know that? We were trying to keep it a secret.”

“Pa.” Slim gave his stepfather a _look._ “It’s gonna be my last birthday ‘fore I hit the Academy. An’ Addie’s real big into parties an’ birthdays an’ all that. Of course y’all were plannin’ somethin’.”

“And you don’t want that, do you?”

“I never did, Pa. I been puttin’ up with it for y’all’s sakes, but I don’t like people makin’ a fuss over me. Bein’ the center of attention bothers me.” Slim rubbed the back of his neck. “’S why I asked to sleep in a little bit this mornin’. I figured if I stayed in bed ‘til y’all were on shift, I could…”

“Delay the inevitable?” Audra supplied.

“Yeah.” Slim gave her a slight smile. “It ain’t that I don’t want to celebrate with y’all. I just…like it better when I ain’t in the middle of everythin’.”

Leo sighed. “That’s fair. We really should have asked you first.”

Slim shook his head. “I don’t reckon I’d’ve admitted I didn’t want it. Addie’s probably real excited, an’…y’know, I’m gonna be gone for my next four birthdays, pretty much. Didn’t reckon it was fair to take that away from y’all.”

“It’s _your_ birthday, Slim,” Audra pointed out. “It ain’t supposed to be about us.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want it to be about _me,_ so who else would it be about?”

Before anyone could respond, Slim’s PADD gave another chirrup. He reached for it and turned it on. There were two messages, which surprised him, until he realized that the first one had come from Sparky during his fit of laughter. [ _It’s just an expression, T’Mel._ ]

The one that had just come through was from M’err. [ _Congratulations, T’Mel. We’re very glad to hear from you. I apologize for not responding sooner, but we lost track of the time over here, too, and I’ve just spent the last hour talking Brae down from the panic attack he had when he realized how quickly this was coming up._ ]

Slim blew out a shaky sigh of relief, thankful that it wasn’t just him. He hit the REPLY button and began typing quickly. [Yeah, my friends and my stepfather spent the last hour calming me down, too. But congratulations, Cadet T’Mel.]

“Did she say why you hadn’t heard from her?” Leo asked as Slim hit SEND.

“Yeah, she just couldn’t access the subspace messaging system.”

“Well, at least you know now.” Leo put his hands on his knees and pushed himself to his feet. “C’mon, you two. Let’s go down to the tertiary gym and see if we can shift the focus onto Addie instead of you.”

“Don’t reckon that’ll take much,” Slim said with a rueful grin, getting to his feet and holding out his hand to help Audra up. “She sure does love the spotlight.”

“She’s a ham.” Audra accepted Slim’s hand and hauled herself upwards. “Don’t worry, Slim. It’s a small gatherin’. Just the usual suspects. We didn’t invite the whole ship or anythin’.”

Slim breathed a sigh of relief. “So I can pretend it’s just a normal get-together?”

“With cake,” Leo confirmed.

“Thanks, y’all.” Slim squeezed Audra’s hand and smiled.

He didn’t let go of it the whole way down to the gym.


	109. I'm Within Ya 'Cause I Believe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is taken from "One Day at a Time" by Deanna Carter.

Leo sighed as he laid down his stylus, massaging the bridge of his nose. He’d received two reminders from the ship’s computers that morning—reminders he, quite frankly, could have done without. Even though they were important, it was still shocking to him that it was time for him to need those reminders already. One of them would probably result in a massive amount of stress and headache. On the other hand…

He reached for the telecom on his desk. “Computer, get me Ensign Nic’tlarn.”

After a moment, the Zathros’ face swam into focus. “Yes, Dr. McCoy?”

“Nic’tlarn, I just got the reminder that Jame needs to come in for her twelve-month checkup. Would you like to schedule it for the next day O’Flaherty is off so you can both bring her?”

“That would be today, Doctor,” Nic’tlarn informed him. “Is today convenient?”

Leo smiled. “Come on up. Bring her lovey—she’ll probably need it.”

“We’ll be right there, Doctor. Nic’tlarn out.”

The screen winked out. Leo pushed away from his desk and went out into the main Med Bay, where he touched Chapel on the arm. “Christine, when O’Flaherty and Nic’tlarn get here, will you send them into the smaller exam room?”

“Of course, Leo,” Chapel promised. “Is everything all right?”

“Everything’s fine. Jame just needs her checkup.”

Chapel looked startled. “Already? Didn’t you just do her nine-month checkup?”

Leo smiled slightly. “Yeah. Three months ago.”

He stepped into the back room and began setting up the diagnostic. This was a routine physical; even a first-year med student could run the necessary equipment. It probably wouldn’t take very long at all. Still, while he was at it, he figured he might as well run the physicals on O’Flaherty and Nic’tlarn, and probably on Addie as well.

He’d only just finished setting up when the five of them came in, O’Flaherty with Jame propped on his hip and Nic’tlarn holding Addie’s hand. Addie beamed up at Leo. “Hi, Papa!”

“Hi, Addie!” Leo wrinkled his nose at his daughter, making her giggle. “Okay, Addie, can you sit in the chair over there?”

“’Kay.” Addie obediently sat in the corner, out of the way.

Leo turned his smile on Jame. “Hi, there, Jame. How are you today?”

Jame gave him a big, sunny smile and stretched out her hands to him. She was a round-faced, cheerful toddler, with a cluster of red curls and big brown eyes, who had the gift—like Addie had—of instantly charming anyone who came in contact with her. Leo took her from O’Flaherty, propping her on his own hip. “All right, well, here’s what we’re going to do, Sunshine. We’re gonna weigh you, and then we’re gonna do some measurements. And then you’re gonna need a few more shots, okay? But we’ll be quick.”

Jame’s smile got even bigger, which Leo chose to take as assent. He carried her over to the scale they normally used for weighing things like internal organs—it was the only thing he had that was small enough—and set her on it. She weighed in at just under the average weight for a twelve-month-old, which was to be expected, as she’d been a little on the premature side, and it was at least in proportion to her size, which, again, was smaller than average but not unexpected. He related all of this to O’Flaherty and Nic’tlarn as the diagnostic ran, checking temperature, pulse, blood pressure, and making sure she was free of disease.

“How’s her appetite? What sorts of things is she eating?” Leo asked.

“Cereals and pasta, mostly,” O’Flaherty answered. “But she’s…she’ll eat rice, but she likes oatmeal better, I think. She’ll eat tomato sauce, but she’d rather have cheese or butter. She likes sweet potatoes and squash and mushy peas, but she’s not too fond of regular potatoes or corn. She doesn’t like chicken anything, really—she never takes more than a couple bites before she pushes the spoon away. She’ll try to steal applesauce from everybody around her, but she cries whenever we feed her bananas. I mean _really_ screams.”

“That’s all normal,” Leo reassured him. “Well, not the screaming when you give her bananas—that’s a little extreme—but it’s normal for her to get a little picky at this stage. Don’t let her run roughshod over you—make sure she keeps to the balanced diet I gave you—but it’s okay to skew it a little towards things she likes. I think we’ll take bananas off the menu for now, though.”

“She needs to be bigger to like them,” Addie said from her corner. “When the tingly part isn’t so scary.”

Leo turned to frown at Addie. “The—tingly part?”

“Yeah.” Addie pointed to the roof of her mouth. “When you eat ‘nanas and your mouth feels tingly and zippy. _You_ know. It’s scary until you get used to it.”

“That’s—Addie, why didn’t you tell me it felt like that when you eat bananas?”

Addie matched Leo’s frown with one of her own. “It’s not s’pposed to?”

Leo sighed. “No more bananas for you, either. And I’m recommending you both see an allergist when we get to Starbase Six.”

Nic’tlarn looked shamefaced. “I never thought…Doctor, I am so sorry. I never meant to hurt them. It’s only that I love bananas…I thought…”

“It’s all right,” Leo reassured xem. “No real harm done. If they are allergic, it’s only a mild allergy. Now then, is she crawling, creeping, cruising…?”

“Yes, yes, and yes,” Nic’tlarn answered with a faint smile. “She isn’t walking yet, though.”

“She does if I help her,” Addie volunteered. “We like to dance.”

Leo smiled at his daughter before turning back to O’Flaherty and Nic’tlarn. “Vocabulary?”

Both ensigns shook their heads. “She hums along to music—she’s almost got as good an ear as Addie—but she never tries words or anything. It’s a little worrying, to be honest.”

“Again, she was a bit premature. Vocalizing without words is all right. She’s certainly intelligent enough to listen.” Leo smiled at Jame, who smiled back. “You know what we’re talking about, don’t you, pretty one?”

Jame dipped her chin to her chest, then raised it, wrinkling her little nose in a grin. All three of the adults laughed.

“Right,” Leo said. “O’Flaherty, I presume you want to hold her for this part. We need to do the next round of vaccinations.”

O’Flaherty picked Jame up off the exam table, then sat down with her in the chair. Nic’tlarn handed Jame a small toy—a blanket, perhaps a quarter of a meter on each side, edged in satin, with a stuffed rabbit’s head and arms in the center. Jame reached for it eagerly, then hugged it to her chest, grinning at Nic’tlarn in the way Jim called “cheesing.” Leo couldn’t help but laugh. “Okay, Jame, hold still for me. This won’t take a minute.”

He had all the necessary hypos lined up. Picking up the first one, he looked down at Jame and said, “Now, if it hurts, just squeeze your lovey _really_ tight, okay?”

Jame squeezed the toy with one arm, her eyes fixed on Leo. He nodded. “Yep, just like that. All righty then, here goes!”

Theoretically, Leo could have spread these vaccines out over a series of visits, but considering they were out in space, he was taking no chances. Granted, there were no planned stops in the next couple of weeks, but this was the _Enterprise._ Things happened all the time. They might encounter an alien race or get sucked through a hole in space or—he shuddered mentally—get orders from Nylund. Better to do things all at once and make sure Jame was protected, no matter what.

Jame was exceptionally good-natured, and apparently had a very high pain tolerance, because she didn’t so much as flinch as Leo stabbed her repeatedly in the arm. At last, he placed the final spent hypo to one side. “And that’s you done, darlin’. What a brave girl you are.”’

Jame grinned at him, baring her tiny, pearl-white teeth. Leo smiled back at her and opened a drawer, then handed her a sticker. She looked at it in awe, then hugged it to her chest, along with her lovey. O’Flaherty and Leo both laughed.

“Yay, Jame!” Addie clapped her hands in delight.

“Your turn, baby doll.” Leo patted the diagnostic. “It’s time for your annual physical, too.”

O’Flaherty wrinkled his nose. “Is it really that time again?”

“Just about. You and the rest of the crew can wait. I figure I might as well get Addie while she’s here, though.” Leo turned to Addie. “And guess what? You’re big enough this year that you get to stand up on the scale, like Daddy and Slim do.”

Addie grinned and hopped onto the platform.

Unlike her father—unlike both her fathers, if Leo was perfectly honest with himself—Addie was a wonderful patient. She did exactly what he asked of her without complaint and held perfectly still when he needed her to. He gave her a hearing test and an eye test, both of which she passed with flying colors.

“Okay,” he said at last. “One more thing we have to do. You need to get a couple of vaccines.”

“What’s a va’sine?” Addie asked, frowning.

“ _Vac-_ cine,” Leo emphasized carefully. “It’s a special kind of medicine that stops you from getting sick.”

Addie cocked her head. “How’s it do that?”

Leo wondered how to explain this to a four-year-old in a way that would make sense. Addie was pretty smart for her age, but he still didn’t think she’d follow the technical discussion. “You’ve got special cells in your body that fight off diseases. So what a vaccine does is make those cells think they have to fight off a virus.”

“How?”

“Well, usually it’s by giving them a dead version of the virus, or a very weak one. Something that won’t make you sick for real, but does all the things the virus would do if you were sick. Then your cells learn how to fight it, so when the real one comes, they can fight it off and it won’t make you sick.”

Addie’s frown deepened, and then suddenly her brow cleared. “Like Slim and Uncle Hikaru’s fencing practice?”

“Exactly!” Leo patted the top of Addie’s head. “That’s exactly what it’s like. So now we’re gonna give your body a little fencing practice.”

“Okay.” Addie pushed up her sleeve and held out her arm. “Do I have to have the same ones as Jame?”

“No,” Leo told her. He keyed up the sequence of vaccines she would need. “Everybody needs to get the same shots when they’re a certain age. And some of the vaccines have to be given more than once.”

“Why?”

“Well, because they’re very bad diseases, and they can be very strong. So your body has to keep practicing, over and over, until they get it right. Like fencing drills.”

“Oh. So I don’t have to get the same shots as Jame ‘cause I’m bigger?”

“That’s right. You have to get a couple of the same ones, but you also have to get some that Jame hasn’t had yet, but you’re getting a second or third dose of. And there are some that you’re getting for the very first time.”

“Okay,” Addie said again.

Leo was as gentle as he could be with the hypo, but he suspected that Addie wouldn’t have complained if he’d jammed it into her arm or thigh; she really was a much better patient than her father. Seven injections later, he laid down the last spent hypo. “There. All done.”

Jame clapped her hands together, smiling broadly. “Yay, Addie!”

O’Flaherty’s eyes widened, and he stared at his daughter. Nic’tlarn pressed xyr fingertips to xyr lips. Addie, however, giggled in reply. “Do I get a sticker?”

“You sure do.” Leo smiled and pulled one out for her.

“Thank you, Papa.” Addie peeled the backing off the sticker and stuck it on her chest, right where the command insignia would be if she was wearing an actual uniform.

Leo chuckled. “All right, you’re free to go. I’ll see you at dinner.”

“Thank you, Doctor.” Nic’tlarn reached for Addie’s hand.

Addie waved cheerily. “Bye-bye, Papa.”

“Bye-bye,” Jame echoed, opening and closing her hand in a wave. O’Flaherty gave a small squeak of surprise as they headed out of the room.

Shaking his head with an affectionate smile, Leo updated both Addie’s and Jame’s records, then hesitated, glancing at the chronometer.There were about two hours left in Alpha shift, which should be plenty of time. He tapped the telecom again. “Computer, get me Thomas Kirk.”

Slim’s face appeared a moment later, his brows knit in concern. “Hi, Pa. Everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine. It’s about time for annual physicals, though. Since I’d like to send yours to Starfleet Academy before you get there, I’d like to do yours now. Can you come up?”

“Be there in five. Kirk out.”

Punctual to the minute, as always, Slim strode into the smaller exam room just as Leo laid out the last of the hypos he would need. Looking up, Leo couldn’t help but feel a pang of dismay and regret. For sure, Slim wasn’t a little boy anymore. They couldn’t even really call him Slim; he wasn’t as broad as, say, Porter Simril, but he was certainly broader in the shoulders than Jim. It was as though he’d somehow received some of Leo’s genetics anyway.

Fleetingly, Leo wondered if Alice Johnson had been a relative of his, however distantly.

“This shouldn’t take too long,” Leo promised his stepson. “Just the standard physical, with the addition of a few immunizations.”

“I ain’t in a hurry.” Slim smiled warmly at Leo.

To Leo’s eyes, though, he looked a touch apprehensive. Leo wasn’t sure why, but he chose not to say anything, simply starting with the exams. He took care to explain to Slim exactly what he was doing, the same way he did with Jim. It was clear that wasn’t why Slim was nervous, though.

Finally, after the last hypo had been dispensed, Leo stood back and folded his arms across his chest. “And you’re done. Healthy as a horse and fit as a fiddle, with all the shots and preventatives you’ll need at Starfleet Academy.”

“Thanks, Pa.” Slim smiled and pulled his shirt back on.

Leo looked at him for a moment, then asked quietly, “Is there anything that’s bothering you?”

Slim hesitated, then sighed, crossing his legs underneath of himself and resting his forearms on his knees. “I just…how’m I gonna explain all them scars? I’m gonna have a new doctor at the Academy, a whole new med staff, an’…I don’t want anyone thinkin’ I got ‘em ‘cause of Dad.”

_No one would think that._ Leo bit back on his instinctive reply. He and Slim both knew that wasn’t true. Jim might have been a hero to the Federation, but that didn’t mean that everyone venerated him, or that nobody would ever believe he had beat his son. Hell, if Slim didn’t go around claiming kinship with the legendary Kirk family—and he wouldn’t, any more than his father had before him—people wouldn’t know _who_ his father was and might just assume.

“They’re documented in your medical file,” he said instead. “And I made a note, way back when you first told me about it, that you’d had a history of abuse in the foster system. You won’t have to explain them if you don’t want to.”

“Is there anything else in my file I should be aware of?” Slim asked lightly, but there was a flash of genuine concern there.

“Other than what you already know, I have you marked down for a few risk factors. Your doctors at the Academy will probably test you for those at various points, but beyond that, no, there’s nothing unusual.”

“Risk factors?”

“Your dad had Vegan choriomeningitis, which means there’s a chance it’s latent in your system, too,” Leo told him. “There’s also a chance you have more allergies that haven’t been diagnosed yet. And you’ve got a family history of leukemia as well. But all of those are minor chances.”

Slim nodded. “Do you think I”ll be able to keep up?”

“Absolutely,” Leo said instantly. “Physically and mentally, you’ll be just fine. I’d put you up against any other cadet in the galaxy any day.”

Slim’s smile, this time, was genuine and unfettered. “Thanks, Pa.”

Leo smiled back, then glanced at the chronometer. “Alpha’s just about over. Let me finish updating your file, and then what say you we go and get dinner?”

“Sounds good to me.”

Slim watched quietly as Leo tapped the information into his PADD, then unfolded himself and slid off the table when Leo set it aside. Together, they headed up to the mess hall. It turned out they were the last of their usual group to arrive. Cayne, Simril, and Gaila were eating like they were starving; Chekov and Sulu were eating at a more sedate pace; O’Flaherty was tying a bib around Jame’s neck, while Nic’tlarn came over carefully balancing three plates on xyr arms; Jim and Uhura were listening to Addie as she waved a fork, apparently telling a story.

“…And I was very, very good and didn’t make a fuss or anything when Papa poked me,” she said confidently, then glanced up and beamed when she saw Leo. “Wasn’t I, Papa?”

“You were,” Leo said, dropping a kiss on the top of her head. “You’re an excellent patient.”

“Do I get a kiss, too?” Jim asked playfully.

Leo bent down to kiss Jim, capturing his lips instead, then brushed his jawline with his fingertips lightly before pulling back. “We’ll wait a bit on your physical.”

“Thanks.” Jim laughed.

Slim tugged Addie’s braid in passing as he headed for the food slots. Addie giggled, then looked up at Leo again. “And I’m not sick or anything, right?”

“Nope. You’re just as healthy as your brother and Jame are.”

Addie turned her grin on Jame and clapped her hands. “Yay, Jame!”

Jame returned the grin and clapped, too. “Yay, Addie!”

Simril choked on his pasta. Addie and Jame both set off in fits of giggles, while the adults boggled at the infant. Slim returned a moment later with a salad in one hand and a chicken sandwich in the other, which he set in front of Leo before sitting down next to Cayne and bumping her shoulder affectionately. “What are we all starin’ at?”

“Jame’s talkin’,” Cayne told him, bumping his shoulder in reply. Leo rather suspected they might have laced their fingers together under the table, but he didn’t say anything. “In full sentences, too. Kinda.”

Slim grinned crookedly. “Oh, yeah? Whatcha sayin’, pretty girl?” he asked, directing his attention to Jame.

“Yay, Addie!” Jame dutifully repeated. Leo and Nic’tlarn both laughed.

“Didn’t you say once that most kids, their first word is what’s important to ‘em?” Slim asked Leo.

Leo nodded. “I did. And you’ll notice I was right.” To the engineers, most of whom hadn’t been aboard when Addie had begun talking, he added, “Addie’s first word was ‘Slim.’”

Addie wrinkled her nose in a grin at Slim, who gave her a wink in return that made her giggle. “An’ Aunt Nyota told me mine was ‘Starfleet.’”

“Mine was ‘water,’” Simril mused. “Allyn’s was ‘banana,’ except she didn’t know when to stop.”

Cayne laughed. “Mine was ‘horse.’ What was yours, Kels?”

O’Flaherty blushed as he fed Jame a spoonful of pureed sweet potato. “‘Stop,’” he mumbled, avoiding looking at anybody.

Leo felt Jim bristle next to him and laid a gentle hand on his thigh, silently warning him to stay calm. From what little both of them had gathered about O’Flaherty’s background, they could imagine why that had been his first word, but Addie was in the room, and so was Jame.

Nic’tlarn rubbed O’Flaherty’s back softly. “I was never told what my first word was. For _h’ftenga,_ such milestones are unimportant. That is why Kelly and I have been chronicling Jame’s milestones so studiously. Do you know yours, Captain?”

Jim managed a smile. “I did ask my mom the last time we saw her. She told me it was ‘up.’”

“Up!” Jame said, throwing her hands over her head and giving Jim a sunny grin.

Simril almost choked on his pasta again. Nic’tlarn lifted an eyebrow at xyr daughter. “You, young lady, are far smarter than you let on, aren’t you?”

Jame gave him a cheeky grin and nodded. Slim chuckled. “Well, y’all sure as shootin’ ain’t gonna be bored around here.”

Leo smiled fondly at Jame and Addie. “God help us all.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys.
> 
> You guys.
> 
> The end is _extremely fucking nigh_ you guys.
> 
> I am starting on the next chapter, which I am still kind of trying to figure out what is going to happen. (It's a Jim POV, so if anyone has any suggestions for what I should do with it, feel free to ask.) The chapter after that I got inspiration for this morning at work. The chapter after that is an episode adaptation. The chapter after that is the Chapter You've All Been Waiting For. And after that...
> 
> You guys, this story is almost over.
> 
> _**You guys.** _


	110. How Fast Will It Go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, it's actually not my fault that I haven't posted this chapter before now, it's been done for more than a week! The problem is that my laptop won't connect to my house's internet from my room anymore (I think it's to do with our router). On the one hand, this is great, because in the last two weeks I've gotten about two and a half chapters written. On the other hand, I can't post it! And I don't go places with free WiFi every week anymore, because every other Friday I'm at the ballfield.
> 
> Still. I hope you enjoy the chapter, and the next one when I eventually post it. And I hope the story is worth the wait.
> 
> Chapter title is from "Speed" by Montgomery Gentry.

_One hundred sixty-four hours remaining_

Jim knew there was going to be trouble when Uhura turned from her console with one hand to her ear.

Everything had been going so _well_ up to that point. Maybe. Sort of. At any rate, Jim had managed to put out of his mind for a whole five hours just how close Slim was to leaving for the Academy. They were due to arrive at Starbase Six in a little under a week; they would have around forty-eight hours at the station before Slim’s shuttle would arrive and whisk him away back to Earth. Jim was doing his best to live in the present—the way he usually did when he was on board the _Enterprise_ —but it was hard.

Still, he’d been managing it so far this shift. And then Uhura turned around. “Captain, we’re being hailed.”

Jim tensed in his chair. A hail could mean any number of things—a ship in distress, a planet with a problem, an enemy vessel, even some huckster with a load of chronometers that fell off the back of a freighter. At least it wasn’t an official communication from Starfleet. Still, few people hailed a starship for a casual chat. “Answer the hail and put it through on the main screen.”

Uhura twisted back to her console. A moment later, the viewscreen flickered to life, revealing a very severe-looking Vulcan seated in a chair, staring impassively at the screen. At least, Jim hoped he was a Vulcan and not a Romulan; the differences were subtle and usually had to do with sharpness and severity. Romulans were a touch more emotional than Vulcans, though. And—to Jim’s relief—he held up his right hand in the _ta’al._ “Health and long life to you. Do I address Captain James T. Kirk of the starship _Enterprise?_ ”

Jim raised his own hand in the salute. “Live long and prosper, sir. I am indeed Captain Kirk. May I ask your name?”

“This, Captain,” Spock said calmly, stepping up to Jim’s side with his hands clasped behind his back, “is Sevennin, Second Ambassador of New Vulcan.”

“Mr. Spock,” Sevennin, if that was his name, said with a nod that seemed forced to Jim. “I am honored to see you once more.”

“And I you, Ambassador.”

Jim sensed the undercurrent of tension. He wasn’t the only one, if the look Chekov shot over his shoulder was any indication. However, he opted to ignore it. “Ambassador, how may we assist you?”

Sevennin returned his gaze to Jim. “I understand that your present course of travel will take you to Starbase Six. Is that correct?”

“It is,” Jim confirmed. “Why do you ask?”

“We are undertaking a diplomatic mission of an extremely sensitive nature,” Sevennin replied. “It must be accomplished, else the peace of this quadrant will be in jeopardy, and we have a limited amount of time in which to accomplish it. To detour to Starbase Six would cause a delay of approximately four standard days. This is unacceptable.”

“I agree,” Jim said, not sure what any of this had to do with his question or why it mattered. “Is there something you require at Starbase Six that we could assist you with?”

Something flickered in Sevennin’s eyes briefly. “My daughter requires transportation back to Earth. I find it illogical to delay a mission of such importance for so trivial a reason, but she refuses to see reason and insists that she must be at Starbase Six within seven standard days. As you will traveling there, would you be willing to take her along?”

Jim blinked. “Of course, Ambassador. That would be no trouble at all.”

Sevennin nodded sharply. “My third son has agreed to accompany her, in order to guard against any…incidents.”

Spock raised one eyebrow sharply. “Incidents?”

“My daughter is still young, Mr. Spock, and knows little of the galaxy,” Sevennin said, his voice taking on a sharp tone for just a moment. “I would not wish for her to cause problems, even inadvertently. My son will ensure her good behavior.”

“We appreciate that,” Jim said diplomatically. “We will beam your son and daughter over as soon as they are ready.”

“We will contact you when they are prepared. Live long and prosper.” With another _ta’al,_ Sevennin’s face vanished.

Jim cast a glance at Spock, one eyebrow raised. “ _He_ is the Second Ambassador for New Vulcan?”

“He was still in training when the previous Second Ambassador died, when Nero destroyed Vulcan,” Spock replied, voice even. “He thus rose to his present position more quickly than he would normally have done.”

“I am surprised he would have been entrusted with a sensitive mission, if that’s how he interacts with everyone.”

“I suspect, Captain, that he believes his mission more important than it is. He has always been, to use an Earth term, a blowhard.”

Jim was hard pressed not to laugh. “I see you’ve been talking to Bones again.”

Briefly, a smile tugged at Spock’s lips. “On the contrary. It was Mr. Scott who taught me that particular turn of phrase.”

Jim chuckled and turned for the lift. “I’m going to go meet our temporary passengers, Mr. Spock. Care to accompany me?”

“It would be my pleasure.” Spock fell into step beside Jim.

They reached the transporter room in silence and waited for what seemed, to Jim, an unusually long time. After nearly ten minutes, Spock broke the silence. “It is my sincere hope that Ambassador Sevennin’s children take after their mother, rather than him.”

Jim glanced sideways at Spock. “Did you know him on Vulcan, Spock?”

“I did, Captain. His younger brother Sopek and I were of an age, and attended school together.” Spock looked down at his shoes briefly. “Sopek was one of those who attempted to provoke me to emotion. Sevennin was not much better.”

“Then I, too, hope that his children take after their mother,” Jim agreed. “Especially since this seems an unusually long time to wait. It seems…illogical that Sevennin would be indulging in a prolonged goodbye, given his hurry to be about his mission.”

“Indeed.” Spock looked up at Jim and almost smiled.

Another two minutes passed before the intercom whistled. “Bridge to Transporter Room. Two ready to be beamed aboard. Coordinates have been sent to the console.”

Jim nodded to Kyle. “Energize.”

Two ports on the transporter pad lit up as they became active. After a moment, the beams coalesced into two figures, one slenderer and shorter than the other. Both were already giving the _ta’al_ as they emerged.

“Health and long life to you,” the male said gravely.

Jim and Spock returned the salute. “Live long and prosper. I am Captain James Kirk, of the starship _Enterprise._ This is my first officer, Commander Spock, and our transporter technician, Lieutenant Kyle.”

The male Vulcan—to Jim’s surprise—gave a soft smile as he lowered his hand. “We have heard of you, Captain Kirk, and of the good work you have done throughout the quadrant. I am V’Las, third son of Ambassador Sevennin and his wife Metana. And this is my one and only sister, T’Mel.”

Jim smiled and gave them both a friendly nod. “Welcome aboard, both of you. I hope you will both be comfortable here, however short your stay may be.” He turned to Spock. “Mr. Spock, will you please return to the bridge and inform Ambassador Sevennin that his children have arrived safely? And if you two will come with me, I will show you to guest quarters.”

“Thank you, Captain,” V’Las said, still with a faint smile on his face.

Spock nodded to V’Las and T’Mel, then headed to the lift. Jim gestured for them to follow him. T’Mel reached for the large drab-colored duffel bag that had materialized between them, but V’Las stopped her. “I will carry it.”

“I am more than capable of carrying it myself,” T’Mel protested.

“You will have to carry it on your own before very long, Little Sister. For now, I will shoulder what of your burden I can.” V’Las swung the bag easily to his shoulder. “After all, you will need the strength to carry it the longer distance.”

“That is logical,” T’Mel said, somewhat grudgingly.

“Not all things must be governed by logic, Little Sister.”

Jim raised an eyebrow, smiling. “I must confess, that’s the first time I’ve ever heard that from a Vulcan.”

V’Las smiled again. “I have always been unusual for a Vulcan, Captain Kirk. I am not one of those who argue, as some do, that Vulcans should allow themselves to give into emotion, that we should abandon the teachings of Surak, or that we should indulge in excesses. But neither am I given to extreme emotions that need to be suppressed, and so I do not suppress the simpler ones.”

“His poems have been well-received by the other Vulcans,” T’Mel said. “He writes of things that many do not allow themselves to feel, and so allows them to…understand.”

“No, Little Sister,” V’Las said gently. “One cannot understand without feeling.”

They had by this time reached the guest quarters. There were only four rooms, one of which Aleksandr presently occupied. Jim stopped before the second door. “Would you prefer one room or two?”

V’Las looked at T’Mel, who replied, “One is sufficient, Captain. We are accustomed to sharing.”

“All right. Then this will be your quarters for the duration of your stay. I hope you will find them comfortable. If you would like to rest, you can, or I can give you a tour of the ship.”

“If it will not take you from your duties, Captain,” V’Las said, “I should very much enjoy a tour.”

Jim couldn’t help but smile. “I would be remiss in my duties if I were not the one to show you around.”

T’Mel and V’Las stored their things in their quarters, then joined Jim. He began leading them around the ship, showing them what of the ship was not off-limits to civilians. T’Mel took all of it in, but said nothing. V’Las nodded in a friendly manner to anyone he passed. Most of them stared after him in confusion. One crewman was so busy staring that he ran into a bulkhead.

“I seem to be something of an object of confusion,” V’Las observed, but there was a slight grin on his face that indicated he knew exactly why he aroused so much curiosity.

“I can’t imagine why,” Jim said dryly. He decided he rather liked V’Las. “Have you ever considered joining Starfleet?”

“I did, once. But I do not have the necessary skills to be a Starfleet officer. As my sister told you, I am a poet. Unless Starfleet begins hiring artists—or counselors—I doubt I should be of any use to them.”

“They may be hiring counselors soon. I know Dr. McCoy has suggested it.”

The last stop on their tour was the Observation Deck. Even T’Mel seemed somewhat in awe of the room when she stepped into it. “Fascinating,” she murmured.

“It’s beautiful,” V’Las breathed. “One can see so much more from here than on New Vulcan—even on a clear night.”

“After all, there is less atmosphere to interfere,” Jim pointed out. “And we _are_ closer to the stars here.”

“That is true.” V’Las quirked a small smile at Jim. “As I believe one of your poets once said, ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty—that is all / Ye know on Earth, and all ye need to know.’”

“Keats.” Jim nodded. He was quite familiar with the poem.

They had been speaking quietly, so Jim figured, when he turned and spotted the couple in the corner, that they had been undetected. He gestured for V’Las and T’Mel to follow him as he crossed over to them. As he had half expected, Slim sat on the bench, his arm around Cayne’s shoulders; she had her head resting on his shoulder, and both of them were simply watching the stars, neither saying anything.

“Good afternoon,” Jim said as he approached them.

Slim and Cayne both jumped and looked up. “Hi, Dad. Everythin’ okay?”

“Everything’s fine,” Jim assured them both. “I just figured, since you were here…I’d like you to meet our temporary guests.”

Slim looked around him, then got to his feet, obviously surprised. Cayne, too, got to her feet as Slim said, “T’Mel?”

“Thomas,” T’Mel said with a slight nod. “It is agreeable to see you again.” She indicated V’Las and added, “This is V’Las, my third brother…V’Las, this is Thomas Kirk.”

V’Las smiled and inclined his head. “I am pleased to meet you at last.”

“It’s nice to meet you, too,” Slim said with a smile. “This is Ensign Audra Cayne, Engineering…Auds, this is Acting Cadet T’Mel.”

Cayne held up one hand, a small but genuine smile on her own face, which was a relief to Jim. “It’s good to finally meet you, T’Mel. Slim’s been tellin’ me a lot about you.”

T’Mel raised an eyebrow at Slim. “I find it illogical that you are referred to as ‘Slim’ when, as I understand that word, you are not.”

“I was when I was younger,” Slim said, laughing a little. “Ain’t so much now, but I reckon people are too used to callin’ me that to change it up now.”

“After all, Little Sister,” V’Las said gently, “our foremother still refers to our mother by her childhood name. This is no different.”

“That is true,” T’Mel allowed. She turned back to Cayne. “It is an honor to meet you as well, Ensign Cayne.”

Cayne gestured to the bench. “Would you like to join us? We were just…admirin’ the stars.”

“They are admirable,” T’Mel said softly. “If I would not be disturbing you…”

“Not at all.”

Jim smiled. “If you’re quite all right here, then I’d best get back to the bridge. I’ll see you after Alpha shift for dinner, Slim.”

“Sure thing, Dad.”

Jim returned to the bridge in a thoughtful mood. Spock met him with a crisp nod. “Captain. Ambassador Sevennin had already left the vicinity by the time I returned to the bridge, and we were unable to establish contact.”

“That’s all right, Mr. Spock,” Jim said quietly. “I don’t think he was too concerned about his children’s welfare. At least, not these two.”

“Would you agree that they took after their mother?” Spock asked.

Jim took his seat. “Not having met Metana, I couldn’t say. But they certainly don’t take after their father.”

Spock nodded. “I suppose that for these small mercies we should be grateful.”

The remainder of Alpha proceeded much as normal. However, now Jim couldn’t get out of his head how close it was.

_She must be at Starbase Six within seven standard days._ Well, now that he knew who T’Mel was, he understood why; she would be catching the same shuttle as Slim to Earth and Starfleet Academy. It made his breath come short and his still newly-repaired heart beat just a little faster. He almost wished he wasn’t on duty for the next week. He considered calling Slim and Addie onto the bridge, to spend as much time with them as possible, but he stopped himself. After all, he wasn’t the only one who was on borrowed time with Slim.

Jim’s mind flashed back to the way Slim and Cayne had been sitting. It reminded him of the way he and Bones always sat the night before one of them would be gone for an extended period of time, even before they’d been together. And, he reminded himself with a pained wince, neither of them had ever been gone more than two months. Slim would be gone for four _years._ The _Enterprise_ would be back on Earth in about six months, give or take, but probably only for a month or two, for refueling. And really, there was no guarantee they’d be going back to Earth at the end of their five-year. They were just as likely to be called to the end of their mission on another planet, or on a space station. If Cayne didn’t transfer off the ship—and she probably wouldn’t—she might not be back on Earth for a good long while. Which meant four years—at least—before Slim and Cayne saw one another again.

No wonder she’d been worried about T’Mel.

About five minutes before the end of shift, the door slid open and Bones ambled onto the bridge. Jim looked up with a smile. “Hey. Everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine. Started the first round of crewman physicals today. Nothing unusual so far.”

Jim suppressed the urge to groan and instead nodded. “You’ll give me a few days to do mine, right?”

Bones rolled his eyes, but there was a fond smile as he leaned down to kiss Jim’s cheek. “Yes, Jim. You’ll be last, as usual.” He looked around the bridge. “All quiet this shift? Nothing unusual?”

“We picked up a couple passengers,” Jim told Bones. “The Second Ambassador of New Vulcan requested that we escort his son and daughter to Starbase Six.”

Bones’ eyebrows shot up. “T’Mel? Does Slim know she’s aboard?”

“Yeah. I left her and V’Las—her older brother—on the Observation Deck with him and Ensign Cayne. At Cayne’s suggestion,” Jim added, seeing Bones about to get exasperated with him. “I have a feeling all four of them will be at dinner. You’ll meet them then.”

Bones nodded. His voice was casual, but his eyes were sympathetic as he spoke. “It’ll be nice to meet someone Slim’s going to know at the Academy. I imagine T’Mel’s brother feels the same way.”

Jim swallowed and nodded as well. He couldn’t believe he’d neglected to consider how any of Slim’s new friends’ families would react to them leaving, but they had to be feeling just as upset as he was—more, in some cases. “Yeah, Bones. I imagine that he does.”


	111. The Fool Who Couldn't See

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys, I am so sorry for the delay. I thought I'd get this up the last time I was at Panera, but my laptop wouldn't connect there, either. I think the antenna came loose in the wireless card, because it's working right now, but I'm sitting practically on top of the router, too.
> 
> I'm gonna be getting an external wireless adapter at some point this weekend, so hopefully this won't be an issue TOO much longer, but in the meantime, I sincerely apologize.
> 
> I'd also like to warn you that these next couple of chapters are going to _hurt._
> 
> Chapter title comes from "Tonight the Heartache's On Me" by the Dixie Chicks.

_Forty-seven hours remaining_

Slim jumped into the air, allowing Sulu’s sweep at his legs to pass harmlessly underneath him, and chanced a thrust forward as he landed. He managed to slip past Sulu’s guard and pink him on the shoulder. Sulu dropped his sword and stepped back, conceding the point.

“Match point,” Chekov called out.

“Yay, Slim!” Addie cried, clapping her hands.

Jame echoed the clapping. “Yay, ‘Lim!”

Slim had to laugh as he pulled off the face mask. “You want to go another round?”

“No, I know when I’m beat.” Sulu stripped off his own face mask. “I need a shower.”

“Yeah, me, too.” Slim wiped his forehead against his shoulder and crossed to the wall to snap the sabre back into place. Sulu followed suit.

As soon as the swords were safely stored, Addie ran over and wrapped her arm around Slim’s leg, looking up at him imploringly. “Slim, can we watch a movie when you’re done? _Please?”_

“Of course,” Slim promised. He glanced around the room at his friends. “Anyone else want to join us?”

It was one of the rare days that all of Slim’s friends were off at the same time. Slim wouldn’t have thought anything of it if it weren’t for the fact that he knew they were due at Starbase Six at the beginning of Alpha shift the next day. They’d all likely have liberty on the station at the same time, of course, but this was Slim’s last full day on the _Enterprise._ And he knew that Jim and Scotty had deliberately arranged things so that Slim and his friends—all of his friends—could have that day together.

“I’ll be there in thirty,” Audra promised immediately.

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Sulu agreed. Porter nodded.

Thirty minutes later, they were all gathered in the captain’s quarters, squeezed into whatever available seating they could find—even T’Mel and V’Las. Over the last few days, they’d been drawn into the group—perhaps unwillingly, in T’Mel’s case. Sasha blushed every time he made eye contact with her, and the others had teased him about it, if only in private. It only made the younger boy blush harder.

“Can I pick the movie?” Addie asked eagerly.

Nic’tlarn restrained her hand gently. “No, Addie, it’s Slim’s turn to pick.”

Addie pouted. Slim winked at her as he picked up the remote. “Trust me, Addie, you’ll like this movie.”

He chose _The Princess Bride,_ which somehow they’d managed not to watch in Addie’s entire life. Addie wedged herself in between Slim and Audra, which was a little exasperating, but he didn’t complain. After all, he was going to miss her like hell, too.

Slim and Audra both knew the movie, as did Sulu and Chekov; Kelly said she’d seen it once, but it had been when she was a little younger than Addie and she’d forgotten everything but the Fire Swamp. The others had never seen it, and their reactions were everything Slim could have hoped for. Jame covered her ears with her hands when the Shrieking Eels started up, her face screwing up as if she wanted to cry but wouldn’t. Porter giggled—actually giggled—during the contest of wits. Sasha practically jumped out of his skin when the ROUS attacked Westley. Gaila was just as indignant as the character known only as “the grandson” when it appeared that Buttercup had married the prince after all. Addie bit hard on her lower lip, her eyes filling with tears, when it appeared that Prince Humperdink had killed Westley. Nic’tlarn seemed particularly amused by Miracle Max, although xe wouldn’t say why. And all of them cheered loudly when Westley rose to his feet and commanded Humperdink to drop his sword. Even T’Mel applauded, a faint smile on her lips.

“Zat was wonderful,” Sasha sighed as the end credits rolled at last.

“I’ve always liked that movie,” Slim murmured.

Addie looked up. “Slim? Is that a real book?”

“It is,” Slim told her. “I reckon there’s a copy in the ship’s library.”

“Will you read it to me tonight? Please?”

“It’s a chapter book, baby girl. A real long one, like _Watership Down._ ”

“Can we start it tonight?” Addie begged.

Slim couldn’t help but smile a little sadly. “We can start it, sure. Or you can wait a couple days, and Daddy or Papa can start reading it to you instead.”

“I want you to read it.”

“Well, I’ll read you the first chapters, then, and Daddy can take over.”

“All of it!”

“We ain’t gonna be able to finish it all tonight, baby. Or even tomorrow.”

“You can read it to me every night. I don’t mind. Daddy and Papa won’t be upset if we don’t take turns reading it.”

Slim exchanged a puzzled glance with Nic’tlarn. “Addie…you know I can’t call every night just to read you a story, right? It don’t work that way. I’m gonna be busy, an’ it won’t be the same time on Earth as it is on the ship. An’ that’s way too long a ways to call.”

Addie frowned at him. “I thought the _Enterprise_ wasn’t going back to Earth for a while yet. Daddy said we were still in deep space for another six months or so.”

“It’s not, baby. But I am,” Slim reminded her.

Addie’s eyes widened. “Why?”

The room fell silent, all of them staring at Addie. Slim felt something sink into his stomach and swallowed twice before answering. “Addie, I’m going to Starfleet Academy. Remember, we talked about that when I got that message?”

“I thought you were gonna study on the ship,” Addie protested. “Like you’ve been. You don’t hafta go away to study.”

“Yeah, I do,” Slim said as gently as possible. “Starfleet Academy doesn’t work like that. I have to interact with people and study at the same time as them and that kind of thing. I can’t do it from a distance. Those are the rules.”

Two big tears formed in Addie’s eyes. “So you’re going _away?_ Forever?”

“No, baby. Just for a little while.”

“How long? Will you come back when we go back to Earth?”

Slim hesitated. “No, a little longer than that.”

“How long?” Addie persisted.

T’Mel spoke up. “Study at Starfleet Academy lasts for four standard years, at the end of which all graduates have received an officer’s commission and are posted to vessels or stations, as the need arises.”

“Four _years?_ ” Addie repeated, her voice going shrill and her lip trembling. “That’s _forever!_ ”

“Baby girl—” Slim began, taking his arm from around Audra and putting it gently on her head.

“ _No!_ ” Addie pushed his hand away and jumped to her feet. She faced him with her hands balled into fists and her shoulders drawn up, scowling at him even as the first of the tears began to spill over. “No, you can’t go!”

“Addie, sweetheart, I have to,” Slim said, reaching out to her.

_“NO!_ ” Addie’s scream was loud enough to rattle the picture frames and the tin model of the _Enterprise_ on the display shelf. She clapped her hands over her ears, screwed up her face, and ran for her bedroom. The door slid shut behind her with a swoosh of finality.

T’Mel’s eyebrow lifted. “Fascinating.”

“I can’t believe—” Slim felt guiltier than he had ever felt before. “I thought she knew I was leavin’!”

“I suppose we were all so…reluctant to admit you were that we…forgot to actually say anything.” Nic’tlarn sounded just as guilty as Slim felt. “Gods, Slim, I’m sorry.”

“Ain’t your fault. It’s mine.” Slim swallowed hard. “I—I reckon I’d better try an’ talk to ‘er.”

“We’ll let you be.” Audra put a hand softly on his shoulder as she got to her feet. “Hopefully we’ll see you at dinner?”

“Yeah, I hope so.” Slim covered Audra’s hand briefly with his own, then let her go. He looked around the room and tried to smile. “Thanks, y’all. I’m sorry.”

“It will be okay, Slim,” Chekov said quietly.

Slim waited until all of his friends had filtered out of the room. Then he waited for a few more minutes, gathering his strength and courage. He’d done a lot of things in his life, things he’d never thought he could handle, things that had seemed next to impossible. None of them had ever been as hard as this.

Finally, he managed to steel himself to get off the couch. He crossed over to Addie’s door and knocked on it gently. “Addie? Can I come in?”

There was no answer. Slim waited a moment, then knocked again, and a third time. He could have opened the door himself—Addie’s door didn’t lock, and wouldn’t until Jim and Leo programmed it to, and even then there’d be an override—but he was trying to show his sister that he respected her, and that he thought she was grown-up enough to decide if she wanted him to come in or not.

It was clear she didn’t.

Slim pressed his hand to the door, then his cheek. “Addie? Addie, baby girl, I ain’t leavin’ you forever. I promise you that. I’ll come back. An’ we’ll see each other. When the _Enterprise_ comes to Earth again, you c’n come see me, meet my new friends.”

There was no answer from inside the room. Slim tried again. “Addie, I’m sorry you didn’t know. I thought for sure you knew I was goin’. I don’t mean to keep secrets from you. It was an accident. You ain’t mad at me for that, are ya?”

The utter silence told him that, in fact, she was. Slim sighed, then bowed his head, resting his forehead against the door. “Please, Addie,” he said quietly, knowing his voice probably wouldn’t make it through the door but hoping it would anyway. “We’re wastin’ what time we got left together. Please come out.”

Addie stayed in her room.

Slim turned around so that his back was against Addie’s door and slid to the ground, hugging his knees to his chest. He resisted the urge to start humming or singing that song from _Frozen_ —it’d just get stuck in his head, and if Addie took it into her head to say “yes” he had no idea what he’d do, since they were still on a starship. Besides, he’d never actually seen snow and neither had she.

Instead, after a few minutes, he desperately began reciting “Mimer, the Master.” With all the voices done right. It was still Addie’s favorite story, however many other books or stories she read or was read, and Slim ended up having to read it to her at least once a month. If she wouldn’t let him into her room at bedtime—tonight or tomorrow—this might be his last chance.

He reached the end of the story, then held his breath, waiting to see if she would respond. When she didn’t, he started again, for lack of anything better to do. And again. By the time he started for the fourth time, there were tears rolling down his cheeks. He made no effort to stop them.

At last, he fell silent, letting his head fall back against the door and his eyes close. The swoosh of a door opening made him look up, even though he knew it wasn’t the one he was leaning against.

Jim and Leo came in, obviously mid-discussion. “—know we’re coming?”

“I can’t imagine she doesn’t. You know how people talk on a station.”

“We’ll have to—”

“Slim?” Leo spotted Slim and came over towards him. “Everything okay?”

Slim didn’t even bother summoning up a smile, just gestured weakly over his shoulder. “Addie didn’t realize I was actually _leavin’._ She thought I was gonna study long-distance, like I been doin’. She’s been sulkin’ in her room pretty much all afternoon.”

Jim paled. “Are you serious?”

Slim nodded. “We were watchin’ _The Princess Bride._ She asked about the book…I said I reckoned the library had a copy of it an’ she asked if I’d read it to ‘er. When I told ‘er I couldn’t read all of it ‘cause I was leavin’, she got real upset. Screamed at me that I wasn’t ‘lowed to leave an’ ran in her room. I tried gettin’ ‘er to come out, but she ain’t answerin’ me. I didn’t wanna go in there an’…I reckoned she’s gettin’ old enough she c’n decide for ‘erself if she wants me in there or not.” He swallowed hard. “An’ she don’t.”

“I’ll talk to her.” Leo held out his hand to Slim. “Maybe I can make her understand.”

Slim accepted the hand and used it to leverage himself off the ground. He was a little surprised at the stiffness in his knees, although he realized, logically, that he’d been sitting there for damn near three hours. Brushing his pants off, he moved aside to stand next to Jim, watching Addie’s door.

Leo tapped on it lightly. “Addie,” he called out in a gentle sing-song voice. “I’m respecting your right to privacy by knocking but exercising my authority as your parent by coming in anyway.”

Slim saw, on Jim’s face, the same feeble attempt at a smile that he felt on his own as Leo opened the door and slipped inside. Once it closed, however, he collapsed on the sofa, hanging his head.

The sofa dipped slightly as Jim sat next to him. “I’m sorry, son. If I’d realized she didn’t know…”

“It ain’t on you,” Slim said softly, looking up at his father. “Or at least not just on you. Nico reckons we were all tryin’ so hard not to think about it that we didn’t think to say nothin’. I told her I was sorry, but I don’t reckon she believed me.”

Jim slipped an arm around Slim’s shoulders. “I wish you weren’t,” he admitted softly. “I’ve been trying not to think about it either, but…I wish you could stay.”

“I know, Dad.” Slim leaned against his father. “I’ve known that for years. ‘S why I always asked Uncle Spock when I needed to know somethin’ about the Academy.” He looked up at Jim. “I don’t wanna go, either. Well, I wanna _go,_ but I don’t wanna _leave._ You get me?”

“I get it,” Jim agreed. “I feel the same way, actually. I’m proud of you, and I want you to go—but I don’t want you to leave.”

They sat in silence for a long time. Finally, Addie’s door slid open. Leo came out first, giving them a weak smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. A moment later, Addie came out, her face pale and tearstreaked and her eyes extremely red.

“Hi, Daddy,” she said in a small voice.

“Hi, Addie.” Jim shot a glance at Slim, who felt his heart drop into his stomach. “Want to go get something to eat?”

“Yeah. I’m hungry.”

Slim got to his feet. “Me, too. Maybe we can play Candyland afterwards—would you like that?”

He thought he was prepared. He was sure he was braced for it. But it still hit him like a sledgehammer when Addie’s eyes skipped right over him as though he didn’t exist. She didn’t say a word.

It was like that for the rest of the evening. Addie chattered away to the rest of the senior command, and to Slim’s friends, just like normal, but any time Slim said anything, it was as if he hadn’t spoken. T’Mel and Spock both looked at her oddly, but nobody else seemed surprised. At one point, T’Mel opened her mouth, but V’Las touched her shoulder lightly and shook his head.

“Anyone for a game of Fizzbin tonight?” Porter asked the table at large.

“I’m in,” Slim said quickly, with a glance at Jim, who nodded slightly.

“Yeah, me, too,” Audra agreed. Nic’tlarn and Kelly nodded.

“What is—Fizzbin?” T’Mel asked.

A slow grin curled Porter’s lip. “You should come play, T’Mel. I bet you’d be good at it.”

“That is not an answer to my question, Mr. Simril.”

“It’s a card game,” Sulu explained. “Kind of a complex one. Porter’s right, you’d probably be good at it once you got the hang of it.”

T’Mel inclined her head. “Thank you. I would be honored to learn.”

Leo hesitated. “You know what? I’ve been wanting to learn this game since you played it on Dana Iotia II. Mind if I stick around?”

“Not at all,” Porter said warmly. “We’d be honored to have you.”

“Then I’ll take Little Mischief here to bed,” Jim said with a small smile. Like Leo’s from earlier, it didn’t reach his eyes. “Say goodnight, Addie.”

“Goodnight, Addie,” Addie repeated with an impish smile.

Slim laughed—he couldn’t help it. “Night, baby.”

Addie’s smile disappeared instantly. She turned away from him, took Jim’s hand, and left the room without another word. Slim tried to swallow the sick feeling in his stomach as he gathered his dishes to put them away.

Surprisingly, Leo turned out to be really good at Fizzbin. Unsurprisingly, T’Mel wasn’t, and it was obvious that the game’s complete lack of logic frustrated her to no end. Slim kept his face as straight as possible.

“A scarlet fizzbanger!” Audra exclaimed as Slim laid down his cards. “The Lady’s on your side tonight, Slim.”

“I question the society that developed this game,” T’Mel said, pushing her cards towards Sasha for the shuffle. “I would imagine that they are no more. Surely they were too illogical to survive.”

“Oh, I don’t know, we do all right,” Sulu said carelessly, tossing his own cards towards Aleksandr. “Couple of close calls, of course, but—”

“This is an _Earth_ game?” T’Mel lifted one eyebrow sharply.

“I don’t believe zat anyone on Earth has played it yet, no,” Chekov said, laughing. “We inwented it.”

T’Mel’s other eyebrow joined the first. “But there are—rules. The game itself may not be logical, but at least it is _consistently_ illogical. You cannot be making it up as you go.”

“We’re not,” Slim said. “Not anymore. We made up all the rules long ago. It ain’t like Mao.”

Leo’s eyebrows shot up. “I haven’t played that game in _years._ ”

“Want to give it a shot?” Porter offered. “I know where the extra decks of cards are.”

There was a general assent from the table. Porter got up and returned with two more decks and the automatic shuffler, which could handle more cards more easily, and set it to shuffling.

As the machine whirred, T’Mel turned to Slim. “Tell me, why did Athena refuse to speak to you during the meal?”

“She’s still mad at me for leavin’,” Slim said softly. “I reckon she thinks if she don’t talk to me, I won’t leave.”

“That is illogical.”

“Not to her it ain’t. If she acts like I ain’t talkin’ to her, then in her mind, I ain’t. And she knows damn well I wouldn’t leave without sayin’ goodbye.”

T’Mel frowned. “You will still tell her farewell, even if she does not respond. This is illogical.”

“She is four years old, T’Mel,” V’Las said gently. “Even for a human, that is quite young. When you were her age, you heard the phrase ‘you are what you eat’ and became convinced that you would turn into soup. It took me three days to explain figurative language to you.”

Slim smiled faintly at that. “I just hope she forgives me before we leave, that’s all. If the _Enterprise_ don’t end up back on Earth to refuel…”

“I think she’s almost due for a refit,” Porter said. “She’s a good ship, but…”

“Especially if she’s going to be the experimental families-in-space ship,” Kelly said, patting her sleeping daughter’s back. “I’m sure, in a few years, Addie and Jame won’t be the only little ones on board. They’ll need family quarters. A schoolroom. Things like that.”

Audra nodded, although she looked a little green as she said, “You can’t do that on Earth.”

“I’ll talk to her again before you go,” Leo said quietly. “No sense in you leaving with hard feelings between you.”

Slim nodded, feeling a lump in his throat. God, he was _so close_ to leaving.

It hurt.

V’Las turned to the table as Porter picked up the deck to deal. “So, how is this game played?”

“The only rule I am allowed to tell you is this one,” Porter replied. He dealt out five cards to each person around the table, then set the deck in the middle of the table and turned up the top card. “The honorable game of Mao has begun.”

Slim picked up his cards and tried to concentrate on the game.


	112. The Ultimate Computer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is based on the episode of the same name by D. C. Fontana and Laurence N. Wolfe.
> 
> I did slip a fun little reference in there. See if you can catch it amidst all the pain.

_Twenty-eight hours remaining_

As was his usual habit, Leo had already been in Med Bay for fifteen minutes when Alpha shift officially started. Weaver had briefed him efficiently on what had gone on overnight—nothing terribly major—and he’d checked his supplies. They were running low on a few things, but hopefully they’d be able to restock while at Starbase Six. He’d given brief thought to going up to the bridge to watch the approach, then decided against it.

Not ten minutes into shift, Jim’s voice came over the shipwide intercom system. “Attention, _Enterprise_. This is your captain speaking. We are approaching Starbase Six as we speak and will be arriving within ten minutes. We will be at the starbase for approximately seventy-two hours. The ship will undergo restocking during this time. All personnel to be granted liberty as soon as docking procedures are complete. There will be no need for any duty crew to remain behind. Kirk out.”

Gage clapped DeSoto on the back. “Whaddaya say, Roy? Wanna go grab a burger and fries with me?”

“Johnny, it’s eight in the morning.”

“Never too early for a burger and fries.”

DeSoto smiled. “Maybe later.”

Within fifteen minutes, Med Bay was locked down and the crew had filtered off to join the lines heading over to the starbase. Leo was about to head to the bridge when Jim stepped into the door of Med Bay, a faint but tired-looking smile on his lips.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” Leo replied, slipping an arm around Jim’s waist and giving him a quick kiss. “All secure?”

“Yeah. I know it’s early yet, but I thought you’d like to head over to the starbase now. We could get Slim and Addie, maybe scope out somewhere for lunch later. And I hear there’s supposed to be some acting company on tour doing a limited engagement on the station. Shove some intergalactic culture down Slim’s throat before—” Jim broke off, swallowing.

“That sounds like a great idea,” Leo said softly. “Come on, let’s go find the kids.”

They weren’t hard to find. They had gone up to the Observation Deck to watch the ship approach. Jim had tried talking to Addie the night before, but if breakfast that morning was any indication, he hadn’t had any better success than Leo had. Addie still wasn’t talking to her brother. Leo had hoped that spending the morning together would help the situation, but it was clear from Addie’s posture and Slim’s expression that it hadn’t.

“Ready to go over to Starbase Six?” Leo asked.

Slim nodded, but didn’t say anything. Addie jumped off the bench. “Uh-huh. But _no pets,_ right, Daddy?”

“That’s right,” Jim said, laughing. “Absolutely no more pets on the _Enterprise._ ”

The four of them, unsurprisingly, were among the last ones to exit the ship. A starbase was different from a space station or a planet in that people could disembark directly through the docking bays, without having to worry about transporters. The docks were well-guarded, so nobody felt any qualms about leaving their things behind and the ship empty. It was an unusual experience for the crew, but one they were all more than happy to enjoy.

As they emerged into the main part of the starbase, Leo glanced around. The crew had mostly dispersed, although a few of them still hung around. He spotted DeSoto talking to a woman who had to be his sister, they looked so much alike, while a small child wrapped around his leg and another bounced in front of him, and not far away he could see McCall and Chapel bent over a display showing what was presumably a map of the starbase. Then, suddenly, another figure appeared before them—a woman with blonde hair pulled back in a chignon, casually dressed but with a familiar smile.

“Grandma!” Addie cried, running forward to throw herself into Winona’s arms.

Winona caught her, laughing, and hugged her tight. “Hi, baby!”

“Grandma, guess what, guess what, I can read all by myself now!” Addie said in an excited babble. “And I can ride a bike, _and_ I can count to a hundred, and—”

“Slow down, Addie, we’ve got time to talk about it.” Winona stood and reached for Slim. “Slim, good to see you. My, you’ve gotten so big. I swear you’ve grown another foot since I saw you last.”

“Nope, still just have two,” Slim replied with a twinkle in his eye. He hugged Winona back. “It’s good to see you, too, Grandma.”

“Hi, Mom.” Jim stepped forward for his hug, kissing his mother on the cheek. “How’d you know to come meet us?”

Winona scoffed, swatting his head lightly. “Please, Jim. Even on a starbase this size, people talk. Of course I knew the _Enterprise_ was due here.” She turned to give Leo a hug. “Restocking, liberty so the crew doesn’t get antsy, and the war games, right?”

“The what?” Leo and Jim said in unison.

Winona looked at them both, obviously confused. “I suppose I was mistaken. The brass has some new piece of equipment they’re all excited about testing today, and I swear someone mentioned the _Enterprise_ in connection with that.”

Jim shook his head. “I haven’t heard anything about—”

“Ah, Captain Kirk. At last.”

Something crawled up Leo’s spine, and beside him, he saw Jim stiffen. Both of them turned towards the sound of the voice they’d hoped never to hear again.

Leo had never seen Nylund in person. He somehow hadn’t expected the man to be quite so _tall._ Combined with the sharply-pressed admiral’s uniform and the yellow cat’s-eyes, it made him take an involuntary half-step back before he thought about it.

“Admiral Nylund,” Jim said, his voice just as flat and expressionless as Nylund’s eyes.

Nylund strode over to them and looked down at Jim. He was at least half a head taller, and there was really no reason for him to be standing as close as he was, unless he wanted to crowd Jim and make him as uncomfortable as possible. “You have had a singular honor conveyed upon you,” he said, his voice smooth as silk. “You are going to be the fox in the hunt.”

“I beg your pardon, sir?” Jim asked.

“War games,” Nylund said, echoing Winona’s earlier words. “Commodore Robert Wesley will be commanding the attack force against you.”

Jim stiffened, if possible, even further. “An entire attack force against just one ship?”

Nylund arched one eyebrow. “Apparently you have not heard of the M-5 Multitronic Unit. It is the computer that Dr. Richard Daystrom has just developed.”

“What is it, precisely?”

Slim spoke up. “The most ambitious computer complex ever created. The idea is to tie all computer activity of a starship into one unit—to provide the ultimate in vessel operation and control.”

Nylund turned his gaze onto Slim, who didn’t so much as flinch. “And just how do you know so much about this, boy?”

“Acting Cadet Kirk, sir,” Slim corrected him softly. “I’ve been under the tutelage of both Commander Spock and Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott for the last four years. Mr. Spock holds an A-7 computer expert classification. He made sure that I’m well familiar with Dr. Daystrom’s theories and discoveries. After all, the basic design of the ships’ computers in Starfleet are all Daystrom’s.”

“What does this all have to do with the _Enterprise?”_ Winona sounded both confused and impatient.

Nylund returned his gaze to Jim, whose expression made Leo thankful that the arrhythmia in his heart had been repaired after all. “You have been chosen to test the M-5, Captain Kirk. There will be a series of routine research and contact problems M-5 will have to solve as well as navigational maneuvers and the war-games’ problems. If it works under actual conditions as it has in simulated tests, it will mean a revolution in space technology as great as that of the warp drive. As soon as the crew has been completely cleared, the ship’s engineering section will be modified to contain the computer.”

“What kind of security does the M-5 need?”

“We are not concerned about theft or damage, if that is what you mean.”

“Then why wait until my crew is cleared?” Jim asked, adding quickly, “Sir.”

“They are not needed,” Nylund replied simply. “Dr. Daystrom will take charge of installing the unit and will run the tests. Once he is ready, you will receive your orders and will proceed with a crew of twenty.”

“ _Twenty?_ ” Leo blurted. “You can’t run a starship with a crew of twenty!”

Nylund lifted an eyebrow. “M-5 can.” He turned back to Jim. “And, as it has already been proven that the _Enterprise_ is capable of running without you, Captain Kirk, it is perfect for the test.”

The shot hit home. Jim’s whole body seemed to deflate, and he bowed his head briefly, worrying at his lower lip. Leo was about to step forward and punch Nylund, superior officer be damned, when Jim took a deep breath and straightened. “I thank you for the honor, sir,” he said softly. “I await my orders.”

“Good boy.” Nylund actually patted Jim’s cheek lightly, then turned on his heel and strode away.

“Daddy, I don’t like that man,” Addie declared as soon as Nylund was swallowed up by the crowd.

Slim huffed. “I don’t blame you.”

“Jim, you don’t believe that crap, do you?” Leo asked softly, rubbing Jim’s back.

Instead of answering, Jim looked up at Winona. “Mom, do you mind if Addie stays with you during this…test? Slim, you can…”

“I’ll hang around, too,” Slim said. “If you don’t mind. I ain’t gonna ask to go with—I ain’t stupid—but I’ll hang about.”

Jim nodded. “There might be somewhere you can watch the…test.”

“Doubt it. Somethin’ like war games needs too much space. I reckon that’ll be further out.”

“That’s about the size of it, son.”

Leo nearly jumped out of his skin before he caught sight of the man walking towards him and relaxed. “Wesley, good to see you again.”

“Good to see you, too, McCoy…Kirk…ma’am.” Bob Wesley’s face was creased in a cheerful grin. He was Leo’s age, another late recruit to Starfleet who’d been in his last year when Jim and Leo were in their first, and he’d kicked ass up the ranks. When Jim had turned down a promotion and transfer midway through their last five-year—something only Leo knew—Starfleet had offered it to Wesley, and it was well-deserved. He was honest, good-hearted, and a damned good commanding officer.

He studied Slim and Addie, still grinning. “Is anyone going to introduce me?”

Winona smiled. “Commodore Wesley, this is my granddaughter, Athena Kirk-McCoy, and my grandson, Acting Cadet Thomas Kirk…Addie, Slim, this is Commodore Robert Wesley.”

Slim snapped to attention and saluted. “It’s an honor to meet you, sir.”

“The honor is mine, Cadet.” Wesley held out his hand to Slim, who shook it. “Engineering?”

“Yes, sir.” Slim seemed surprised, then smiled. “The calluses?”

Wesley laughed. “I like this boy.”

“You’re not the first officer to say that.” Jim managed a thin smile. “So you’ve heard about the test of the M-5?”

Wesley nodded, his smile fading a little as he studied Jim. “I’ll be commanding the attack force against you. I thought the _Lexington_ would be the one hosting the unit at first, actually. She’s smaller, a little easier to handle, and she’s older, so if something blows a circuit it’s not as great a loss. Those are all the same reasons I was given for why she _wouldn’t_ be hosting it, of course, but…”

Leo and Jim glanced at one another. They both knew full well why the _Enterprise_ had been chosen over the _Lexington,_ but neither of them could say it aloud. Instead, Jim said, “I just hope the M-5 is up to it. If I’ve only got twenty people on board, even if they’re my best people, I won’t be able to do much if it can’t handle her.”

“Daystrom seems pretty confident,” Wesley said. “So does Admiral Nylund. But…” He trailed off again.

Jim nodded. “I’d better go round up my senior command. Hope they haven’t wandered too far. Then…I guess I just wait for my orders.”

“C’mon,” Leo said, tightening his grip on Jim’s waist. “See you later, Slim…see ya, Addie.”

“Have fun!” Addie chirruped, seemingly oblivious to the tension around them.

Slim’s expression was a lot more serious. “Good luck.”

It turned out that Spock and Scotty—along with two or three of his more dedicated engineers—hadn’t left the _Enterprise_ yet. Sulu, Chekov, and Uhura were easily recalled, as were the handful of other crew members to be part of the test. It made Leo more than a little uneasy to learn that Jim’s orders had a list of crew members specifically chosen to participate.

“A ship this size can’t be run by a single computer,” he said as he, Jim, and Spock headed down to the Engineering department. “Even the computers we already have—”

“They were all designed by Dr. Daystrom twenty-five years ago,” Spock interrupted. He alone seemed unperturbed by the test. “His new one utilizes the capabilities of all of the present ones—it is the master control. We are attempting to prove that it can run this ship more efficiently than man.”

“Maybe _you’re_ attempting to prove that, Spock,” Leo shot back, “but don’t count me in on that.”

“The most unfortunate lack in current computer programming is that there is nothing immediately available to replace the starship surgeon.”

Leo stuttered to a stop. He and Spock had bantered back and forth for years, some of it pointed and barbed, but rarely anything truly hurtful. Mostly when it was, it was Leo lashing out at Spock because he was in a serious amount of pain and wanted to spread it around, and anything nasty directed at Leo was by way of a riposte on Spock’s part. This was the first time Leo had ever been the first one injured in a battle of words. Spock’s comment—whether innocently made or not—pierced Leo to the heart. It was too similar to what Nylund had said to Jim.

“If there was,” he said, and he was rather proud that he managed to say it without a tremble in his voice, “they wouldn’t have to replace me. I’d resign—and because everybody else aboard would already be nothing but circuits and memory banks.” Glancing sideways at Spock, he added, though without his usual grumble, “I think some of us already are.” He turned to Jim, who had been uncharacteristically quiet since comming his crew. “Jim, you’ve not said much about this.”

They had reached Engineering. Jim turned to look at Spock and Leo and gestured to a newly-installed sign reading SECURITY AREA. “What do you want me to say, Bones? Starfleet considers the installation of the M-5 to be a great honor. So, I’m honored. It takes some adjusting, too.”

He opened the door and led the other two into Engineering.

The M-5, or what Leo presumed to be the M-5, had already been installed. Unlike the banks of computers built into the walls of the ship, the M-5 was a freestanding unit, a cabinet roughly the same height and breadth as Porter Simril. Its monitor was about at eye level, and its panel boasted lights, switches, dials, and knobs that looked like somebody had thrown a handful of doodads at a metal sheet and hoped for the best. Scotty was on one of the upper levels, his stiff shoulders speaking volumes about his displeasure, as he and Simril bustled about doing something suitably technical.

Jim looked around. “Where is he? Dr. Daystrom?”

A man wearing a technician’s uniform emerged from behind the console where he’d been working. Leo was surprised. From what Spock had said about Daystrom developing the computers that powered Starfleet’s ships of the line, he’d been expecting an old man, or at least older, a nerdy grandfatherly type with snow-white hair and stooped shoulders and a squint from spending his life hunched over a computer screen. Instead, Richard Daystrom—if this was indeed he—was close to Leo’s own age, probably no older than Scotty. Though there were the lines of middle age around his eyes, they still sparkled like a boy’s in his round face.

“Yes?” he said. After a moment, he seemed to register that something more needed to be said, however, and added, “You would be Captain Kirk, then?”

Jim nodded and held out his hand. They shook briefly, and then Jim indicated Spock. “Dr. Daystrom, my First Officer, Commander Spock.”

Spock bowed. “I am honored to meet you, Doctor. I have studied all your publications on computer technology. Brilliant.”

“Thank you,” Daystrom said, although Leo noted that he spoke absently, almost robotically, as though the words were ones he had been conditioned to say because he’d been told he ought to rather than because he felt actual gratitude. And he immediately turned his attention to Jim, ignoring Leo entirely. “Captain, I have finished my final check on M-5. It must be hooked into the ship’s main power banks to become operational.”

“Very well, Dr. Daystrom,” Jim said quietly. “Do so.”

“Your Chief Engineer refused to make the power available without your orders.”

Leo felt a rush of gratitude towards Scotty. Jim’s lips twitched, very slightly, but all he said, raising his voice to be heard, was, “Mr. Scott, tie the M-5 into the main power banks.”

“Aye, sir. Mr. Simril?” Scotty moved towards a piece of equipment Leo wasn’t sure he could identify from this angle, Simril following him obediently.

Spock had bent over to study the M-5 with a level of fascination Leo had rarely seen from him before. “Fascinating, Doctor. This computer has potential beyond anything you have ever done. Even your breakthrough into duotronics did not hold the promise of this.”

“M-5 has been perfected, Commander. Its potential is a fact.”

There was no trace of humility in Daystrom’s voice, nor pride, merely a touch of condescension. Something in Leo snapped, and the well of emotions he’d been trying to hold back since Nylund oiled his way towards them spilled over.

“The only _fact_ I care about is that, if this thing doesn’t work, there aren’t enough men aboard to run this ship,” he said savagely. “That’s screaming for trouble.”

Daystrom stared at him as if noticing him for the first time—which was entirely possible, since the man seemed to inhabit his own little world. “Who is this?” he asked Jim.

“Dr. Leonard McCoy, my Chief Medical Officer,” Jim said. There was a barely noticeable wince in his eyes as he spoke. Leo guessed that he’d only just realized that he hadn’t introduced Leo before.

“This is a security area,” Daystrom said, still looking at Jim and not Leo. “Only absolutely necessary key personnel have the clearance to enter it.”

“Dr. McCoy,” Jim said, and his voice was several degrees colder than before, “has top security clearance for all areas of this ship.”

Leo felt a stab of annoyance. It was true that he didn’t enjoy being in Engineering. The last time he’d been down there had been in the mirror universe, when he’d been the only available option to help Scotty rig up the necessary steps to mimic the conditions of the ion storm, and the less he thought about _that_ the better. But for this… _civilian_ …to make that pointed comment about “absolutely necessary key personnel”…

First Spock, now Daystrom. Leo was beginning to wonder if maybe he _was_ useless after all.

Just then, M-5 came to life. Every button and panel suddenly lit up like the Christmas tree in his grandmother’s living room, and the unit hummed, a deep thrumming that resonated in Leo’s chest. As its lights glowed brighter, the lights in the engine unit dimmed sharply.

Leo addressed himself to Jim. “Is it supposed to do that?”

Daystrom was already attempting to unscrew a panel. He made an adjustment, and Spock said, “If I can be of assistance, sir…”

Daystrom barely spared him a glance. “No, I can manage, thank you.”

Spock’s eyebrows arched in surprise, obviously offended. He glanced at Jim, however, who nodded once. At that, Spock backed off, though whether he was bowing to his captain’s orders or his friend’s reassurances, Leo had no clue. The M-5’s deep hum grew quieter and less erratic, and the lights in the room slowly clawed their way back to full strength.

“Nothing wrong, Captain.” Daystrom straightened, and to Leo’s ear, he sounded a little defensive. “A minor settling-in adjustment to be made. You see, everything is in order now.”

“Yes,” Jim murmured. He cocked his head to one side as he studied the unit. “I’m curious, Dr. Daystrom. Why is it M-5 instead of M-1?”

Daystrom fidgeted with the tool in his hand. With anyone else, Leo might have thought he was nervous, but he’d recognized quickly that Daystrom was one of those people who always had to be doing _something_ with his hands. “The Multitronic Units one through four were not successful. But this one _is._ M-5 is ready to assume control of the ship.”

“Total control?”

“That is what it was designed for, Captain.”

There was about half a minute of awkward silence before Jim swallowed hard. “I’m afraid I must admit to a certain antagonism toward your computer, Dr. Daystrom,” he said quietly. “It was man who first ventured into space. True, man _with_ machines…but still with man in command.”

Daystrom waved a hand dismissively. “Those were primitive machines, Captain. We have entered a new era.”

Leo suddenly decided that, far from not liking this whole project, he just flat-out didn’t like _Daystrom._ Jim’s pleasant mask disappeared from his face, as though he was thinking along the same lines. “I’m not against progress, sir, but there are still things men have to do to remain men. Your computer would take that away, Dr. Daystrom.”

“There are other things a man like you can do, Captain,” Daystrom said in a somewhat patronizing tone of voice. “Or perhaps you only object to the possible loss of the prestige accorded a Starship Captain. The computer can do your job without interest in prestige.”

Leo felt the tremor that traveled through Jim’s body, but his husband forced a smile. “You’re going to have to prove that to me, Dr. Daystrom.”

He started to leave. Leo turned to go with him. Both of them were brought up short by Daystrom’s next words, however.

“Captain, that’s what the M-5 is here for, isn’t it?”

There was a _clang_ from above them, as though someone had dropped a spanner. Jim closed his eyes for a moment, then kept going.

The corridors were strangely empty. Even between shift, there was usually _someone_ in the corridors, and down here was one of the busiest parts of the ship. Normally red-shirted crewmen would be scuttling about like ants soaked in espresso. To see them uninhabited was…unnerving, at best.

Only Spock seemed unaffected. “Captain, if you do not require me for the moment, I would like to discuss some of the technology involved in the M-5 with Dr. Daystrom.”

“Look at the love-light in his eyes, Jim,” Leo said, hearing the edge to his voice and kind of hating himself for it, although not enough to stop. “All his life, Spock’s been waiting for the right computer to come along. I’ll let Uhura know she’s got competition.”

“Doctor, I find your simile illogical and your humor forced,” Spock said, a little stiffly. “If you will excuse me, Captain?”

“Go ahead, Mr. Spock. I’ll see you on the bridge.”

“Yes, sir.” Spock turned and left them.

The look in Jim’s eyes made Leo glad, after all, that they’d had to repair his heart, because he was pretty sure that otherwise he’d be in the early stages of a heart attack. Leo drew his husband a little further towards the lift and cupped his cheek in one hand. “What is it, Jim?”

Jim hesitated for a moment, then looked up, meeting Leo’s eyes. “I feel it’s wrong—and I don’t know why—all of it wrong.”

“I feel it’s wrong, too, replacing man with mindless machines,” Leo murmured.

“It isn’t just that, Bones,” Jim said. “Only a fool would stand in the way of progress…if this _is_ progress.” His expression grew even more troubled, and there was something else—a dark fear lurking at the edges of his eyes. “You have all my psychological profiles—and you’ve known me longer than anybody. Do you think I _am_ afraid to turn command over to the M-5?”

Leo hesitated before saying slowly, “We’ve all seen the advances of mechanization—and Daystrom _did_ design the computers that run this ship.”

“But under _human_ control,” Jim replied. “What I’m asking myself, I guess, is whether it’s just that I’m afraid of that computer taking over my job. Daystrom is right—I could do other things. Or am I really afraid of losing the prestige, the glamour, of being a starship captain? Is that why I keep fighting this thing? Am I actually that petty and vain?”

“Jim, if you have the courageous awareness to ask yourself that question, you don’t need me to answer it.” Leo smiled slightly. “Why don’t you ask James T. Kirk? He’s a pretty honest guy.”

“Right now, Bones, I’m not sure he’d give me an honest answer.”

Leo pulled Jim closer and kissed him tenderly. “It’ll be okay,” he promised him. “Whatever happens, I’ll be right here with you.”

Jim smiled wanly. “In this case, Bones, I think you’re supposed to be in Med Bay.”

“You know what I mean, Jim.” Leo kissed Jim again, then reluctantly let him go.

It was—there was no other word for it— _weird_ to be in Med Bay without a full shift of crew backing him up. He didn’t even have a damned nurse with him. Among the very specific list of personnel to take part in this mission—listed by name, rank, and position—Leo was apparently the only medical officer to be aboard. It made him somewhat nervous, and he couldn’t explain why. With only nineteen other people—twenty if he counted Daystrom—there wasn’t likely to be anything happening that Leo couldn’t fix on his own. Especially not during the war games, which would be minor, harmless exercises on minimally-powered phasers. Hell, probably the only reason _he’d_ been allowed to stay was because he was the senior command, and for something like this, the brass couldn’t justify yanking him. Or maybe they’d figured he’d be the only person that could keep Jim from throttling Daystrom or dismantling the M-5 with his bare hands.

More out of boredom than anything, Leo accessed the Starfleet network through his personal PADD and called up Daystrom’s biographical records. They were, he had to admit, impressive. Born to well-connected parents in the heart of what had once, centuries ago, been known as “Silicon Valley”, Daystrom had proved early on to have a brilliant mind. He’d developed the technology that powered the _Enterprise_ , and ships like her, when he was still in his early twenties. As far as Leo could tell, though, that had been the highlight of his career.

Until now, that was.

Suddenly, the lights in his office flickered, then dimmed. Leo looked up sharply, then dropped his PADD onto his desk and reached for the comm unit on the corner. “Medical to Bridge.”

There was no response. The comm was as dead as the lights—deader, since there was still enough light for him to see the door. He’d have to go out into the main Med Bay and use that comm. Grumbling to himself, wondering what the hell M-5 had done to blow a circuit in his office, he stepped out into the main bay.

And froze. Behind him, his office light went out completely, but he hardly noticed, so stunned was he by the sight of Med Bay— _his_ Med Bay—completely powered down. All of the systems were dormant or off. There was a red flickering light telling him that the cryo-storage for things that had to be kept cold was still functioning, thank God, but everything else had been shut down.

“Okay,” he muttered to himself. “This is more than a circuit. Time to go up to that bridge and find out what the hell is going on.”

When he reached the bridge, however, he found only Uhura, Chekov, and Sulu. Uhura glanced over her shoulder when she heard the door open, but she didn’t even offer him a slight smile. “Dr. McCoy?”

“I came to ask Daystrom—or Scotty—or _someone_ what the hell is going on here,” Leo said. He looked around the bridge. There was a new command console on the side of Jim’s chair, flashy and obvious and probably taking up a hell of a lot more room than it took up physically. “All the lights in Sickbay suddenly went out— _poof!_ ”

“It’s M-5,” Sulu said without taking his eyes off the viewscreen. “Apparently it’s been shutting off systems all over the ship. Captain Kirk dragged Daystrom down to investigate the malfunction.”

A sick feeling curled in Leo’s stomach. “Do you know what was shut off?”

“Decks four and six for sure—both lights and environmental controls—and now Med Bay, I guess.”

Leo cursed. “It’s not a malfunction. Those are quarterdecks—and they’re currently unoccupied. M-5 is shutting off power to places it deems non-essential. That’s why it shut down Med Bay—because I don’t have any patients, so it’s not needed.”

Chekov turned around, his face suddenly grey. “But—you were in zere.”

“I still had air, Chekov,” Leo assured him quickly. “And there was light enough to see my way out. M-5 didn’t need me there, but it didn’t want to kill me, either.”

“After all,” Sulu said dryly, “you might be needed later. Seems like healing is the only thing that damned thing _can’t_ do.”

Leo glanced at Sulu in surprise. There’d been something bitter in his voice—something pained. It occurred to Leo that Sulu hoped for a captaincy himself someday—and if M-5 worked the way Daystrom obviously expected it to, there would be no need for starship captains. He clenched his jaw, trying to resist the urge to rip the console off the chair himself.

The door chose that moment to open, disgorging Jim and Spock. Spock went straight for his station, while Jim went straight for Leo. “What are you doing up here, Bones?”

“Why wouldn’t I be up here?” Leo said, a little tensely. “Sickbay systems are shut down until such time as the M-5 is informed there are patients to be cared for.”

Spock spoke quickly. “Sir, sensor reports indicate two contacts-one on the port bow, one on the stern. Distance, two hundred thousand kilometers and closing.”

“Identification?” Jim slipped into his chair and reached for Leo’s hand, seemingly unconsciously.

“Sir, the M-5 unit has already identified the vessels as Federation Starships _Santiago_ and _Lexington._ ”

Leo jerked his head around to look at Spock, frowning slightly. His face was impassive as always, but there had been the faintest hint of emotion in Spock’s voice. Leo just couldn’t tell if he was impressed—or annoyed. When Spock looked up, however, his eyes were fixed on Jim. “We were not scheduled for war games in this area, Captain. It may be a surprise attack as a problem for M-5.”

“Priority alert message coming in, sir,” Uhura said from her console.

“On audio, Lieutenant,” Jim ordered, his grip on Leo’s hand tightening.

The swoosh of the door indicated another arrival. Leo glanced over his shoulder to see Daystrom and Scotty coming on as Wesley’s voice filled the bridge. “ _Enterprise_ from Commodore Wesley aboard the U.S.S. _Lexington._ This is an unscheduled M-5 drill. I repeat, this is an M-5 drill. _Enterprise,_ acknowledge on this frequency.”

Jim nodded to Uhura. “Acknowledge, Lieutenant.”

Uhura reached for a button, then hesitated before turning to stare at Jim. “M-5 is acknowledging for us, sir.”

“Then sound red alert.”

“Aye, sir.” Uhura reached for the switch—but the red alert sounded before she reached it. “M-5 has already sounded the alert, Captain.”

“Has it?” Jim mumbled. He turned to Sulu. “Phasers on 1/100th power, Mr. Sulu. No damage potential. Just enough to nudge them.”

“Phasers 1/100th power, sir.”

As Sulu turned back to his console, there was the barest thump as the ship was struck. Spock called from his station, “Phaser hit on port deflector four, sir.”

“Speed is increasing to Warp Three, sir,” Sulu said. “Turning now to one-one-two mark five.” He paused. “Phasers locking on target, Captain.”

“Enemy wessel closing with us, sir,” Chekov said. “Coming in fast. It—”

“Deflectors down now, sir,” Sulu interrupted. “Main phasers firing.” He paused again, eyes fixed on his panel. “A hit. Two more.”

He didn’t look elated, though. He spoke tonelessly, flatly, as though he’d become a computer himself. Jim, too, sat stiff and unmoving, merely watching the screen, but his grip on Leo’s hand was nearly tight enough to break bones.

Chekov didn’t take his eyes off his own console, but Leo could see the worry rolling off him as he spoke quietly. “Changing course now to two-eight mark four-two, Keptin.”

“Phasers firing again.”

“Course now one-one-three mark five. Warp four speed.”

“Phasers firing again.”

“Attacking wessels are moving off.”

“Deflectors up—moving back to original course and speed.”

Jim finally spoke, as if from a great distance. “Report damage sustained in mock attack.”

“A minor hit on deflector screen four, sir,” Spock replied. “No appreciable damage.”

Slowly, Jim nodded. Daystrom stepped forward, his whole face alight with triumph. “A rather impressive display for a ‘mere machine,’ wouldn’t you say, _Captain?_ ”

Jim didn’t answer, although Leo felt the shudder run through him. Instead, he got up and drifted over to Spock’s station, slowly releasing his grip on Leo’s hand as he did so. Leo tried unobtrusively to rub some life back into his tingling fingers as Jim said, “Evaluation of M-5 performance, Mr. Spock. We will need it for the log record.”

Spock spoke slowly, as if measuring his words carefully. “The ship reacted more rapidly than human control could have maneuvered her. Tactics, deployment of weapons—all indicate an immense skill in computer control.”

Leo recalled, suddenly and unexpectedly, Spock’s words to the Prime Minister of Gideon. _Clarity of formulation is essential to my function._ For the first time, it occurred to Leo that his “function” was not just as a scientist, but as the first officer of the _Enterprise_ as well. He had to phrase things very carefully, not just for the wording of the reports, but also for Jim. The way he had phrased his report on M-5 was devoid of emotion or opinion—or personal nature.

There was no outward change in Jim’s expression or posture. “Machine over man, Spock. You’ve finally made your point that it is practical.”

Jim’s posture might not have changed, but out of the corner of his eye, Leo saw Sulu’s shoulders slump and his head bow slightly. Spock, however, gave no time for an awkward silence to settle. “Practical, perhaps, sir. Desirable—no.”

Sulu looked up in surprise. So did Leo. Spock met Jim’s eyes as he continued. “Computers make excellent and efficient servants, but I have no wish to serve under them. A starship, Captain, also runs on loyalty, loyalty to a man—one man. Nothing can replace it. Nor him.”

Leo felt a sudden surge of gratitude towards Spock—enough to forgive him for the barbed comments about Leo’s profession—and he saw Chekov give a small smile and a nod. Before Jim could respond, however, Uhura spoke up. “Captain, incoming message from Commodore Wesley.”

“Put it on the screen, Lieutenant.” Jim made his way back to his chair but didn’t sit down.

A moment later, Wesley appeared on the screen, seated in his own chair and regarding them with an expression Leo couldn’t quite read. “U.S.S. _Enterprise_ from starships _Lexington_ and _Santiago._ Both ships report simulated hits in sufficient quantities to award the surprise engagement to the _Enterprise._ Congratulations.”

With a slight nod, Jim turned to Uhura. “Secure from General Quarters.”

Uhura reached for a switch, but again, the alarm shut off before she could do her job. Her lips thinned, but she said nothing.

That unidentifiable look in Wesley’s eyes got stronger. “Our compliments to the M-5 unit—and regards to Captain Dunsel. Wesley out.”

“Dunsel?” Leo repeated as Wesley’s image vanished from the screen. “Who the blazes is Captain Dunsel?”

Jim didn’t answer. Instead, he strode off the bridge with a purposeful stride that told Leo, very strongly, that if he wasn’t on duty—or being observed by a high-powered civilian—he probably would have run off. Leo turned to Spock, irritation mingling with worry. “Well? Who’s Dunsel?”

“A ‘dunsel’, Doctor,” Spock said quietly, “is a term used by midshipmen at Starfleet Academy. It refers to an item that serves no useful purpose.”

Ice flooded Leo’s veins. He saw Sulu sag once more, Chekov bite his lower lip before reaching for his lover, Daystrom smiling as though oblivious or uncaring of the effects of the words. Without another word, he turned and went after his husband.

He wasn’t surprised to find Jim in their quarters—Deck Five apparently hadn’t been shut off, or had been turned back on when Jim reached it—curled on their bed in the fetal position. Crossing over to the bed, he knelt on the edge and reached for Jim.

“Go away,” Jim mumbled.

“You know that’s not going to work, darlin’.” Leo pulled Jim into his arms and held him close against his chest.

Jim rolled over and looked up. His blue eyes were bruised within and fragile as spun sugar. Leo’s heart ached for him. “Bones, I’ve never felt so lonely before. It’s got nothing to do with people. I just…I feel separate, detached, like I was watching myself divorced from all human responsibility. I’m even at odds with my own ship.” He buried his face in Leo’s shoulder, and when he spoke again, his voice trembled as he stumbled over his words. “I—I’m not sorry…for myself. I’m…sure I’m not. I am not…a machine, and I don’t compare myself to one. I think I’m fighting for something…big, Bones.” He sighed deeply. “Here’s to Captain Dunsel.”

Leo tightened his hold on Jim. “Here’s to James T. Kirk, captain of the starship _Enterprise._ ”

There was a long pause before Jim said softly, “ _All I ask is a tall ship…_ ”

Leo stroked Jim’s hair. “That’s from one of the poems in that PADD your dad left you, isn’t it?”

Jim nodded against Leo’s chest. “‘Sea Fever’, by John Masefield. _And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by._ ” He looked up at Leo again. “You could feel the wind then, Bones, and hear the talk of the sea under your feet. Even if you take away the wind and the water, it’s still the same. The ship is yours, Bones—in your blood you still know she’s yours—and the stars are still there to steer her by.”

“Jim,” Leo whispered, wondering if it was possible to pull Jim closer without breaking a rib.

The intercom’s whistle came as something of a relief. “Captain Kirk to the bridge!”

Jim sat up—Leo sat with him—and leaned over to switch on the intercom. “Kirk here. What is it, Lieutenant?”

Instead of Uhura, though, it was Spock’s voice who answered. “Another surprise contact, sir. A large, slow-moving vessel…unidentified. It is not a drill, Captain.”

“On my way. Kirk out.” Jim snapped off the intercom. “Come on, Bones.”

As they stepped onto the bridge, Uhura from her console turned and said without prompting, “No reply to any of our signals, Captain. No—wait. I’m getting an auto-relay now.”

Spock had already reached his library computer and picked up the earpiece. “M-5 has identified the vessel, Captain. The _Woden._ Starfleet registry lists her as an old-stile ore freighter, converted over to automation. No crew.” Glancing at the screen, he added, “She’s coming into visual contact, sir.”

A moment later, the ship appeared. The _Woden_ was an old, lumbering spacecraft, fit to be powered by a computer only because she carried no live cargo and was of no real importance. It was clearly automation or the graveyard. She was the modern-day equivalent of a twentieth-century little old lady in a Buick, driving twenty miles an hour in the fast lane with her left turn signal on—slow, ponderous, steady, immovable, and little more than a harmless annoyance. The _Enterprise_ could easily go around her, perhaps with a blare of the horn and a healthy dose of profanity, but without disturbing her path.

As the thought was flashing through Leo’s mind, however, the red alert klaxon sounded and Sulu turned from his console in obvious alarm. “Captain, deflector shield have just come on!”

“Speed increasing to Warp Three, Keptin!” Chekov cried, looking up.

With relief, Leo saw Jim—the _real_ Jim—break through the shell he’d confined himself in. “Lieutenant Uhura, get Daystrom up here now!”

As she complied, Jim pushed one of the buttons on the new M-5 control panel with what may have been unnecessary force. “Discouraging M-5 unit. Cut speed back to Warp One. Mr. Chekov, go to course one-one-three mark seven—I want a wide berth around that ship!”

Sulu frantically worked at his controls. “She won’t respond, sir! She’s maintaining course!”

“Going to Warp Four now, sir!” Chekov sounded as frantic as Sulu looked.

The bulk of the _Woden_ loomed larger. Jim stabbed at the left side of his command chair, calling over his shoulder, “Mr. Scott! Slow us down! Reverse engines!”

Scotty looked up, borderline panic in his eyes. “Reverse thrust will not engage, sir! The manual override isn’t working either!”

At that point, Daystrom strode off the elevator, looking mildly annoyed at best. “What is it now, Captain?”

“The control systems seem to be locked. We can’t disengage the computer,” Jim told him.

“Captain!” Spock cried. “Photon torpedoes are locking on the _Woden!_ ”

Jim rushed to Sulu’s side, but Sulu looked up at him helplessly. “I already tried, Captain. Photon torpedo cutoffs don’t respond!”

Turning on the ball of his foot, Jim strode over to Daystrom. “Release that computer’s control of my ship before those torpedoes fire!”

Daystrom stooped to the panel, but even as he leaned over, there was a flash of light on the screen and the _Woden_ vanished in a burst of energy.

The alert sirens stilled. Leo and the rest of the crew stood, momentarily stunned in the silence, as the _Enterprise_ swerved back to its original course. Spock was the one to break the silence. “All systems report normal, Captain.”

“ _Normal?_ ” Leo blurted, his first words since arriving on the bridge. “Is that thing trying to tell us nothing _happened_?”

Jim nodded grimly, his eyes fixed on Daystrom. “Doctor, you will disengage this computer _now._ ”

The man blinked up at him from the control panel, as though the words were foreign to him. “There appears to be some defect here…”

“Defect?” Leo repeated incredulously. “Your bright young computer just destroyed an ore freighter! It went out of its way to destroy that freighter!”

“Fortunately, it was only a robot ship,” Daystrom said, obviously unconcerned.

Jim laid a hand on Leo’s arm before he could explode. “It wasn’t supposed to destroy _anything,_ Daystrom. There might easily have been a crew aboard.”

“In which case,” Leo shouted, “you’d be guilty of murder and—”

“Hold it, Bones,” Jim murmured. Leo snapped his jaw shut as Jim turned to Daystrom and spoke firmly. “Disengage that computer.” Turning on his heel, he strode over to Uhura and said, “Lieutenant Uhura, contact Starfleet Command. Inform them we are breaking off the M-5 tests and are returning to the space station.”

“Aye, sir.” Uhura sounded relieved.

As she turned to do her job, Jim scowled at Daystrom. “Let’s get down to Engineering, Daystrom. Your M-5 is out of a job.”

Begging no one’s pardon and asking no one’s leave, Leo accompanied Jim, Scotty, Spock, and Daystrom down to Engineering. He’d seen the aftereffects of trying to disengage computers that didn’t want to be disengaged, and he wanted to be on hand in case somebody got zapped, torched, or concussed by a piece of flying equipment. The hum seemed even louder than it had before, and if Leo didn’t know better, he’d suspect that M-5 was drawing more and more power from the surrounding area. Then he wondered if he really did know better.

“All right, Doctor,” Jim said to Daystrom. “Turn that thing off.”

Daystrom hung back, clearly reluctant. Jim’s jaw clenched, and he strode towards the unit. Suddenly, there was a faint but distinct _crackle,_ and Jim flew back, hitting one of the screen dividers. Leo caught him before he fell to the ground.

“A force field,” he grunted. “Daystrom—”

Daystrom’s face had gone grey. “No, Kirk. I didn’t do it.”

“I would say, Captain,” Spock said solemnly, “that M-5 is not only capable of taking care of this ship, but is also capable of taking care of itself.”

“What are you saying, Spock? Are you telling me it’s not going to let any of us turn it off?”

“Yes, Captain.”

Simril came towards them, smacking a tool idly against his palm, as Jim turned to Daystrom. “You made this thing. You must know how to turn it off.”

Daystrom wrung his hands nervously. “We must expect a few minor difficulties, Captain. I assure you, they can be corrected.”

“Corrected _after_ you release control of our ship,” Jim said.

“I—I can’t,” Daystrom finally said.

“Too bad Slim’s not here to talk to the damn thing,” Simril said, not quite under his breath. He nodded over to the main power junction. “Sir, if I might suggest—why not disconnect it from the power source?”

“Aye, that would stop it, right enough,” Scotty mused.

Jim nodded. “Disconnect it, Scotty.”

Simril twirled his tool around his hand, then gripped it in a more usable position as he strode over to the junction. Scotty turned to follow him. Suddenly, the computer’s hum increased to a piercing whine, and a beam of white-hot light emerged from the console access, arching to the junction. For a moment, Simril flamed like Johnny Storm. There was a vivid flash, and he vanished without a sound.

Leo’s heart stopped. Fragments of memory flashed through his mind—a face reflected in the changing light of a nebula, a head bent over a card table, a startled _oomph_ after a punch to the stomach, a mischievous grin, a pair of broad shoulders cradling a three-year-old in one arm and an infant in the other. Porter Simril had, over the last four years, become one of Slim’s best friends. Addie adored him. He hadn’t even been supposed to be on the ship, but Jansen Harper had suddenly come down with starpox and Simril had been the only other engineer with the necessary security clearance.

And now…

Slowly, Jim turned to Daystrom. He spoke softly. “That—wasn’t a minor difficulty. It wasn’t a robot, Daystrom.” His voice suddenly cracked as he shouted hoarsely, “ _That thing’s just murdered one of my crewmen!”_

To his credit, Daystrom looked horrified as well, but his stammered phrases didn’t really reassure Leo. “Not a deliberate act…M-5’s analysis…a new power source…Ensign Simril…got in the way.”

“We might all soon get in its way,” Jim snarled.

Spock, too, looked pale. “The M-5 appears to be drawing power from the warp engines. It is therefore tapped directly into the matter-antimatter reserves.”

“So now it’s got virtually unlimited power,” Scotty said, his own voice heavy with emotion. “Captain, what do we do?”

Jim took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment. “In other circumstances, I would suggest asking the M-5. The situation being what it is, I ask you, Spock and Scotty, to join me in the Briefing Room.” He brushed Leo’s fingers with his own. “You, too, Bones.”

The last thing Leo saw of Engineering before leaving it was Daystrom, staring at the M-5 in much the same way that Victor Frankenstein must have gazed at his modern Prometheus.

The first thing they learned upon reaching the Briefing Room, from a very anxious-sounding Uhura, was that they couldn’t reach Starfleet Command. It seemed that M-5 was allowing messages to be received, but not allowing any to be sent. Jim told Uhura to keep trying to break through, but the grim set of his mouth and the greyness of his complexion told Leo that he didn’t expect it to actually work.

He sat back in his chair. “Report, Mr. Spock.”

“The multitronic unit is drawing more and more power from the warp engines, sir. It is controlling all navigation, all helm, and all engineering functions.

“And communications,” Leo interjected. “And fire control.”

Jim nodded. “We’ll reach the rendezvous point for the war games within the hour. We _have_ to regain control of the ship before then. Scotty, is there any way to get at the M-5?”

Scotty hesitated. He, too, looked grey and shaken. “We can’t crack the force field it’s got up around itself. It’s got the power of the warp engines to sustain it. No matter what we throw against it, it can reinforce itself by just pulling in more power.”

“All right,” Jim said. “The computer controls helm, navigation, and engineering. Is there anywhere we can get at them and take control away?”

Scotty’s forehead wrinkled as he thought. Leo could see him pushing past his grief over having lost one of his engineers—one of his best and brightest—and his dismay over losing control of the ship he’d loved since coming aboard her. “One possibility. The automatic helm-navigation circuit relays might be disrupted from Engineering Level Three. I could take them out and cut into the manual override from there.”

“How long?” Jim asked.

“With Mr. Spock to help me…maybe an hour.”

“Make it less.”

Leo leaned towards Jim. “Why don’t you tackle the real responsibility for this?”

“Daystrom.” It wasn’t a question. “Where was he when we left?”

“With the M-5…just watching it. I think it surprised even him.”

“Then he is an illogical man,” Spock said. “Of all people, he should have known how the unit would perform. However, the M-5 itself does not behave logically.”

Something ticked at the back of Leo’s brain, but he ignored it for the moment. “Spock, do me a favor. Please don’t say that it’s fascinating.”

“No, Doctor,” Spock said with the slight lift of his eyebrows that Leo had come to understand—unexpectedly in this moment—as an indication of humor. “But it is…interesting.”

Under other circumstances, Leo might have laughed. Instead, he simply met Spock’s eyes. There was a flash of understanding between the two of them, and Leo knew that Spock hadn’t meant anything harmful earlier with his comments. None of them were thrilled about being replaced by a lump of metal—and, as Sulu had bitterly pointed out, Leo was the only one aboard who apparently _couldn’t_ be replaced by the M-5. Any edge to Spock’s banter had been less pointed barb against Leo and more a deeply-hidden jealousy.

Spock and Scotty headed off towards Engineering. Jim, the moment it was just him and Leo, sagged. He rested his elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands.

“Jim.” Leo leaned over to rub his husband’s back. “It’s not your fault, darlin’.”

“My ship. My command. My responsibility.”

“Right now, Jim, it’s M-5’s ship. That’s the whole point of this rigmarole.”

Jim looked up, and his eyes were shiny with unshed tears. “Bones, even when someone else is sitting in the chair, even when I’m not even _on_ the ship, she’s still my responsibility. Any decisions Spock or Scotty or Sulu make while commanding the _Enterprise,_ if something goes wrong, it falls on me.”

“Because _you_ put them in command,” Leo said gently. “ _You_ made the call to have them in command while that was happening. You’re not the one who nominated M-5 to take the conn.”

“Three years ago I had to send a letter to Ayzylle Simril and tell her that her daughter had died, not valiantly in service to Starfleet, but of a mutated disease. Now I have to write a letter telling her that her son was murdered by a computer,” Jim said softly. “You expect me _not_ to blame myself?”

“Neither of those things was your fault, Jim,” Leo said again. “We knew the job was dangerous when we took it.”

Jim’s lips twitched briefly. “Thanks for that, Fred.”

“Who’s Fred?” Leo frowned.

“Never mind.” Jim rubbed a hand over his face. “I—I need a minute, Bones. Sorry, I—”

“It’s all right, darlin’. Take your time. I’ll be back.” Leo kissed Jim’s temple and left the Briefing Room.

He found himself heading back to Engineering. Daystrom was exactly where Leo had left him, staring at M-5 at a safe distance from the force field. But there was still a gleam of satisfaction in his eyes as he watched the pulsating swirls of color and power surging through the console. Apparently becoming aware of Leo’s scrutiny, he turned to look at him.

“Have you found a way to switch that thing off yet?” Leo asked. If Daystrom could turn it off himself, then Scotty and Spock wouldn’t need to cut holes in the ship.

Daystrom’s eyes blazed. “You don’t turn a child off when it makes a mistake.”

“You’re comparing that murderous hunk of metal to a child?” Leo said incredulously. Whatever had begun ticking at the back of his mind before, however, was now trying again to get his attention.

“You’re very emotional, Dr. McCoy,” Daystrom said reproachfully. “M-5 is growing, learning.”

“Learning to kill.”

“To defend itself—an entirely different thing. It is learning. That force field, spontaneously created, exceeds my parental programming.”

“You mean it’s out of control?”

“A child, sir, is taught—programmed, so to speak—with simple instructions. As its mind develops, it exceeds its instructions and begins to think independently.”

“Have you ever fathered a child?”

“I have never had the time,” Daystrom said stiffly.

“You should have taken the time.” Leo jabbed a finger at Daystrom’s chest. “Daystrom, I have a son and a daughter back at that station. My daughter’s four years old. I’ve been watching her ‘learn and grow’ for the last four years, so I know what I’m talking about here, and I am telling you that when a child makes a little mistake, like putting her shoes on the wrong feet or knocking over her cup of milk, you explain what was wrong and help her to fix it. When your child does something _wrong_ —like breaking her brother’s PADD or biting someone—you don’t ‘turn her off,’ but you put her in time-out, which is almost the same thing. You’ve got to teach a child right from wrong. You can’t just excuse everything they do with ‘they’re learning.’” He gestured at M-5. “Your offspring is a delinquent. It’s a danger to all of us. You’ve got to shut it off.”

Daystrom stared at him. “You simply do not understand. You’re frightened because you can’t understand. I’m going to show you—all of you. It takes four hundred and thirty people to run a starship. This—child of mine can run one alone!” He glowed with pride. “It can do everything they must now send men out to do! No man need die out in space again! No man need feel himself alone in an alien world!”

“Do you feel alone in an alien world?” Leo asked.

Daystrom was transported to some blissful utopian realm in his mind. “One machine—one machine! And able to conquer research and contact missions far more efficiently than a starship’s human crew…to fight a war, if necessary. Don’t you see what freedom it gives to men? They can get on with more magnificent achievements than fact-gathering, exploring a space that doesn’t care whether they live or die!”

Leo felt a little uneasy at hearing his own pre-Starfleet fears pouring out of Daystrom’s mouth. Ignoring him, the man turned to speak directly to M-5 in the same soft, soothing voice he used on Addie after a nightmare. “They can’t understand us. They think we want to destroy when we came to save, didn’t we?”

He couldn’t hear Leo anymore, that was for certain. Leo left as quietly as he had come.

Making a quick stop in Medical, he headed back to the Briefing Room and dropped a data tape in front of Jim. “Biographical information on Richard Daystrom.”

Jim stared at the tape as if it were some previously unknown species of spider. “What are you looking for?”

“A clue, Jim, any clue.” Leo thumped back into his chair. “What do you know about him—apart from the fact he’s a genius?”

“Genius is an understatement, Bones. When he was twenty-four, he made the duotronic breakthrough that won the Nobel and Z-Magnees Prizes.”

“In his early twenties, Jim. Over a quarter of a century ago.”

“Hasn’t he done enough for a lifetime?”

“Maybe that’s the trouble. Where do you go from up?” Leo spread out his hands. “You lecture, you publish—and spend the rest of your life trying to recapture the past glory.”

Jim rubbed the bridge of his nose. “All right, it’s difficult. But what’s your point?”

“Models M-1 through M-4, remember?” Leo reminded him. “‘Not entirely successful’ was how Daystrom put it.”

“Genius doesn’t work on an assembly-line basis,” Jim replied. “You don’t evoke a unique and revolutionary theory by schedule. You can’t say ‘I will be brilliant today.’ However long it took, Daystrom came up with multitronics…the M-5.”

“Right. And the government bought it.” Leo rapped the table for emphasis. “Then Daystrom _had_ to make it work. And he did…but in Spock’s words, it works ‘illogically.’ It’s an erratic.”

“Yes,” Jim mused. “And Daystrom wouldn’t let Spock near the M-5. Are you suggesting he’s tampering with it…making it do all this?”

But Leo shook his head. “No, I think even he’s surprised with what it’s doing. I’m suggesting that he’s keeping Spock away from the M-5 because he doesn’t want him…interfering.”

“Interfering.”

“If a man has a child who’s gone antisocial, he still tends to protect the child.”

Jim snorted. “Now he’s got you thinking of that machine as a personality.”

“It’s how he thinks of it,” Leo said quietly. “And think about it, Jim, it makes sense. You don’t like other people interfering with the way you parent your children, do you?”

Jim got a thoughtful look on his face, but before he could say anything, the intercom whistled and Spock’s voice emerged. “Spock to Captain Kirk.”

Snapping out of it, Jim touched the intercom. “Kirk here.”

“We’re ready, Captain.”

“On my way. Get Daystrom. Kirk out.” Jim got to his feet. “C’mon, Bones.”

When they reached the Jeffries tube, Spock was just climbing out of it. He nodded up at the dark, narrow tunnel. “Mr. Scott is ready to apply the circuit disruptor. As he does so, I shall trip the manual override into control.”

Jim nodded, and Spock began climbing back up the tube. Daystrom, standing off to one side, was very red in the face. “You can’t take control from the M-5!”

“We are going to try very hard, Daystrom,” Jim said.

“ _No!_ No, you can’t! You mustn’t! Give me time, please! Let _me_ work with it!” Daystrom lunged desperately at the tube, scrambling at Spock’s legs and the sides of the tube.

Leo grabbed at Daystrom, hauling him back. His muscle was all in his head; it was easy to subdue him. “Daystrom, behave yourself,” he ordered sharply.

“Spock, go!” Jim shouted.

Daystrom stopped struggling in Leo’s grip, going very stiff and still. A moment later, Scotty’s voice floated down. “There it goes!”

There was a brief pause before Spock slid down the tube. “Manual override is in effect again, Captain.”

Leo let go of Daystrom as Jim strode over to the intercom. “Kirk to bridge. Helm.”

“Lieutenant Sulu here, sir.”

“Mr. Sulu, we have recovered helm and navigation control. Turn us about. Have Mr. Chekov plot a course back to Starbase Six.”

“Right away, Captain.”

Daystrom looked angrily at them. “I hope you’re proud of yourselves,” he said bitterly.

Leo looked at Daystrom and sighed. Before he could say anything, though, the intercom burst in. “Helm to Captain Kirk!”

It was Sulu and he sounded close to panic. Jim swung around. “Kirk here.”

“Captain, helm does not respond. Navigational controls still locked in by M-5!”

Daystrom chuckled softly. Spock had already leapt back for the Jeffries tube. He shimmied down it a moment later and went straight for the intercom. “Spock to bridge. Mr. Chekov, go to Engineering station. Examine the H-279 elements…also the G-95 system.”

There was a tense pause before Chekov’s voice filtered back. “Sir, the G-95 system appears dead. All indicators are dark.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant.” Spock turned back to the others, including a grime-smeared Scotty. “We were doing what used to be called chasing the wild goose. M-5 rerouted helm and navigational control by bypassing the primary system.”

“But it was active!” Scotty cried. “I’d stake my life on it!”

“It was when the M-5 detected our efforts that it rerouted the control systems,” Spock replied. “It kept this one apparently active by a simple electronic impulse sent through at regular intervals.”

“Decoyed!” Leo shouted, dismayed. “It wanted us to waste our time here!”

“While it was getting ready for…what?” Jim asked. “Spock?”

“I do not know, sir. It does not function in a logical manner.”

Jim whirled on Daystrom, obviously at the end of his patience. “Daystrom, I want an answer and I want it now! I’m tired of hearing the M-5 called a ‘whole new approach.’ What is it? _Exactly_ what is it? It’s clearly not ‘just a computer.’”

“No,” Spock said. “It performs with almost human behavior patterns.”

Daystrom beamed. “Quite right, Mr. Spock. You see, one of the arguments against computer control of ships is that they can’t _think_ like men. But M-5 can. I hoped…I wasn’t sure—but it _does_ work!”

“The ‘new approach,’” Jim said.

“Exactly. I have developed a method of impressing human engrams upon computer circuits. The relays correspond to the synapses of the brain. M-5 _thinks,_ Captain Kirk.”

Uhura’s voice broke in urgently, sounding almost frantic. “Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock to the bridge, please. The bridge, please.”

Jim leapt for the intercom. “Kirk here. What is it, Lieutenant?”

“Sensors are picking up four Federation starships, sir. M-5 is changing course to intercept.”

The red alert klaxons began shrieking, bathing Engineering in flashing crimson light. Leo felt his blood run cold and saw Jim’s face turn grey. “The main attack force…the war games.”

“But M-5 doesn’t know a game from the reality,” Leo said slowly. Pieces were beginning to fall into place.

“Correction, Bones,” Jim said grimly. “Those four ships don’t know it is M-5’s game. So M-5 is going to destroy them.”

“Jim, wait,” Leo began, but with that chilling pronouncement, Jim strode for the lift, Spock and Scotty following him.

Leo turned to look at Daystrom, but the brilliant scientist was already following the other three. Left with little other choice, Leo took one more look at M-5 and trailed after them.

On the bridge, Uhura was sweating bullets as she frantically tried to raise the _Lexington_ on her console. She turned to Jim with a look of near-desperation. “I can’t raise them, sir. M-5 is still blocking all frequencies—even automatic distress.”

Jim smiled at her—a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, but was reassuring enough to fool her. “Easy does it, Lieutenant.”

Uhura took a deep breath and turned back to her board, then reached for a light. “Captain, audio signal from the _Lexington._ ”

“Let’s hear it,” Jim said.

Bob Wesley’s voice crackled into the bridge again. “ _Enterprise_ from U.S.S. _Lexington._ This is an M-5 drill. Repeat. This is an M-5 drill. Acknowledge.”

“Captain! The M-5 is acknowledging!” Uhura sounded frantic again.

Jim rubbed the back of his neck. “Daystrom—Daystrom, does M-5 understand that this is only a drill?”

“Of course, Captain,” Daystrom said brusquely. “M-5 has been programmed to understand. The ore ship was a miscalculation, an accident. There is no—”

“Sir,” Chekov interrupted. “Deflector shields just came on. Speed increasing to Warp Four.”

“Phasers locked on the lead ship, sir,” Sulu cried. “Power levels at full strength!”

“Full strength!” Leo shouted. “If that thing cuts loose against unshielded ships—”

“That won’t be a minor miscalculation, Daystrom. The word ‘accident’ won’t apply.” Jim’s voice was hard as ice.

“Attack force closing rapidly,” Spock said from his station. “Distance to lead ship two hundred thousand kilometers…attackers breaking formation…attacking at will.”

“Our phasers are firing, sir!” Sulu shouted.

Leo saw the beam hit the _Excalibur_ squarely. Their high warp speed was closing them in on the _Lexington._ Chekov’s voice shook as he said, “The _Santiago_ and the _Potemkin_ are moving off, sir.”

The phasers fired again, and Spock said, “The _Lexington._ We struck her again, sir.”

Jim whirled on Daystrom. “We _must_ get to the M-5!” he shouted. “There has to be a way!”

“There isn’t,” Daystrom said, as calmly as if he were discussing plans for dinner. “It has fully protected itself.”

“That is probably true, Captain,” Spock interjected. “It thinks faster than we do. It is a human mind amplified by the instantaneous relays possible to a computer.”

“I built it, Kirk,” Daystrom said. “And I know you can’t get at it.”

“Sir—visual contact with the _Lexington.”_ Uhura’s voice sounded agitated. “They’re signaling.”

She didn’t need Jim to tell her to switch it on, or maybe she just wanted to do it before M-5 did. Either way, Wesley and the bridge of the _Lexington_ once more appeared before them. He was obviously disheveled. Several people were helping the wounded to rise in the background. Smoke billowed from the command chair, shards of glass littering the floor.

“ _Enterprise!_ ” Wesley pleaded. It was obvious that M-5 was not projecting any visual contact out—they were receiving but not transmitting. “Jim? Have you gone mad? Break off your attack! What are you trying to prove? My God, man, we have fifty-three dead here! Twelve on the _Excalibur!_ If you can hear us, stop the attack!”

Jim looked away from the screen. “Lieutenant?” he asked, practically begging.

“No, sir. I can’t override the M-5 interference.” Uhura looked over her shoulder at Jim, eyes pleading with him.

Wesley’s voice had the same desperate tone Jim’s had on the occasions when he’d pleaded for the lives of his crew. “Jim, why don’t you answer? Jim, for God’s sake, answer! Jim, come in…”

Jim whirled around to face Daystrom and pointed at the screen with a shaking hand. “There’s your murder charge, Daystrom!” he cried. “And this one was calculated—deliberate! It’s murdering men and women, Daystrom! Four starships…over sixteen hundred people!”

Daystrom winced away from the accusation. “It misunderstood. It—”

“ _Excalibur_ is maneuvering away, Keptin,” Chekov interrupted. “We are increasing speed to follow.”

Sulu turned, his expression horrified. “Phasers locked on, Captain.” After a moment, he added in a voice suddenly devoid of emotion, “Phasers firing.”

The _Lexington’s_ bridge had vanished from the screen. Instead, they all watched as the _Excalibur_ shuddered away from direct hits by the phaser beams, then drifted across the screen, battered, listing, and powerless, like a burned-out hulk on an ocean wave.

Spock spoke up. “Dr. Daystrom…you impressed human engrams upon the M-5’s circuits, did you not?”

“Coming to new course,” Chekov said, very quietly. “To bear on the _Potemkin,_ sir.”

Leo gritted his teeth as the _Enterprise_ fired again, the lethal beams striking the _Potemkin_ ahead of them. Spock persisted in questioning Daystrom. “ _Whose_ engrams, Dr. Daystrom?”

“Why…mine, of course.”

“Of course,” Leo said acidly. Naturally the man would’ve programmed the machine to think like he did—

The last pieces fell into place as Spock said, “Then perhaps you could talk to the unit. M-5 has no reason to ‘think’ you would harm it.”

Jim nodded. “The computer tie-in. M-5 _does_ have a voice. You spoke to it before. It knows you, Daystrom.”

Uhura broke in. “I’m getting the _Lexington_ again, Captain…tapping in on a message to Starfleet Command. The screen, sir.”

A moment later, Wesley’s face appeared before them, battered and bruised and desperate-looking. “All ships damaged in unprovoked attack… _Excalibur_ Captain Harris and First Officer dead…many casualties…we have damage but are able to maneuver. _Enterprise_ refuses to answer and is continuing attack. I still have an effective battle force and believe that the only way to stop _Enterprise_ is to disable her, perhaps permanently. Request permission to proceed. Wesley commanding attack force out.”

The screen went black.

Daystrom whispered, “They can’t do that. They’ll destroy the M-5.”

“Then _talk to it!”_ Jim urged. “You can save it if you make it stop the attack!”

Daystrom nodded jerkily. “I can make it stop. I created it.”

As he moved over to the chair, Leo slid up alongside Jim. “I don’t like the sound of him, Jim.”

“Just pray the M-5 _does_ , Bones.” Jim leaned against Leo’s side, and Leo wrapped an arm around him, holding him close.

Daystrom activated a switch, still looking hesitant. “M-5 tie-in. This—this is Daystrom.”

A male computer voice responded. “M-5. Daystrom acknowledged.”

“M-5 tie-in. Do you…know me?”

“M-5. Daystrom, Richard. Originator of comptronic, duotronic systems. Born—”

“Stop,” Daystrom interrupted. “M-5 tie-in. Your components are of the multitronic system, designed by me, Richard Daystrom.”

“M-5. Correct.”

Jim breathed a sigh of relief, but Leo couldn’t relax yet, even as Daystrom said, “M-5 tie-in. Your attack on the starship flotilla is wrong. You must break it off.”

“M-5. Programming includes protection against attack. Enemy vessels must be neutralized.”

The computer’s voice sounded vaguely familiar. Leo was trying to figure out why, but he pushed it out of his mind as Daystrom said, “M-5 tie-in. These are not enemy vessels. They are Federation starships.” His voice wavered. “You…we…are killing, _murdering_ human beings. Beings of your creator’s kind. That was not your purpose. You are my greatest invention—the unit that would _save_ men. You must not destroy them.”

“M-5. This unit must survive.”

“Yes, survive, protect yourself,” Daystrom said, eyes sparking with a light Leo didn’t particularly like. “But not murder. You must not die, but _men_ must not die. To kill is a breaking of civil and moral laws we have lived by for thousands of years. You have murdered over a hundred people… _we_ have. How can we atone for that?”

Jim lowered his voice. “Spock…M-5 isn’t responding like a computer. It’s talking to him.”

“The technology is most impressive, Captain,” Spock replied. “Dr. Daystrom has created a mirror image of his own mind.”

Leo watched as Daystrom’s voice sank to a confidential murmur. They couldn’t hear what he was saying to it now, but it was obvious to Leo that he was on the precipice of a complete mental breakdown. Quietly, he said, “He’s on the verge of insanity here.”

Daystrom suddenly turned from the console and shouted, “You can’t destroy the unit, Kirk! You can’t destroy _us!_ ”

“It’s a danger to human life,” Jim said, obviously fighting to keep his voice steady. “It must be destroyed.”

Daystrom laughed wildly. “Destroyed, Kirk? We’re _invincible!_ You saw what we’ve done! Your mighty starships…four toys to be crushed as we chose!”

Spock slid up behind him and applied pressure to the nerve on the neck, dropping Daystrom to the floor. Jim swallowed hard. “Get him to sickbay.”

Leo nodded and gestured to the two crewmen who weren’t currently involved in something. As they picked him up, preparing to take him down, Spock turned to Leo. “Doctor, if Daystrom is psychotic, the engrams he impressed on the computer carry that psychosis, too, his brilliance and his insanity.”

“Yes,” Leo said quietly. “Mental illness does tend to be hereditary.”

Jim looked up at Leo. “Help him, Bones.”

Leo nodded. Before he left, however, he leaned over to Jim and murmured, “Jim…remember Addie an’ her bike.” With that, he turned and headed for Medical Bay.

The two crewmen helped Leo strap Daystrom’s still-unconscious body to a bed, then left him alone. Leo, thankful that M-5 had at least acknowledged he had a patient and lit his systems up, began running a diagnostic, trying to keep his mind on his work and not on what was going on uplevel.

He had finally realized what M-5’s voice reminded him of—that of the NORAD computer, Joshua, in _WarGames._ Like M-5, Joshua had been its creator’s child. The difference was that M-5 was protecting itself and everyone else had believed it was playing a game, whereas Joshua had been playing a game and everyone had believed it to be a real threat. M-5 had a human mind, a slightly broken one, but a human mind nevertheless. It wouldn’t let them shut it off, and probably wouldn’t respond if they tried to have it work out an impossible problem or asked it to play Tic-Tac-Toe against itself. But if Jim listened to what Leo had said…if he treated M-5 like a child that needed to be punished…

Perhaps ten minutes later, Leo heard Jim’s voice over the shipwide intercom. “This is the captain speaking. In approximately one minute, we will be attacked by Federation starships. Though the M-5 unit is no longer in control of this vessel, neither do we control it. It has left itself and us open to destruction. For whatever satisfaction we can take from it, we are exchanging our nineteen lives for the murder of over one thousand fellow starship crewmen.”

Leo took a deep, shaking breath. Sparing one last glance at Daystrom, to whom he had administered a heavy sedative, he turned and walked out of Med Bay. If he was going to die, he was going to do it at his husband’s side, with his husband in his arms.

He expected every moment to feel the ship starting to shake, to hear the explosions and see the wires sparking as the ship was attacked. It wasn’t like he hadn’t run through the corridors during more than one battle aboard the _Enterprise._ But all was still, all was silent. He stepped out of the lift onto the bridge to see Jim leaning against the wall, closing his eyes and gasping for breath. Worried, he leapt forward. “Jim?”

Jim opened his eyes and reached out for Leo. Wordlessly, he let himself be folded into Leo’s arms and clung to him, shaking from head to toe and still gasping for air.

“Commodore Wesley called off the attack, Doctor,” Sulu said, looking away from the console. He and Chekov were holding one another’s hands tightly. “He’s preparing to beam over right now and find out what’s going on. And the M-5 has been neutralized.”

“Good.” Leo held Jim tighter. “You did it, darlin’.”

Jim shook his head, still obviously too overwhelmed to speak. Leo kissed his temple and just held on.

A few moments later, the lift doors opened and Wesley came in, a phaser in his hand. He saw the two of them clinging to each other and lowered his phaser, his shoulders slumping a little in obvious relief. “Jim. What the hell happened?”

“M-5,” Jim said softly. “Bob, it’s insane. Daystrom impressed his own mental engrams onto it and…well, he’s a few sandwiches shy of a picnic himself.”

Leo snorted. “ _There’s_ an understatement.”

Jim managed a weak smile. “It was…overreacting. It couldn’t distinguish between the games and a real-world scenario. It thought the attacks were real, the threats were real, and declared that it must survive. I had to explain to it that it had murdered an entire starship full of people and ask it what the penalty for murder was. And it…basically committed suicide. We were all expecting to die because you thought it was a trick, but…”

“I wasn’t going to murder you, Jim. Not without being sure.” Wesley looked around. “What do you need to get out of here?”

“Can you spare sufficient crew to get us back to Starbase Six? Or take us in tow?” Jim asked.

“We’ll tow you. Unfortunately…thanks to M-5, we don’t quite have the spare manpower to bolster your crew.” Wesley looked tired.

“I’m sorry,” Jim said, his voice cracking. “I know…”

Wesley shook his head. “No, Jim. It’s not your fault. You didn’t put the damn thing in your ship.” He cocked a head at Jim. “Did you lose any?”

Jim hesitated, then replied in a low voice, “Only one. M-5…detected a new power source while we were attempting to disconnect it the first time—the warp engines—and tied into it with light. Ensign Porter Simril…got in the way.”

“I’m so sorry, Jim,” Wesley said softly. He came forward and hugged Jim, then Leo—to his surprise. “Let me get back to my ship. We’ll take you in tow—the _Potemkin_ can bring back _Excalibur_ —and head back to the starbase. Admiral Nylund will likely want to talk to you.”

“Yeah.” Jim wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and straightened up. “I don’t doubt it for a second.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I warned you these next few chapters were going to hurt. I WARNED YOU.


	113. Son It's Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am not at all sorry for this chapter. (That is probably a lie.)

_Twenty-one hours remaining_

Evidently, Wesley had sent a message ahead, because a medical team was waiting just outside the docking bay when the ships pulled back into the starbase. A quick word from Wesley, who indicated the _Enterprise,_ and the white-clothed officials swarmed aboard to collect Daystrom, along with Bones’ medical reports. They all seemed surprised, but Jim couldn’t spare any thought for them. He was too focused on getting off the ship, praying there wouldn’t be a huge crowd.

There wasn’t. There was only Winona and Addie, both of whom ran towards Jim and Bones when they saw them come out. Winona grabbed Jim in a bear hug so tight the air rushed out of his lungs and his feet nearly left the ground. He grunted, then hugged her back.

“Are you okay?” she gasped in his ear. “Oh, God, Jim, when we heard that report come in…are you all right?”

“I’m…not hurt,” Jim managed. No, no, he _wasn’t_ all right. He wasn’t anywhere _near_ all right. It wasn’t the first time he’d found himself feeling responsible for something like this, but it was probably the largest scale. He wasn’t sure how many knocks like this he could take without completely losing it…if any.

Winona pulled back, gripping his shoulders and studying him, her eyes wide and her face pale. “I haven’t seen you like this since—” She broke off and shook her head, then hugged him again. A moment later, she let go and hugged Leo. As soon as she did, Addie flung her arms around Jim’s waist hard enough to make him gasp. He hugged her back, though, realizing that she was scared, too.

He scanned the area, which was empty except for the crewmen leaving the other ships, several of whom were helping their wounded comrades. He was secretly relieved when he couldn’t see Slim. At least his son hadn’t heard what was going on, or he’d have been there. It was a little surprising, since he’d said he was going to stick around, but—

“Dad?”

Jim turned to see Slim standing behind them. His face was pale, his shirt torn and singed in places, and there was a smudge of dirt on his nose. Jim swallowed twice before he was able to ask, “You…heard?”

Slim bit his lip and nodded, then came over to hug his father. Addie immediately let go of Jim and went to hug Leo.

Jim didn’t know if it was just that he was so shaken by what could have happened—what _had_ happened—or if it was just the fact that Slim was so close to leaving, but for some reason, he was caught off-guard by the fact that Slim was as tall as he was. The young man murmured in Jim’s ear, “Dad…I was on the _Santiago._ ”

Jim pulled back, feeling himself turn even paler. “ _What?_ ”

Still keeping his voice barely audible, Slim said, “After y’all left, Commodore Wesley invited me to come sit in on the briefin’ for the commanders of the attack force. Said they needed a secretary an’ he thought it might make a good case study for the Academy. After the meetin’—when they made it clear that it was all s’pposed to be on low-powered phasers an’ all that—Captain Clark asked me if I wanted to come along on the _Santiago_ to observe. She said the instructors at the Academy were real keen on personal observation, an’ the yeoman supposed to be on shift was down with Adalbraxian influenza, so it all worked out. I thought—” He closed his eyes and lowered his head. “I’m sorry, Dad.”

Jim shook his head and hugged Slim again. “No,” he whispered. “It’s not your fault. I’m—you were right in thinking all of that. It _should_ have been fine. I’m—I’m just glad you weren’t on the _Excalibur._ ”

“Me, too,” Slim whispered back. “An’ that feels pretty shitty.”

“Captain Kirk!”

Jim let go of Slim and turned to see a young yeoman running towards him, looking a little harried. She skidded to a halt in front of him, clutching her PADD, and said breathlessly, “Admiral Hackett’s compliments, sir, and will you come to his office at once? He says it’s urgent.”

Slim shifted. “I’ll just—um—”

“No, sir, the admiral requested all of you,” the yeoman said. “His orders were to ask ‘the Kirks’ to come to his office.”

“I suppose that includes us,” Bones said, indicating himself and Addie. Jim gaped at him silently.

The yeoman didn’t blink. “I suppose so, sir. This way, please.”

Jim hadn’t realized that Hackett had been transferred to Starbase Six, but then, he’d thought Nylund was still on Starbase Nine, too. It turned out, however, that the “office” was actually one of the briefing rooms. What made Jim catch his breath—even though he’d been expecting it—was that Hackett wasn’t alone in the room.

Nylund stood opposite Hackett, conversing in low tones. They both turned at the sound of the door opening, and Hackett’s eyes widened. “Jim!”

“Sir,” Jim said with a nod of his head, barely aware of the yeoman making herself scarce. “You sent for me?”

“Actually,” Nylund said icily, “he sent for _Commodore_ Kirk. _You_ , Captain, are supposed to be dead.”

Winona bristled. “I _beg_ your pardon?”

Hackett held out a hand, still looking startled. “Winona, I thought I was calling you in here to tell you that your son had been killed. Admiral Nylund authorized the use of deadly force to stop the _Enterprise._ When Bob Wesley sent a message back that M-5 was neutralized and they were towing the _Enterprise_ back to the starbase…”

“There wasn’t enough crew to spare to man her,” Jim said. “Not after M-5 was finished.”

“Well, we’re just glad you’re okay.”

Nylund narrowed his eyes at Jim. “Yes, we are quite glad that the _Enterprise_ returned intact. Especially as there were significant casualties on the other ships. Ninety-seven dead on the _Lexington,_ forty-seven aboard the _Potemkin,_ twenty-one aboard the _Santiago,_ and numerous injured. Not to mention the entire crew of the _Excalibur._ But let us be thankful there were no casualties aboard the _Enterprise._ ”

“We lost one, sir,” Jim said softly. “M-5 vaporized Ensign Porter Simril while he was attempting to disconnect it from the power source.”

Slim made a small noise in the back of his throat. Nylund’s lip curled. “If the worst injury you had to contend with was a man who attempted to improperly pull a plug—”

“M-5 _attacked_ Simril,” Bones said sharply. “It was defending itself. Daystrom created a computer that could think, and it thought it was in danger, so it attacked.” He scowled. “But you knew that, didn’t you, _sir?_ ”

“Bones,” Jim mumbled, suddenly frightened.

Nylund talked over him. “Are you suggesting, Dr. McCoy, that I knew that M-5 was…unstable? Murderous?”

“No,” Bones replied. “I’m suggesting that you knew it could think—that you knew Daystrom had designed a computer that thought like a human being. And if you knew that, you’d know that it would think it was being threatened and respond accordingly.”

“Of course,” Nylund said. “That was the _point_ of the M-5 project.”

Jim saw the challenge rising to Bones’ lips, and he found himself stepping forward, speaking up before Bones could. They’d been married long enough—known each other long enough—that he knew what his husband was about to say. And he wouldn’t let him take the inevitable punishment from the statement. If anyone was going to lose their job, it would be him.

“That may have been _Daystrom’s_ goal, sir,” he said, the words somehow coming out clearly despite his fear. “But I don’t think it was _your_ goal. I think your goal was to see me humiliated at best, court-martialed at worst—maybe even killed—because of something M-5 did.”

The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. Nylund drew himself up to his full height and stepped up until he was almost chest to chest with Jim. Jim held himself as tense as he could to keep from trembling in fear, but it was a hard-fought battle.

“That is a _very_ serious accusation,” Nylund said, poison dripping from his words. “I suspect, Captain Kirk, that you are simply attempting to put the blame on someone else before you _can_ be court-martialed, by claiming that someone else set you up to fail—when it was in fact your own actions, or lack thereof, that caused so many deaths.”

“On the contrary,” Spock said from the doorway in his usual calm, firm voice.

Jim turned around to face his first officer, his fear increasing. “Spock, what are you—”

“Enter, Commander Spock,” Hackett interrupted. “Can you explain your comment?”

“Indeed I can, Admiral.” Spock entered the room. Jim’s breath caught in his throat as he saw Uhura, Scotty, Sulu, and Chekov behind him, all their expressions serious as the grave.

Nylund scowled. “I was under the impression that this was a…family dispute.” There was a faint sneer in his voice when he uttered the word _family._

“Aye, that it is,” Scotty growled. “And we’re family.”

Jim wanted to protest, wanted to beg them to leave, because while he considered them family he also didn’t want them risking their Starfleet careers over this. He wanted to explain to them that he needed them aboard the _Enterprise,_ that he wouldn’t trust her to anyone else, and that he needed to know they would be all right no matter what. But he couldn’t seem to make the words come out of his mouth.

Spock stepped up to the table and laid a square yellow memory tape in front of Hackett and Nylund. “This tape,” he said, speaking slowly and with distinction, “contains every fiber of evidence, every scrap of information, that I have accumulated over the last four years. You may view it at your leisure, Admiral Hackett, but I can summarize its contents for you.”

“I protest,” Nylund said. “I cannot fathom the importance of every iota of knowledge you may have accumulated over the course of a mission, nor its relevance to…whatever the situation here is.”

“My apologies, sir, I thought it was implied in my statement that this is information and evidence I have accumulated over the last four years—relating to _you,_ and to my concerns over your position.”

Nylund turned brick red. “Impertinence!”

“One moment,” Hackett said, striding over to the computer banks. “If you are expressing concern over a personnel matter, Mr. Spock, then please hold on.”

“Certainly.”

“Spock, what are you doing?” Jim forced the words out. He wanted nothing more than to send everyone out, to face the situation on his own. At least he wouldn’t drag anyone else down with him.

Spock met Jim’s eyes with an almost brotherly expression. “This has gone on long enough, Jim.”

Jim opened his mouth to protest. Winona cut him off. “Jim, shut up. I for one would like to know what’s going on here.”

The viewscreen suddenly crackled to life. The Starfleet Command logo popped up, duplicated on a split screen. Each was then replaced by a face behind a desk.

“Admiral Oliver—Admiral Mayweather,” Hackett said, nodding to the distinguished woman who had trained Jim’s father during his cadet mission and the venerable man who had served Starfleet since its foundation and even before. “I apologize for disturbing you, but I think Mr. Spock has some information that needs to be presented to a panel rather than hidden behind closed doors.”

“You’re all underdressed for a formal session,” Mayweather said, with the bluntness of old age.

“This is just an informal discussion,” Hackett said.

“This is ridiculous,” Nylund protested.

Oliver frowned as she took in the people in the room. Her eyes rested on Slim. “Acting Cadet Kirk, are you not supposed to be on your way to Earth and Starfleet Academy?”

Slim came to attention and saluted. “My shuttle leaves tomorrow, ma’am.”

“Good. Then as your first official act as a new recruit to Starfleet, you can tell us what kind of ‘informal discussion’ requires the entire senior command of a starship, four admirals, a commodore, a cadet, and a civilian.”

“A complicated one,” Slim said, evidently without thinking. A flush crept up his cheeks, but he didn’t elaborate.

“Then I suggest we start at the beginning,” Hackett said. He turned to Spock. “You said you had been collecting evidence relating to Admiral Nylund and your ‘concerns over his position.’ Why don’t you start by explaining what you mean by that?”

Spock hesitated, then met Hackett’s gaze unflinchingly. “Quite simply, sir, I believe that Admiral Nylund is unfit to hold his rank, or indeed any rank in Starfleet.”

Oliver’s eyebrows shot up. “That is an extremely serious comment, Mr. Spock. I assume that you can back up your ‘belief’ with facts and logic.”

“I can, Admiral.” Spock held up the memory tape once more. “As I said to Admiral Hackett a moment ago, this tape contains every piece of information and evidence I have been able to collect over the past four years. Admiral Nylund has abused his position and his authority, and he has directed most of that abuse at Captain Kirk. Of course,” he added, “I have no proof that he has not treated other captains in a similar matter. I can only speak to what has occurred aboard the _Enterprise._ But the fact remains that this most recent incident, the disaster of the M-5, is the last in a long line—”

“One moment,” Nylund interrupted. “I cannot be blamed for the M-5 disaster. It was not I who designed it.”

“No, Admiral, but it was you who ordered the _Enterprise_ fitted for the ‘test.’”

Mayweather frowned. “You’re jumping all around. Start at the beginning. What made you start collecting ‘evidence’ in the first place?”

“Spock,” Jim began.

Winona held up a hand to stop him, looking intently at Spock. “Yes, Mr. Spock, please tell us.”

Spock laid the memory tape down again and squared his shoulders, hands clasped behind his back. “On Stardate 2270.350, Admiral Nylund contacted the _Enterprise_ for the first time, with orders to secure topaline mining rights on Capella IV. During the course of that conversation, he addressed Captain Kirk, as I observed at the time, as though he were a backwards five-year-old.”

“Specify,” Oliver said.

“The log of the conversation is in this memory tape, Admiral. Suffice it to say that when Admiral Nylund had given Captain Kirk instructions, and received confirmation that they were understood, he then ordered the captain to repeat them back to him. When I stated my objection—rather bluntly, I must admit—the admiral told Captain Kirk that he would be placing a citation in the captain’s file, for ‘encouraging such behavior in his officers.’”

“What?” Winona said, her voice dark and dangerous.

“We arrived at Starbase Nine two weeks later,” Spock continued, “and Captain Kirk asked Lieutenant Sulu and Lieutenant Chekov to accompany him to collect the mining contract. During the course of that encounter, Admiral Nylund made several comments directed at Captain Kirk, calling his leadership, his bravery, and his loyalty to Starfleet into question. He then handed him the contract—which he stated he did not expect Captain Kirk to be able to understand—and ordered him to secure the topaline mining rights ‘by any means necessary,’ diplomatic or otherwise.”

“But, as you have just stated, Mr. Spock,” Nylund broke in, “you were not present for this conversation. You may have received an inaccurate impression of what was said.”

“He did not.” Sulu stepped forward, and Jim saw that his jaw was tightly clenched, even as he avoided looking at Nylund. “I recorded the conversation, so that we could verify what had been said at a later date if need be. That recording is on that memory tape as well.”

“You recorded me without my permission?” Nylund asked dangerously.

Jim took a quick breath and shifted his weight slightly, only just stopping himself from stepping in between Sulu and Nylund. Slim spoke before Jim could say anything, however, his voice flat. “‘All conversations between officers of Starfleet, except for those bound by seal of secrecy or made in a strictly unofficial capacity, shall be recorded, and those records logged in the databanks of the station, vessel, or base as well as backed up to a central server.’ Starfleet regulation 47.9, sir.”

Mayweather smiled. “You’ve been studying, boy.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you familiar with this data?”

“Some of it, sir,” Slim admitted. “Not all of it. But I was present for some.”

“Then you tell us. What’s next on this list of Spock’s?”

“Sir, I must protest,” Nylund said.

Yeah, Jim wanted to protest, too. He wanted Slim and Addie out of here—especially Addie—and he didn’t want Nylund to make his son’s life miserable, too. But Hackett was already shaking his head. “If Acting Cadet Kirk is able to answer that question, there is no reason why he should not.”

Slim nodded. “The contract itself, sir. No one seemed able to understand it, so Captain Kirk asked me to look over it—as part of my education. Three of the pages were out of order, and none of them were numbered. Of course, we have no proof that this was done deliberately—”

“I should say not!” Nylund said indignantly.

“—but Captain Kirk had done no more than read the first page before leaving Admiral Nylund’s office, so it appears that any problems arose at that time,” Slim finished. Jim noticed, rather distantly, that his accent was well under control. “The situation, in that case, was easily rectified.”

“A minor problem,” Nylund protested. “Likely a clerical error. Hardly proof that I am ‘unfit for my position.’”

“If I may continue, sir,” Spock said blandly. “On Stardate 2271.190, the _Enterprise,_ at Admiral Hackett’s request, reported to the planet Gideon to negotiate their joining of the Federation. Captain Kirk beamed down and did not reach his intended destination. We attempted to request permission to land on Gideon and locate him. Prime Minister Hodin refused. We went through official Starfleet channels, and Admiral Nylund was the one to answer. He cited Federation directives forbidding us to interfere, and when I told him that the crew would not understand being forced to abandon our captain—whose life, we presumed, was in grave danger—he asked if we were interested in provoking a war, then added that ‘given the ship’s past, such a turn of events would hardly be surprising.’”

Jim’s lips parted in shock, and he suddenly found it hard to breathe. Slim took over. “I stepped in at that point, sir, and explained the situation. Captain Kirk was deliberately given inaccurate beaming coordinates, so that he did not arrive in the Council Chamber but within a replica of the _Enterprise._ The Prime Minister was deliberately preventing us from searching for the captain, and indeed attempted to convince us to leave the vicinity, despite knowing exactly where he was. Admiral Nylund said that my statements were ‘insufficient to constitute proof’ and denied us permission to beam down.”

“I recall that incident,” Hackett said. “I believe, Merrill, that I spoke to you at the time in regards to it.”

Spock stepped in again. “Admiral Nylund next contacted us on 2273.23, ordering us to delay any other planned tasks and safeguard the quadrotriticale on Sherman’s Planet—”

“A task which was desperately needed!” Nylund broke in.

“Not that desperately,” Oliver said. “I recall this incident, too, Mr. Spock. And the _Enterprise_ was two-point-eight light-days from K-7. The _Hancock_ was closer, and ought to have been sent, but did not receive the Priority One distress signal. The report from Commander Lurry indicated that he had sent a message to Starfleet about the situation when Under-Secretary Baris expressed concern over the station’s lack of security, and that he had specifically been told to contact the _Enterprise_ —by _you,_ Merrill.”

_That_ was something else Jim hadn’t known, and from the look on the faces of his senior command, nobody else had known it, either. Nylund didn’t bat an eyelash. “The _Enterprise_ and her crew has a reputation for handling difficult situations. And the _Hancock_ had a smaller contingent.”

“The _Enterprise_ also had a man in lockup who needed to be transferred to a Federation prison—a report which had been submitted to Starfleet Command already—and the delay in taking us to Space Station K-7 more than doubled the time it would take us to arrive somewhere we could remove him,” Spock replied calmly.

“At space normal speed,” Nylund pointed out. “Surely you traveled more quickly.”

“We did indeed, but only because we had insufficient food supplies for that journey. The tribble infestation we had recently overcome gave us precisely enough food to provide the bare minimum of adequate nutrition for everyone aboard…for two weeks.”

Spock said those last three words with a special sort of significance. Jim, glancing around the room, could see that everyone except for Addie and Slim—and possibly Mayweather—had understood why he’d said them. A vein pulsed in Nylund’s forehead, although he didn’t otherwise react outwardly. “You cannot possibly lay the blame for that incident upon me, Mr. Spock.”

“I do not,” Spock replied. “Nevertheless, sir, it was you who—quite unreasonably—placed us in that position.”

“Is that all the information on your tape, Mr. Spock?” Mayweather asked.

“No, Admiral.” Spock’s eyebrows lifted slightly. “You asked why I have collected this tape of information in the first place. I believe I have now answered that question. I have collected the information because it was clear to me that Admiral Nylund was putting on a campaign of steady persecution against the _Enterprise_ generally, and Captain Kirk in particular—all within his official capacity as a member of Starfleet Command.”

There was a momentary silence. It was Oliver who broke it. “Continue, then. What other information is contained on this tape?”

Spock clasped his hands behind his back and spoke as calmly as he had when he’d given Jim the run-down on Audra Cayne’s family. “It would take too long, Admiral, to give complete details of the information I have gathered. But it all supports my statement. There is a report from Lieutenant Hector Blume, stating that Admiral Nylund expected Captain Kirk to fail on Capella IV and considered him unworthy of any courtesies paid. There is evidence that Admiral Nylund attempted to have Benjamin Finney’s sentence commuted. There is the report of the investigation into the matter of Frederick Claiborne, with the statement of Admiral Nylund that Captain Kirk’s report was ‘clearly written by a man with a grudge’—”

“As is yours, Mr. Spock,” Nylund broke in. “You seem to be prejudiced against me because my name happened to be on the orders that put you in a few tricky situations.” He swept his gaze over to Jim, who flinched before he could stop himself. A slight sneer curled Nylund’s lip. “One would suspect you had a guilty conscience, Captain Kirk.”

“ _Stop._ ” Scotty stepped forward, his jaw clenched and his hands balled tightly into fists. “‘Guilty conscience?’ There’s only one man whose conscience ought to be troubling him, _Admiral._ ”

“Mr. Scott,” Jim said, or tried to, but he wasn’t sure he actually managed to get the words out.

“While I appreciate your position,” Oliver said, “and perhaps even agree with you, unofficially…speaking officially, there _could_ be a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of the evidence on Mr. Spock’s tape. Unless you have a compelling reason to believe that Admiral Nylund has deliberately been tormenting Captain Kirk…” She trailed off, spreading out her hands, palms up.

Scotty looked at Jim. The expression on his face was mingled sorrow and anger—the same look he’d had when Jim begged him to comm Bones and Spock showed up instead. He took a half-step closer, putting him between Jim and Nylund. “Tell them, Jim, or I swear to God I will,” he said softly. His voice trembled with emotion.

Jim looked up into his chief engineer’s eyes. Suddenly, and without warning, a voice echoed in his mind, speaking from thirty years’ distance.

_Your brother and the others, they died to keep you safe, they died so you could live. The least you can do is make their sacrifice worth something._

Jim let his shoulders drop and his spine straighten. “Tarsus,” he said softly. He lowered his head and closed his eyes for a split second, then straightened again and turned to face the other admirals. “Admiral Nylund—then Lieutenant—was the Starfleet liaison to the Tarsus colony.”

He heard Winona’s quick intake of breath, saw the puzzled frown on Slim’s face out of the corner of his eye, but he kept his focus on the admirals. Oliver’s expression was nearly Vulcan in its blankness. Mayweather was frowning. “Tarsus? Tarsus? Never heard of—wait. Wasn’t there some sort of trouble there?”

“A plague,” Jim answered. “The colony was starving. There was enough food to sustain it for two weeks; Earth was about a four-week journey, even at maximum safe warp. The _Lexington_ was closer, but had been ordered not to break off their mission because Starfleet wanted to send a ship with the proper supplies. They went anyway, but Kodos had already ordered half the colony massacred.”

“Captain Kirk,” Oliver said sharply. “The records of the Tarsus colony are _sealed,_ and with good reason. If you have hacked into those files, you are facing a good deal more than a reprimand for it. And if your only distaste for Admiral Nylund comes from information obtained illicitly, then I for one see no reason this conversation should continue.”

“No, Admiral Oliver, I did not hack into the files.”

“Given your past record, _Captain,_ I fail to see why we should believe you,” Nylund sneered.

Jim took a deep breath, steeling himself. “My stepfather sent my brother and me to the Tarsus colony, to live with our aunt and uncle,” he said, keeping his voice steady through an effort beyond anything he’d ever done in his life. “We had been there about six months when the massacre happened.”

Nylund blinked. It appeared for a moment that he hadn’t expected Jim to actually admit it. He rallied quickly, however. “Then I would be _delighted_ to know how you can possibly tie anything on Mr. Spock’s tape to that incident, beyond your own fancy.”

Sulu stepped forward at that and placed the recording device on the table next to Spock’s memory tape. Without a word, he pressed the play button and stepped back, putting himself unobtrusively between Nylund and Chekov. Nylund’s contemptuous voice filled the room. _“Good evening, Captain. You did not bring Mr. Spock, I note._ ”

For the next twenty minutes, nobody spoke as the conversation from so long ago played itself out. After the recording shut off, there was another minute of silence, before Mayweather asked, “What the hell was that all about?”

Jim had to swallow twice before he could answer. “When Governor Kodos ordered the massacre, some of the children banded together to fight off the soldiers. They— _we_ —were too late to stop the massacre, but we tried to—to avenge our families’ deaths. There were around forty of us. Thirty were killed in the fight. Kodos ordered his soldiers to bring the rest of us to him.” He turned to look at Nylund, fighting with everything he had in himself to meet the man’s flat, emotionless eyes. “Lieutenant Nylund was the one who took charge of my older brother.”

“What?” Hackett exclaimed, swinging around to look at Nylund.

“That is a serious accusation, Captain Kirk,” Oliver warned Jim. “And it is one I doubt you can prove.”

Mayweather snorted. “Seems to me he doesn’t have to. Seems to me you know a hell of a lot more about this than you’ve ever let on, Merrill. All that about a ‘leader among your peers’ and remaining silent…what’s he talking about, anyway? Can’t be not talking about the colony, if those records are sealed.”

“Jimmy?” Winona’s voice trembled.

She hadn’t called him _Jimmy_ in years. Jim hated this, hated that he was dredging up memories they _both_ would have rather left buried, but it looked like there was no choice. “There were three leaders of the Children’s Rebellion—George Samuel Kirk, Junior, Antonia Jane Blish…and me. After those of us who survived were captured, when we were brought in front of Kodos…” He closed his eyes for a moment, then turned to look at his mother. “Mom…I’m sorry,” he said, his voice cracking. “I promised Sam I wouldn’t say anything. He didn’t trust Kodos—he made me promise that, no matter what he said, no matter what he promised, I wouldn’t say I’d been one of the leaders. So when Kodos said that, if the leaders would surrender, he would be merciful and let the rest of us go free, Sam and Tony stepped forward and I didn’t.” He swallowed hard. “And he—kept his promise. The other eight of us were let go. And he was merciful, in his eyes. Sam and Tony died quickly.”

“Merrill?” Hackett said in a dangerous tone of voice.

“Admiral,” Nylund replied, “Captain Kirk was a small child at the time. And he was emotionally distraught. I admit that I am…somewhat more memorable, shall we say, than most? He needed a scapegoat, and I am the face he can put to the massacre, so he blames me. Besides, I notice that he left out of his tale that he was responsible for the sole death among Kodos’ soldiers during that sadly ill-fated rebellion.”

Jim flinched again, closing his eyes and lowering his head. It was true. He’d seen the guard who had ripped his cousin from his arms and taken her to her death, and he’d thrown a rock as hard as he could, hitting the man on the throat. The man hadn’t risen again. It was the one part of the story he’d never admitted even to Bones.

A small voice spoke up. “How would you know that if you weren’t there?”

Jim’s head shot up, and he looked at Addie, his lips parted in shock. He’d honestly forgotten she was still there, still listening—God, this was going to destroy her. She was standing next to Winona, one hand wrapped in her shirt and her other thumb creeping towards her mouth. Her blue eyes were wide and full of tears and pain, but she was looking up at Nylund steadily. As Jim stared at her, she slowly lowered her hand from her mouth, then let go of Winona’s skirt and stepped to the side. She threw her shoulders back and lifted her chin, and even though she was obviously upset and scared, she stared him down.

“How would you know?” she asked again, and then added, in a voice much like Scotty’s, “ _Sir._ ”

Slim stepped up next to his sister. He, too, squared his shoulders and lifted his chin. However, even if he was still half a head shorter than Nylund, it was a lot more intimidating than Addie. Nylund actually took half a step backwards before he stopped himself.

“Well, Merrill?” If Hackett’s voice got any lower, it would shake the station apart. “We’re all waiting to hear your explanation. No—” He held up a hand as Nylund opened his mouth. “Let me guess. You heard it from one of the other soldiers, is that right? You received the report from one of the men who _did_ fight, who _did_ participate in the cold-blooded slaughter of thirty-two children. You only found out about it after the fact.” He took a step closer, his face dark as a thundercloud. “ _Then why didn’t you tell me about it when we were preparing the report?_ ”

“ _I’m_ wondering why you didn’t mention it anyway,” Mayweather said bluntly. “Sure way to throw suspicion off yourself. And how did you explain the dead body of a soldier?”

“Because there _was_ no soldier’s body.”

The voice was a new one, at once strange and familiar to Jim. He whirled around to see an older man step through the doorway, brushing through the senior command of the _Enterprise._ He was dressed in long silk robes draped with gold cloth; it took Jim a moment to realize that he was the lead actor in the troupe he’d caught a glimpse of earlier, the ones who performed Shakespeare plays as if they were set in space instead of on Earth. But up close, Jim could now see those black eyes, the passionate fire within them now banked to a gentle glow. Still, they were unmistakable.

The man stopped, then slowly raised a gnarled finger until it pointed directly at Nylund. In a deep, ominous voice, he declaimed, “ _Thou’rt the man._ ”

“Who are you, old man?” Nylund asked impatiently, but for the first time, to Jim’s ears, he sounded a little nervous.

The man tilted his head slightly. “‘When first I appear, I seem deleterious—’”

“Shut up,” Nylund snapped. Jim found himself actually swallowing back a laugh, especially since it was clear from Nylund’s face that he had no idea what the man had just said, or that he’d just given the correct response.

Hackett frowned at the man. “It’s…Karidian, is it not? Anton Karidian? You were part of Kodos’ guard.”

Mayweather frowned, too. “The actor? What’s an actor doing here?”

“Speaking the truth—for once.” Karidian turned his gaze on Jim, who found, to his mild surprise, that he didn’t even flinch. It had been a long time since that gaze had haunted his nightmares. Karidian inclined his head slightly, acknowledging the recognition or the lack of fear, and then turned back to Nylund. “Anton Karidian was, in fact, killed on the planet’s surface during the fight. Scant days later, you came to me, Merrill, with the news that the Federation would be there soon. It was you who told me that they would not…understand my actions, justifiable though they seemed to me at the time. It was you who suggested that the only way to prevent myself being locked up as a criminal, or executed as a murderer, was to make it appear I was already dead. It was you who arranged Karidian’s corpse on the bed, and at your instruction that the house was burnt.”

“You can’t prove any of that.” Nylund’s voice was low, menacing.

“Actually, Merrill,” Karidian said calmly, “I don’t have to.”

Nylund narrowed his eyes. “I beg your pardon?”

“18 UFPC section 1992.A(6),” Slim said, quietly and seriously. “Both the massacre and the results of the Children’s Rebellion, if I understood correctly, fall into that category. You’ve been accused, in front of three Starfleet officers who qualify as Federation officials, of involvement. Just the accusation means that you will be stripped of your rank and disbarred from Starfleet, _permanently_. Proof is only needed for further action by the United Federation of Planets, and _they_ are the ones that have to find it, not—Mr. Karidian.” He inclined his head in Karidian’s direction.

“You _have_ been studying hard, Cadet,” Oliver murmured.

“Wait, if you’re not Karidian, who are you?” Mayweather demanded.

Jim held his breath, wondering if the man would dare say it, but Karidian lifted his chin and gazed calmly at Mayweather. “I am he whom men call Kodos the Executioner.”

There was a moment of stunned silence. Even though Jim suspected that everyone else had guessed—well, with the possible exception of the two teleconferencing admirals—it was still a shock to hear him confirm it. Jim felt, oddly enough, as though he was weightless—as though a knot had suddenly been loosened that he’d never realized was tying him down. He’d been carrying the burden of his secret for more than thirty years, and in a lot of ways, he’d been subconsciously punishing himself for his brother’s death as much as his father’s. Now it was out there. And no accusations had come his way. Yet.

Nylund’s face twisted into the most terrifying scowl Jim had ever seen in his life. Faster than Jim could blink, he reached into his jacket and pulled out an object that looked like a smaller, handheld version of the weapon Jim still saw in his nightmares, halfway between a phaser and a gun, solid but deadly. He aimed the pistol squarely at Jim and fired.

Time seemed to elongate, slowing to a crawl. Jim could see the pulse of energy coming towards him, but even though it seemed to be moving at a snail’s pace, he knew he would never get out of its way in time. He couldn’t feel his heart beating or hear the blood rushing in his ears, and he knew, with detached certainty, that it was because this was taking place in the hiccup of eternity between one pulse of his heart and the next. He was aware of a lot of screaming, but he couldn’t tell who or what, and he knew there was no way anyone could possibly intervene.

Sam and Sarah stood before him, both stretching their arms out imploringly as if they could stop the shot from hitting him. Jim met their eyes and knew they were there to take him home.

There was a blur of motion, and then something thudded hard against Jim, knocking him backwards into Bones, sending them both to the ground. Time snapped back into its normal pace. Jim became aware that both Winona and Bones were screaming his name. His brother and cousin had vanished like smoke on the wind. He saw Nylund preparing to fire again, and it registered that, somehow, he hadn’t been hit. Nylund had missed.

No—he hadn’t. There was a body lying on top of Jim, gasping for breath.

“You bastard,” Nylund snarled, all trace of the calm, oily Starfleet admiral washed away in the face of the monster Sam had seen behind the lieutenant’s placid mask. He leveled his gun directly at Jim’s forehead, having somehow managed to get out of Hackett’s reach.

Before Nylund could squeeze the trigger, however, a phaser blast struck him from out of nowhere. For a moment, he glowed with energy, throwing his hands up and squeezing off a shot that went wild, and then he dropped to the ground, the yellow cat’s-eyes dimming.

Gasping, Jim turned his head to see a wide-eyed man in a yellow shirt standing in the doorway, a phaser clutched in two shaking hands. He was trembling all over, and there were tears standing in his eyes.

“Lieutenant Riley,” Spock said, sounding a little hoarse.

“I—” Riley slowly lowered the phaser, looking too much like the little boy Jim had saved all those years ago. “I—he—”

“It’s okay,” Jim managed. He struggled to get up, stopping when the person lying across him uttered a groan of distress.

Bones knelt down next to him, face pale, and unslung a tricorder. “Stay still, Mr. Karidian,” he said gruffly. “We can—”

Karidian held up a trembling hand, coughing. “I…am…Kodos…”

“Mr. Kodos, then. Let me—”

“Too…late.” Karidian—Kodos—coughed again, then looked up at Jim and touched his cheek lightly. “Absolution…”

He let out one last groan and fell back, limp. Bones ran the tricorder over him, then looked up grimly. “He’s dead, Jim.”

Mayweather huffed. “I’m too old for this kind of drama. Seems kind of pointless now, but as far as I’m concerned, Mr. Spock was right, Nylund was a rat bastard, and we owe you an apology, Captain Kirk.”

“I’ll second that,” Hackett murmured. He shifted Kodos’ body off of Jim and assisted Bones in helping him to his feet.

Jim leaned on Bones for a second, then shook off the support and turned towards the door. Chekov had already put a hand on Riley’s shoulder and was murmuring to him softly. It didn’t seem to be helping. Jim took a step forward. “Mr. Riley?” he said gently.

Riley looked up. He was a lot closer to tears now than he’d been even moments before. “I had to,” he whispered. “I had to—he—”

“It’s all right, Riley,” Jim managed, holding out his hands.

“How did you come to be here, Lieutenant?” Oliver sounded like a shadow of her usual self, obviously still stunned by what had happened.

“I…followed _him.”_ Riley looked at Kodos’ body. “I…I recognized him and…I followed him. I wanted to…I don’t know.” He looked up at Jim again. “He…my parents…”

“I know.”

“But…I was listening and…” The tears spilled out of Riley’s eyes. He squeezed them shut and lowered his head. “Nylund…it was him who…he was the one that came to our house and…” He let out a sob. “I couldn’t—I couldn’t let him kill you, too.”

Jim crossed the room in a couple of steps and gripped Riley’s shoulders for a moment, then hugged him. Riley hugged him back, his whole body shaking as he cried. Jim closed his eyes, feeling the last of the weight fall away. It would never be all better. He’d never be completely over Tarsus; some wounds ran too deep. But most of the burden, most of the agony, was gone. He was finally free.

“Thank you, Lieutenant Riley,” he murmured. “You saved my life.”

“Mr. Kirk.” Oliver sounded like she had managed to get control of herself…mostly. Jim opened his eyes and turned around as Riley stepped back, wiping at his eyes. Oliver wasn’t looking at Jim, though, but at Slim. “Are you all right?”

For the first time, Jim became aware that Slim had a hand pressed tightly around his upper arm, and his heart stuttered in panic, but Slim gave Oliver a half-smile. “Grazed me. I’ll be fine, Admiral.”

“Let’s get that patched up,” Bones said gruffly, touching Slim’s uninjured shoulder. “And then…I think we could all do with something to eat.”

Jim found, to his mild surprise, that he was hungry. Hackett nodded. “Security’s on their way to deal with these two. Admirals, thank you for your assistance. And, Jim…I’m sorry. For all of it.”

“It’s not your fault,” Jim said. He looked up at the man and added, “I’m sorry I assumed.”

“Assumed?” Hackett repeated.

“That Nylund had been honest with you back then—that he’d told you everything. That Starfleet condoned what he did.”

Hackett’s eyes filled with sorrow. “Starfleet might have, Jim. But I never did.”

“I know.” Jim smiled at Hackett. “Sir, would you care to join us?”

“I think I’d better stay here,” Hackett said. “I’ve got a fair bit of paperwork to file, after all. But I’ll see you before you leave.”

Chekov put an arm around Sulu’s waist, then touched Riley on the shoulder, speaking out loud for the first time since entering the room. “You’ll come, Kevin? You look like you need food.”

It was the first time Jim had heard anyone refer to Riley by his first name. Riley still looked a little wrung-out, but he nodded. “I—if you don’t mind.”

“Wouldn’t have invited you if we did,” Sulu assured him.

Slim hesitated. “I—I probably oughta go find the others,” he said softly. “They…they oughta know ‘bout Port.”

Jim winced. “That…probably ought to be my job.”

“All due respect, Jim,” Scotty said, “but he was one of mine. The responsibility ought to fall on me.”

Spock rested his hand on the small of Uhura’s back, seemingly without noticing. “If I may suggest…I believe that, in this instance, it would be best if we all go.” He tilted his head in Jim’s direction. “As a family.”

Something warm settled in Jim’s chest. He nodded. “That sounds like an excellent idea to me.”

As they started out of the room, Addie looked back at Kodos’ body, then up at Jim as she took his hand. “Daddy? Was Kodos a bad man?”

Jim glanced back at the body as well, remembering everything that had happened—the speech, the gestures, the promises, the sword. The willingness to step forward, knowing that his own life and safety would be compromised. The swift, final action.

“Kodos was,” he agreed. “But I’d say Karidian was not.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone is wondering, in the statute Slim quotes, UFPC stands for "United Federation of Planets Code". I made it up. The numbers are arbitrary for purposes of this story but are taken directly from the announcement made at least once a day on my bus that "Federal law considers any intentional or reckless act that interferes, disables, or incapacitates the operator of this bus to be an act of terrorism punishable by fine, imprisonment, or both per 18 USC section 1992(A)6."
> 
> Also, nobody caught my Super Chicken reference in the last chapter ("We knew the job was dangerous when we took it." "Thanks, Fred"). The Into the Woods reference in this chapter might be a little more obvious if you're familiar with the play--especially since Jim called me out on it--but I'm curious as to how many of you caught the Airplane II reference. (Fun fact: I didn't until I'd written about three paragraphs past it, and then I stopped and went, _"Really?!"_ )


	114. One Last Turn

_Three hours remaining_

Slim sat cross-legged on his bed and stared around the room.

_His_ room; the first room he’d been able to call his own since he was eight years old and living with Mr. Pinkerton. For four and a half years it had been where he’d slept, where he’d dreamed, where he’d cuddled his little sister after nightmares and opened his heart and soul to his father and stepfather. It was a part of him—a part of his home.

Now it was empty. The wardrobe hung slightly ajar, empty hangers dangling from the bar inside. Every drawer had been wiped clean and pushed back in completely. The shelves were bare of PADDs, books, and other knickknacks. There were tiny bits of adhesive still stuck to the wall where the crayon drawing Addie had proudly presented him for Christmas the year before had hung. Everything Slim owned was stuffed into a tall green duffel-style bag about a meter and a half long—the kind people still called a “seabag” even though nobody really had ships on the oceans anymore—with P SIMRIL stenciled in big black letters near the top.

Porter had been a big believer in tradition, in passing things down and paying them forward, and he’d thought of Slim as a younger brother. Just like he’d given Slim his “lucky loonie” for the entrance exam and refused to accept it back afterward, he had come by the captain’s quarters when Slim had been preparing for bed after teaching T’Mel and V’Las how to play Mao with the bag folded over his arm. It had been the bag he’d taken with him when he left for the Academy, one passed down from an ancestor who’d been a captain in the Canadian Army and happened to have the same first initial, and he’d insisted Slim take it to begin his own Starfleet career.

At the time, Slim had been humbled and awed by the gift, by what it represented. Now, though, it meant something more. He’d be carrying a little bit of Porter with him to the Academy. That, the loonie, and a PADD full of pictures were all he had left of one of Scotty’s best engineers. That and the memories.

They’d had an impromptu memorial service for Porter the night before, seated around a table with a canopy open to the heavens overhead and cups of mint fudge hot chocolate in front of each of them. Slim and his friends had taken turns reminiscing and sharing stories, mostly with Winona and T’Mel and V’Las and Sasha, but a little with the senior command who hadn’t been as close to him as them. Later, they’d found a quiet corner of the station, near the docking bay, and Nic’tlarn had sung a funeral chant from xyr home planet, and Slim had played “Bye and Bye,” the old cowboy tune he’d first played for them around the watering hole all those months ago. Addie and Jame had made them all smile—albeit a bit wetly—by launching into a loud rendition of “Ten Green and Speckled Frogs.” Maybe it hadn’t been the most traditional funeral song, but it had been heartfelt and sincere.

It was enough, he realized. It would have to be enough.

Taking a deep breath, he pushed off the bed, now made with nothing but the standard white Starfleet-issue sheets. The quilt he’d slept under since his fourteenth birthday was folded at the bottom of the seabag, his PADDs tucked into its folds to keep them safe. He cinched the toggle tight on the bag, folded the top over, and buckled it into place, then swung it onto his back. He took one last look around. This would never be _his_ room again. Even when— _if,_ he reminded himself—he came back aboard the _Enterprise,_ he’d be in general quarters, sharing with one or two other junior officers. Most likely Addie would take over the space. She’d need it as she got bigger.

He suppressed the pang he felt at knowing he’d have effectively missed half of Addie’s life when he next got to spend time with her and said softly, “Goodbye, room.”

His footsteps echoed along the corridors of the _Enterprise._ Jim and Leo had discreetly disappeared after breakfast, mumbling excuses, but Slim knew they wanted to give him space, to show that they didn’t feel the need to hover over him while he packed. He also suspected they didn’t really want to be reminded how final this was. Slim was _leaving._

The docking bays were just above the engineering level, but Slim hesitated before he stopped. Instead, he ordered the lift to continue down and stepped out into the engine room where he’d spent at least half of the last four years. Here, at least, it didn’t feel so empty. The dilithium crystals danced in their conduits, the lights pulsed gently. There were a few scuffs and holes in the floor that hadn’t been there before—Slim felt a twinge of dismay as he realized that this was where the M-5 unit had been installed—where Porter had been murdered. Keenser had died not far from here. And there, too, was the warp core, where his own father had sacrificed himself to save his crew.

So much death. So much pain. How could _anyone_ stand being down here, knowing what had happened around them?

But as Slim turned to the room as a whole, he felt a sense of calm steal over him, and he knew. They could be down here, despite the deaths—because this was where they belonged. This was the heart of the _Enterprise._ And more than that, it was _Slim’s_ heart. It was Slim’s home.

Slim hesitated, then crossed over to the main engineering console, leaving his seabag on the floor next to the lift. He laid his palms against the console, then his cheek.

“Goodbye, old girl,” he murmured. “I’ll see you in a few years.”

Warmth seemed to seep up from the console, and even though he knew it was probably just the mechanics, it felt like the _Enterprise_ giving him her version of a hug. With his eyes closed, he could _see_ her—the Silver Lady, the soul of the _Enterprise_ —a tall, regal, lushly curved woman with flowing silver hair and glowing blue eyes, smiling at him as she stretched out her arms. _May your engines run hot and your rails run dry. We’ll see one another again._

It was oddly comforting. Slim took a deep breath and, reluctantly, broke the contact, then left the engine room.

The docking bays were empty—no ships had come in since the war games ended, and none were leaving just yet either. Slim kept looking back at the _Enterprise,_ at her nacelles and saucer. Dammit, he was already feeling homesick, and he hadn’t even fully left yet.

“Slim?”

Slim turned so fast he almost smacked into a bulkhead. Audra stood to one side, biting her lip as she watched him—whether against a smile or out of nerves, he couldn’t tell. Her hair was in a single long braid, and she was dressed in the same outfit she’d worn the day they’d met Winona. It was still one of Slim’s favorite looks on her.

“Hey,” he said, aware that his voice was coming out a little raspy.

“Hey.” Audra gave Slim the ghost of a smile. “Listen, I…c’n I show you somethin’ real quick? Before…you know?”

“Yeah, of course,” Slim said quickly. He wasn’t sure how much time he had left, but he didn’t even glance at his chronometer. No way could that timeline be more important than whatever it was Audra wanted him to see.

He followed her through the corridors of the station, returning a few nods of greeting and smiling weakly at the occasional well-wisher. At last they came to an area that seemed little-used, a maze of dark corridors with occasional narrow windows that looked more like someone had just forgotten to put in the walls. Audra stopped in front of one of them.

Slim looked around him, trying to figure out what Audra was trying to show him. “Audra, I—”

Audra didn’t give him a chance to finish. She suddenly threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face in his shoulder. Startled, Slim dropped his seabag to the floor of the corridor, then hugged her in reply. He suddenly realized that this was the last time he’d have her in his arms for the next four years—maybe longer—and anything could happen in the meantime, to either of them. His arms tightened around her, and he pressed his face into the top of her head.

“I don’t want to leave you,” he admitted, his voice low and shaky.

“I don’t want you to go,” Audra whispered. “But…I know you have to. I know you’ll be back. I just…I thought I was ready. But I ain’t.”

Slim took a deep breath. “I ain’t, either.”

They stood there for several minutes more, just clinging to one another. At last, Audra drew a deep breath and pulled back just enough that she could look up at him.

“Slim,” she said softly. “I don’t want you to…feel like you have to wait around for me. You’re gonna be—”

“Stop,” Slim said forcefully. “I ain’t—there ain’t a gal in the galaxy to compare to you, Audra. You should know that by now.”

Audra smiled slightly. “But…if you _do…_ don’t feel guilty, okay? I’ll wait for you. But you don’t have to.”

Slim’s breath caught, and it took him a moment before he could answer. “Auds, if I know you’re waitin’…what could possibly be better ‘n that?”

Audra’s smile widened. She lifted one hand to cup his cheek, then suddenly pulled his head down and kissed him.

Slim couldn’t help the muffled noise of surprise that escaped him. He’d seen movies, read books…but nothing had prepared him for the actual experience. Audra’s lips were soft and warm against his, she still smelled faintly of rose petals, and she slowly relaxed her hold on his head, moving to a more natural position. At that point, Slim’s brain caught up with what was going on, and he tentatively returned the kiss.

Only the need for air forced them both to draw back, panting slightly. Audra’s eyes were closed, but slowly, her lashes fluttered open, and those brilliant green eyes that had captured Slim from the moment he saw them met his. She looked a little apprehensive as she searched his face, but whatever she saw there made her relax. She smiled again.

“Just…something to keep in mind,” she said hoarsely.

Slim felt a stupid, cheesy grin spreading across his own face. “Definitely something to look forward to coming back to.”

This time, he was the one to initiate, kissing Audra with something less than the finesse and skill she’d shown, but for only his second kiss, he guessed he wasn’t doing too bad. The way Audra melted against him as she returned it told him he was right.

Finally, though, they had to pull back for air again, and this time Slim just sighed and rested his forehead against Audra’s. “I…we should probably get over to the shuttleport,” he said reluctantly.

“Yeah,” Audra whispered. She wiped a hand across her eyes. “I…Slim, just be careful, all right?”

“I will,” Slim promised. “You, too.”

Audra smiled. “Depend on it.”

Slim retrieved his bag, slinging it over his shoulder again, and to his surprise and delight, Audra looped her arm through his. Together, they strolled through the station towards the shuttleport, where the Academy shuttle would be waiting.

He wasn’t surprised to see his friends there waiting, Nic’tlarn with Jame on xyr hip and Kelly with a knowing smirk. Uhura and Sulu, too, were grinning broadly, but everyone’s eyes were extremely wet. Glancing around, Slim noticed, with a sinking feeling, that although Leo was there, Jim was not—and neither was Addie.

Scotty, surprisingly, was the first to step forward. He caught Slim in a bone-crushing hug, nearly lifting him off the ground despite being two inches shorter. “You be careful out there, laddie,” he murmured.

“Yes, sir,” Slim choked out, only partly due to emotion and mostly because he couldn’t breathe.

Scotty released him with a sniff. Uhura stepped forward and hugged him, too. “ _Safari njema,_ ” she said in his ear. “ _Kila la kheri._ ”

Slim had learned enough Swahili from his godmother to recognize the phrases. _“Asante sana,_ ” he murmured in reply.

Uhura’s smile as she stepped back was one of pleasure. Spock held up the _ta’al_. “Live long and prosper, Thomas, T’Mel.”

Slim returned the salute, stealing a glance at T’Mel as she stood, stoic and dry-eyed, next to her brother, who was holding her duffel bag. V’Las had told Slim before that he was carrying T’Mel’s bag as long as he could, in preparation for the time she would have to carry it herself. He felt a lump in his throat when he realized that Porter probably would have done the same thing for him.

_Don’t think about that now,_ he scolded himself.

Sasha hugged him wordlessly, then hugged T’Mel, who was momentarily startled before her Vulcan mask dropped back into place. She returned the hug rather stiffly. Chekov merely nodded at her as he came to hug Slim.

“Be good,” the navigator said softly.

“You, too,” Slim said with a grin.

Sulu hugged him and rumpled his hair. “Keep up with your fencing. I look forward to a rematch when you get back.”

Slim laughed. “Bring it.”

Kelly was snickering a little as he came forward. “Listen…keep in touch, okay? Don’t get so busy with your studies that you forget all about us.”

“Never, Kels.” Slim clasped Kelly’s hand, then pulled him into a hug.

Nic’tlarn stepped forward, but before xe could say anything, Jame leaned forward, stretching her chubby arms out to Slim and giving him a dimpled grin. “Hugs, Nunky ‘Lim!”

It was the first time Jame had ever addressed him directly, and Slim melted the way he had when Addie had called him by name for the first time. He took her from Nic’tlarn and swung her high in the air, making her giggle with delight, then hugged her tight. She threw her arms around his neck and planted an open smack on his cheek. Slim kissed her powdery-soft cheek in return.

“Don’t forget about me, pretty girl,” he said softly.

“We will make sure she remembers,” Nic’tlarn promised. Xe hugged Slim as well, then took Jame back.

Gaila stepped forward next, tears rolling down her face. She hugged Slim so tightly that he wheezed. “You take care of yourself, Treasure-Joy,” she choked out.

Slim closed his eyes and hugged her back. “I will…Auntie Gaila.”

Gaila gave a muffled squeak and hugged him again, then let go, wiping her eyes. Slim smiled crookedly at her, then accepted a hug from Winona.

“I’ll see you next time I’m on Earth,” she said. “Or the next time you’re here. Whichever comes first.”

“I’ll write, Grandma.”

“You’d better.”

Slim let go of her, then turned to face his stepfather. Leo wasn’t even trying to be stoic. He looked equal parts proud and miserable as he stepped forward and pulled Slim into a tight hug, patting his back. Slim could feel him trembling as they hugged.

“I don’t need to tell you to make us proud,” Leo said, every word crystal clear. “You already have.”

Slim closed his eyes. “I love you, Pa.”

“I love you, too, son.”

Slim’s shoulders slumped in relief. He knew Leo loved him, loved him like his own, but this was the first time he’d ever heard those words together. _I love you, son._ Here, with only minutes to go before he boarded the shuttle, it meant more than it ever had before.

“Tell Dad an’ Addie I love them, too,” he whispered in Leo’s ear.

Leo tensed for the briefest of moments, then pulled back and nodded. “I’ll tell them.”

The pain in his eyes was obvious, but it was no less than the pain Slim knew was in his own. His sister still hadn’t forgiven him. She hadn’t come to say goodbye. The loss hit him harder than he’d expected. He looked over at Audra, who was crying as well, but she managed a smile.

He reached for her hand again. She pulled him close and hugged him around the neck, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world to kiss her again, ignoring the teasing whoops and cheers from their friends. Slim didn’t care who saw them anymore.

He pulled back gently, conscious of the time ticking down. “I love you.”

Audra’s eyes widened, but she smiled and nodded. “I love you, too,” she whispered.

Reluctantly, Slim let go of Audra and reached for his seabag, which had slipped off his shoulders. He turned and met T’Mel’s eyes. “Ready?”

“I am ready.” T’Mel took the duffel bag from V’Las’s hand and hefted it easily. “Health and long life to you, V’Las.”

“Live long and prosper, Little Sister.” V’Las smiled gently at Slim. “And to you, Thomas.”

Slim smiled. “Fair winds and following seas, V’Las.”

T’Mel lifted an eyebrow, but said nothing. Instead, she stepped up to join Slim, nodding to the door of the shuttleport. “Shall we?”

Slim hesitated for a second, turning to scan the group of his friends—his _family._ They were all watching him, most of them crying, about half of them smiling, only Spock remaining stoic. This was the last image he would have of all of them.

And then—his eyes fell on someone standing just down the hallway. Jim stood tall and erect, smiling through his tears, and gave Slim a salute of farewell. To his side stood a small, forlorn figure, face white as snow and thumb jammed firmly in the mouth.

Slim took a half-step towards them. “Addie?”

Addie’s lower lip trembled. Suddenly, she dropped her thumb, broke away from Jim, and practically flew across the concourse. Slim dropped his seabag heedlessly to the side and knelt down to catch her as she flung herself into his arms, clinging to his neck tightly and burying her face in his chest as she burst into sobs.

“I’m sorry,” she wailed. “I’m sorry I was mean and I’m sorry I yelled and I’m sorry I t-tried to make you l-leave without saying g-goodbye…”

“Addie,” Slim said, his voice breaking. “Oh, baby girl, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was goin’ an’ I’m sorry I…” He choked and hugged her tightly. “I’ll be back. You know that, right?”

“P-romise?” Addie hiccuped.

“Cross my heart and hope to cry,” Slim said, eliciting a tiny, wet giggle. “I love you, baby girl.”

“I love you, too, Slim.” Addie sniffed and looked up at him. “Don’t forget me?”

“Never,” Slim said firmly. He kissed the tip of her nose. “I’ll see you when I get home, okay?”

“Write lots of letters.”

“I promise. Count the stars for me.”

“Every single one.”

Slim released Addie and stood up. As he reached for his seabag again, however, Addie spoke in a small voice. “Slim…I’m really, really sorry.”

She sounded miserable. Slim turned to look back at her, saw the hope in her blue eyes— _their_ eyes—and realized what she was asking. He bent down and swung her into the air like he had Jame, then cuddled her, even if she was almost half his height.

“I forgive you, baby girl,” he told her.

Addie relaxed, going boneless in his arms. She rested her chin on his shoulder and hugged him again. “’S not your fault I was mad. Okay, Slim? You don’t hafta be sorry.”

Slim felt the knot in his chest loosen. “I am anyway.”

“Then I forgive you, too.” Addie kissed his cheek. “I love you to the moon.”

Slim kissed Addie’s forehead, then set her on the ground. “I love you to the moon and back.”

Addie smiled wetly and stepped back. Jim, who had by now joined them, managed a shaky smile. “If I hug you, you’ll never get out of here. Go on. Be safe. I love you, son.”

“I love you, too, Dad.” Slim looked around at his family. “I love you all.”

Jame opened and closed her little hand. “Bye-bye, Nunky ‘Lim!”

Slim smiled broadly, then swung his seabag back onto his shoulder and joined T’Mel. He nodded at her. She nodded in reply. Together, they stepped through the door of the shuttleport, where a grey-uniformed official waited with a clipboard to usher them aboard the shuttle and onward to their new adventure.

Neither one of them looked back again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Safari njema_ = Have a good trip  
>  _Kila la kheri_ = Good luck  
>  _Asante sana_ = Thank you very much


	115. Epilogue: Son, Welcome to Your Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And...here we are, at the end. I can hardly believe it.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who's been supporting me throughout this project. I'm probably going to forget a few names, but I'll try to list all of the people whose comments I've looked out for and who've really gotten me through this, in no particular order: ricechex, neroh, macywinstar, Norwaycat, selahinthesky, Darkflames_Pyre, adafrog, anupalya/Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, Lilu278, Grgoyldef2, sauciemel, eleeri, You_stunned_our_ride, and of course my mother, who got me into both Star Trek and writing. I've changed and grown a lot over the last four years, both as a writer and as a person, and I thank all of you for sticking with me.
> 
> As I've said before, I do intend to write a sequel about Slim and his friends at the Academy. I'm going to take a short break in order to sort out at least a vague idea of where I want the story to go, as well as to work on a couple of original projects (feel free to drop me a line on Tumblr and ask about those), but my current goal is to have enough written that I can start posting around the first of the year.
> 
> I love all of you. And I can never thank you enough for what you've been to me these last four years.
> 
> Live long and prosper.

_Stardate ~~2278.150~~ 116645.0_

 

“Where are we going, Daddy?” Addie asked, skipping a little as she caught up to her father and grabbed his hand.

Jim smiled down at her without breaking stride. “Shuttle bay.”

“Are we going somewhere?” Addie brightened at the prospect. She loved the _Enterprise,_ knew every centimeter of it like the back of her hand, but she also enjoyed getting to go on shore leave from time to time. She wasn’t allowed to go on away missions, obviously—not only was she not part of Starfleet, she wasn’t even nine yet—but that didn’t mean her father wasn’t going down to a planet, or to a space station, for something that wasn’t official. Or maybe he was just going on a test flight. Either way, he usually let Addie go with him if he could.

“No,” Jim said. Addie deflated slightly. “We’re getting some new crew members. I’m going to welcome them. You can come if you want to.”

“Yay!” Addie brightened again. “Where are they coming from?”

“I don’t know, Addie. I won’t know until they tell me.”

“How many of them are there?”

“Three science officers, four security officers, two communications officers, and nine engineers.”

Addie was just learning to add more than two numbers in her head. _Four and three is seven, plus two is nine, plus nine again…_ “Eighteen?”

Jim gave her a bright grin. “That’s my smart girl.”

Addie beamed proudly in reply. “Is that why they’re coming up in the shuttle, Daddy?”

“That’s right. We can only transport eight people at a time.”

“So—hang on.” Addie furrowed her brow in thought. “So you’d have to beam them up in…three groups? Because eight times two is sixteen, and that would leave two left over.”

“Right.” Jim tugged Addie’s braid lightly, making her giggle. “This way, everybody can come up at the same time.”

Addie was used to new people coming aboard the _Enterprise_ and other people leaving. There were enough familiar faces that she didn’t mind the constant change. It made things exciting. Anyway, her family was still together—mostly—and that was all that mattered. Plus she had her best friend, even if Jame _was_ only just about to turn five. Part of her wished Jame was there, too, to meet the new people, but at the same time, she was kind of glad that it was just her and her dad.

They reached the shuttle bay just as the shuttle pulled in. Jim stood to attention. Addie stood up as straight as she could, too, trying not to fidget. She didn’t want any of the new people to dismiss her as _just a kid._ They probably would anyway, but she might as well not make it too easy on them.

The airlock hissed open and a line of people came forward, three of them wearing blue and the rest in red. The first blueshirt threw Jim a crisp salute. “Lieutenant Katleigh Wilson, Geology, reporting from the _Benedict,_ sir.”

“Welcome aboard, Lieutenant Wilson,” Jim said, holding out his hand. “We should be hitting some planets with interesting rock strata this mission. You won’t be bored.”

“I hope not, sir. Thank you.”

Addie was disappointed when Wilson walked past her without offering her hand. She was even more upset when the next three crew members did the same thing. After that, Addie gave up hoping. She decided to ignore her hurt feelings and just pay attention to the people as they came on.

She had a good memory for faces and the names to go with them. Carefully, she listened as each person introduced themselves, as well as what division they were in and where they were coming from. Most were transferring from outposts or other ships, although two of the security guards were fresh from training— _not_ Starfleet Academy, she noted. Jim referred to both of them as “Officer” rather than “mister” or a rank. She made a mental note to ask one of her parents about that later—or Jame’s parents, or maybe one of her uncles or aunts. Spock was usually willing to explain the inner workings of Starfleet to her in technical detail. She liked Scotty’s colorful language better, although she’d learned not to use some of those words around Leo. It upset him.

There was a little group of people at the very end who had all been whispering together. The first of them came forward. She was tall and slim, with pointed ears like Spock’s, and she gave Jim a very crisp, precise salute. “Lieutenant JG T’Mel, Anthropologist, reporting from Starfleet Academy, sir.”

“Welcome back aboard, Lieutenant, and congratulations on your rank.”

“I thank you, sir.” T’Mel nodded solemnly, then—to Addie’s delight, who hadn’t expected the older Vulcan girl to remember her—bowed to her before moving on.

The next to step forward was a short, round-faced man whose hat was tilted sideways like it was a little too big for him, but he gave Jim a salute. “Ensign Sp—Quirinius Watson, Engineering, reporting from Starfleet Academy, sir!”

“Welcome aboard, Ensign.” Jim sounded like he was trying not to laugh. “I hope you’ll enjoy your stay with us.”

“Looking forward to it.” Watson fluttered his fingers in a cheery wave for Addie.

She was beginning to feel better about this group.

Ensign M’err, Communications, also gave Addie a nod and a smile; she was a little afraid of him, never having seen a gigantic cat in clothing before, but he didn’t seem like he was about to attack. The seventeenth new crew member to step forward was slight and delicate-looking and had a surprisingly high-pitched voice when he spoke. “Ensign Braeden Rocheford, Engineering, reporting from Starfleet Academy, sir.”

“Welcome aboard,” Jim said again. “I believe I’ve heard of you—did all of you know one another at the Academy?”

“And before, sir,” Rocheford said with a nod. “In a sense.”

“Then I’m glad you were able to all come aboard together.”

“Thank you. So are we.” Rocheford saluted again, then smiled down at Addie. “Hey, there.”

“Hi,” Addie said, delighted—and not just because Rocheford had actually _spoken_ to her. He had the prettiest eyes she’d ever seen, which winked at her as he moved to join the others. She decided she was maybe a little bit in love with him and wondered if he’d marry her when she got older.

The last crew member came forward. He was tall like Jim but with broader shoulders, trim and fit. He had blond hair peeking out from the bottom of his hat, but she couldn’t see his face because he kept his head down, the brim of his cap covering his eyes. Jim studied him, a slight frown creasing his forehead. “And…you are…?”

The man raised his head slowly. A pair of bright blue eyes twinkled mischievously above a broad grin that didn’t bother to try and be professional, even as the man saluted. “Lieutenant Thomas Kirk, Engineering, reporting from Starfleet Academy, sir.”

Addie gave a shriek of delight and threw herself forward. “ _Slim!_ ” she cried, wrapping her arms tightly around her big brother’s waist.

Slim hugged her back, one hand cradling the back of her head, the other around her shoulders. She could feel the calluses on his hands, the strength in his muscles, the breadth that hadn’t been there even four years before—but she could also feel the love in his embrace and smell his unique scent. Some things hadn’t changed.

“I told you I’d be back, baby girl,” he whispered hoarsely.

She beamed up at him, her heart too full of happiness for words. He smiled back, his eyes crinkling at the corners the way Jim’s did, then looked up. Addie, too, turned to look over her shoulder to see Jim staring at Slim. He opened his mouth once or twice, but nothing came out.

Worried, Addie let go of Slim and turned to him. “Daddy?”

Jim swallowed hard, then stepped forward and wrapped Slim in an embrace. Slim hugged him back, closing his eyes, and Addie saw tears starting to escape the corners.

After a long moment, Jim let go of Slim and stepped back, although he kept his hands on his shoulders. There were tears in his eyes, too, even though he was smiling broadly.

In a quiet but absolutely sincere voice, he said, “Welcome home, son.”

 


End file.
